Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'poverty'

October 31, 2025

Dilexi Te and Loving the Poor

Pope Leo XIV’s first major proclamation, Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You), is an apostolic exhortation addressed “to all Christians” on caring for the poor. Pope Francis was preparing this exhortation when he died. Continue Reading...
August 06, 2025

Hobbesian Horrors and Walmart Wonders

Have you ever felt like the fate of the world was riding on one assignment? In the 1989 comedy Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, high school students Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) and Ted Logan (Keanu Reeves) didn’t know it, but the fate of the world was riding on their report. Continue Reading...
August 20, 2024

Why I Slept on the Streets for a Year

Poverty has always been part of my life. First, in my own family: we were considerably poor, and I spent my entire childhood surrounded by poverty. Over the years, while pastoring a church and training new pastors at seminary, I became involved in relief projects for those who were even poorer than I was. Continue Reading...
December 13, 2023

The Quiet Revolution of Place

Sociologist Robert Nisbet declared our era to be “singularly weak” in social inventiveness. In a new book on local solutions to America’s social ills, author Seth Kaplan agrees—with some exceptions. “Our modern era is not the first one in which the U.S. Continue Reading...
July 19, 2023

What Good Is a Christian Alternative Without Christ?

My last entry in this series on the compassionate conservatism movement concluded with a question: Would John DiIulio, head of the George W. Bush administration’s faith-based office, insist that religion-based programs, to be eligible for federal grants, be devoid of religious teaching or evangelism? Continue Reading...
June 14, 2023

Bridging the Church-State Divide

In 2000, I didn’t realize until it was too late that my astronomically exaggerated proximity to presidential candidate George W. Bush would make me a target. For example, I had said in 1998 that women volunteers had run charitable enterprises in the 19th century, so women’s entrance into the corporate workforce had hurt the nonprofit world. Continue Reading...
April 12, 2023

The (G.W.) Bush Whisperer

’Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave, ’Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore ’Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave Oh! Hard times come again no more. Continue Reading...