Question: Which blog is best?

Help Acton do well in the 2008 Blogger’s Choice Awards by submitting a vote or two for Acton. We’re nominated in the following categories (you may vote for Acton in each if you’d like or if you feel we deserve it): • Best Blog Design • Best Religion Blog • Best Charity Blog Voting for a blog does require registration, but it doesn’t take long to do. Continue Reading...

Natural capitalism

Over at the OrthodoxNet.org blog, editor Chris Banescu had an entertaining exchange in the comment boxes with a writer who asserted that “capitalism can be just as infected with materialism and the concomitant need to tyrannize as communism.” Continue Reading...

Fear and hope

Zenit News Service’s Father John Flynn, LC, offers an extremely perceptive analysis of a seemingly expanding culture of fear. He manages to tie together climate change hysteria, current electoral politics, and the pope’s recent encyclical. Continue Reading...

Religion in the ’08 election

Some of the most extensive discussion of a very extensively discussed subject here in the U.S.—religion and politics—occurs at the Pew Forum. The online proceedings of an early December conference on the subject were just brought to my attention. Continue Reading...

The Man in Black

“Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes, But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back, Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.” Continue Reading...

The Spirit of 76: Reagan Style

As we enter the presidential primary season, a look back at the 1976 Republican Primary is appropriate, considering it was a pivotal moment in American conservatism. It is a presidential race that conservative writer Craig Shirley calls a “successful defeat.” Continue Reading...

PowerBlog Updates

Taking a cue from No Straw Men, I’m updating the look and feel of the Acton PowerBlog. Jonathan Rick suggests that completely separating your blog from your organization’s main Web site is a bad idea because you cut off access to useful information and create two distinct audiences rather than integrating traffic between two distinct sections of one Web site. Continue Reading...

Gandalf in Brussels?

French president Nicholas Sarkozy has recommended the formation of a “Council of the Wise,” which would have the task of “elaborating proposals for the future development of Europe.” A recent survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation finds a lot of support for the idea in France, the UK, and Germany. Continue Reading...

Why Did Christian Europe Advance?

A long and detailed essay on the topic is available at The Gates of Vienna. A very small sample: The end of religion, thus, didn’t herald an age of reason; it led to a new age of secular superstition and new forms of witch-hunts. Continue Reading...