Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as Executive Editor of the Acton Institute (2016-2021), editing Religion & Liberty, the Powerblog, and its transatlantic website. He has extensively researched the Alt-Right. Previously, he worked for LifeSiteNews and FrontPageMag.com, where he wrote three books including Party of Defeat (with David Horowitz, 2008). His work has appeared at DailyWire.com, National Review, The American Spectator, The Guardian, Daily Caller, National Catholic Register, Spectator USA, FEE Online, RealClear Policy, The Blaze, The Stream, American Greatness, Aleteia, Providence Magazine, Charisma, Jewish World Review, Human Events, Intellectual Takeout, CatholicVote.org, Issues & Insights, The Conservative, Rare.us, and The American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. His views are his own.
Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
November 01, 2019
The Acton Institute continues our outreach to the 275 million people who speak French as a first language with a new translation of an article on a vital topic. In this case, we share the news of a UN official who countered the all-pervasive pessimism over climate change, telling young people: Live your lives without fear.
Continue Reading...
October 31, 2019
Their last remaining dispute in the Chicago schools strike could be resolved if both sides understood a basic economic concept taught by one of the nation’s Founding Fathers. Although the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union announced a tentative agreement Wednesday evening, the Second City’s 300,000-plus students still began their eleventh day outside the classroom Thursday, because the CTU added a new demand Wednesday night.
Continue Reading...
October 30, 2019
Halloween may be fast upon us, but October 29 and 30 have marked the bloodiest commemorations of the year. In the last two days, the world has belatedly remembered the genocide of Armenian Christians and the brutal repression of all dissidents by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Continue Reading...
October 30, 2019
The Chicago Public School system’s 361,314 registered students are starting their tenth day at home this morning, as their teachers union strikes for its fourteenth cumulative day. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have publicly supported the 32,000 teachers and school staff (represented by the Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU, respectively) on the picket line – but there are five reasons people of faith should not join them.
Continue Reading...
October 29, 2019
A cartoon published just after the fall of the Berlin Wall showed two travelers moving in different directions, one personifying former Eastern Bloc nations and the other the NATO allies: The two met as the former Warsaw Pact countries rushed away from socialism and the West hurried toward it.
Continue Reading...
October 25, 2019
Some passages of the Bible tell the rich to weep and wail because of their wealth. But these verses can mislead Christians whose attitude to wealth is not deeply rooted in the Christian church’s 2,000-year-long balanced view, according to a new, French-language article published on the Acton Institute’s
Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website.
Continue Reading...
October 22, 2019
One of the most ubiquitous complaints against capitalism holds that real wages have stagnated since the 1970s. Meanwhile, CEOs such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos earn more money than ever.
The charge surfaced as recently as the fourth Democratic presidential debate, last Tuesday.
Continue Reading...
October 21, 2019
UK Parliament has twice denied Prime Minister Boris Johnson a vote on a Brexit deal favored by the majority of British citizens. The latest efforts to delay Brexit have created “a modern moral crisis in one of the world’s foremost democratic nations,” writes Rev.
Continue Reading...
October 18, 2019
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has negotiated a new agreement to leave the European Union on October 31. A British observer, who has read the plan, says it embodies a significant improvement over the deal former PM Theresa May saw defeated thrice by historic margins in Parliament.
Continue Reading...
October 16, 2019
The largest number of candidates to date filled the stage at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, for the fourth Democratic presidential debate last night. They offered a number of statements and assessments that bear further scrutiny.
Continue Reading...
