In modern college art classes, anyone daring to defend the idea that objective beauty exists will be branded as intellectually inferior. Yet beauty has undergirded Western culture from its very genesis. Continue Reading...
Latest Posts
July 10, 2020
Little Sisters, big victories
Religious liberty won two significant victories at the U.S. Supreme Court on July 8. Justices ruled in two separate, 7-2 decisions that the federal government may not interfere in religious institutions’ hiring and firing of ministers, and that the government has the right to grant the Little Sisters of the Poor a religious exemption from a federal Obamacare mandate requiring employers to furnish female employees with no-cost birth control, sterilization, and potentially abortifacient drugs. Continue Reading...
July 10, 2020
Loneliness: The incalculable cost of COVID-19
The recent Fourth of July holiday invited Americans to contemplate the principles upon which this nation was founded – and the battles fought to uphold those principles. Perhaps more than any other time of the year, we reflect on the heroism and sacrifice of our soldiers. Continue Reading...
July 09, 2020
Acton alumni spotlight: Justin Beene – Developing community and seeking justice
Justin Beene is the director of the Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation and long-time faculty member of Acton University. He has spoken on community development and poverty several times at Acton events. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2020
We are rational animals, not racial animals
The problem with bad ideas is that they never remain merely ideas. Once they attract sufficient – not always majority – support, bad ideas become codified into worse laws, which afflict whole societies. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2020
Acton Line podcast: A primer on religious liberty (rebroadcast)
This week we’re rebroadcasting a conversation about religious liberty with Ryan T. Anderson, the William E. Simon senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, that was first released on the podcast in April of 2015. Continue Reading...
July 07, 2020
Evolving between two worlds
In the latest issue of The New Yorker Larissa MacFarquhar has a deeply researched and beautifully written story, “How Prosperity Transformed the Falklands.” It chronicles the history of the Falkland Islands from the early settlement of the then-uninhabited islands to the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982, as well as the economic transformation after that conflict. Continue Reading...
July 06, 2020
Eroding judicial activism (more than) one nation at a time
Judicial activism is a transatlantic problem. Thus, it requires a transatlantic analysis. The Acton Institute has helped link English-speaking citizens concerned with preserving the Constitution in a conversation with the world’s 270 million Francophones. Continue Reading...
July 05, 2020
Michael Matheson Miller to Patrick Deneen: Strong towns need strong economies
Among the most influential critics of the free market on the Right is Patrick Deneen, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame. Acton Institute Senior Research Fellow Michael Matheson Miller has published a response in Law & Liberty to Deneen’s recent plea for a national policy to favor small communities (“Thinking Big to Act Small” in the American Compass). Continue Reading...
July 03, 2020
Rand Paul on the fatal conceits of COVID-19 central planning
When the first wave of COVID-19 hit the United States, Americans were generally sympathetic to the various lockdowns. Yes, we were likely to endure significant economic pain, but given how little we knew about the virus and how great the risks could be, we were willing to accept the cost. Continue Reading...