Thank you to our friends at The High Calling for excerpting this passage of Lester DeKoster’s Work: The Meaning of Your Life, recently republished by The Acton Institute and Christian’s Library Press. DeKoster, the former professor and director of the library at Calvin College and Seminary, also edited The Banner, the Christian Reformed Church’s monthly publication. Acton is grateful for its relationship with both The High Calling and DeKoster, who left his 10,000+ book library to the Acton Institute upon his passing in 2009.

Read more on DeKoster excerpted at The High Calling…

A public memorial for Chuck Colson is slated to take place Wednesday, May 16, at 10 a.m. at the Washington National Cathedral. The event is open to the public and will also be streamed live at nationalcathedral.org. Additional information can be found in this DeMoss News news release. For more information on Colson’s life and relationship to the Acton Institute, please visit our Chuck Colson resource page.

Read more on Colson Memorial at Washington National Cathedral…

“Each generation needs to re-own the rationale for Christian education,” says philosopher James K.A. Smith, “to ask ourselves ‘Why did we do this?’ and ‘Should we keep doing this?’” In answering such questions, Smith notes, “it might be helpful to point out what Christian education is not”:

Read more on What Christian Education Is Not…

Is ‘fair trade’ more fair or more just than free trade? While free trade has been increasingly maligned, The Fair Trade movement has become increasingly popular over the last several years. Many see this movement as a way to help people in the developing world and as a more just alternative to free trade. On the other hand, others argue that fair trade creates an unfair advantage that tends to harm the poor.
Read more on Fair Trade or Free Trade?…

During last year’s Acton University—have you signed up for this year yet?—Nelson Kloosterman gave a lecture on the subject of school choice and private education. In the latest issue of Comment magazine, Kloosterman expands on his claim that parental choice is “the next civil rights movement“:

Read more on The Next Civil Rights Movement…

Susan Jacoby and Dinesh D’Souza met here in Grand Rapids at Fountain Street Church on Thursday, April 26, to debate the merits of religion in public discourse. The debate, co-sponsored by The Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies, was titled, “Is Christianity Good for American Politics?”

Read more on Jacoby, D’Souza debate Religion in the Public Square…

In Utopia, many modern intellectuals say Sir Thomas More advocates an ideal political and social order without private property, competition, citizens quarreling over worldly possessions, poverty and other “evils” supposedly brought on by a market-based society.

Read more on Was Thomas More a Proto-Communist?…

On October 31, 1998, Charles Colson came to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan to deliver the closing address at Acton’s “The Legacy of Abraham Kuyper & Leo XIII” conference, sponsored jointly with Calvin Seminary.

Read more on Video: Chuck Colson speaks at the Abraham Kuyper & Leo XIII Conference…

Joe Carter recently posted a summary of a new study conducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs that shows that college-aged Millennials (18-24 year olds) “report significant levels of movement from the religious affiliation of their childhood, mostly toward identifying as religiously unaffiliated.” He also noted the tendency of college-aged Millennials to be more politically liberal.

Just yesterday, the same study was highlighted by Robert Jones of the Washington Post, who wrote,

According to a newly released survey, even before they move out of their childhood homes, many younger Millennials have already moved away from the religion in which they were raised, mostly joining the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.

Jones goes on to say, “These findings have profound implications for the future of religious denominations that have, in the past, dominated American religious life.”

But is this true? I am not entirely convinced. Read more on Are Young Millennials Less Religious or Simply Young?…

“Think, Think, Think” –Pooh

It’s always hard to sit down and write. There are a million distractions that tempt us away from the keyboard or notepad and entangle us in the details of life. Not that these details are bad. In fact, as a community focused on being On Call in Culture, many of those details are the whole purpose.
Read more on Writing Tips for Your On Call in Culture Blog Entry…