Four Decades with Thomas Jefferson

20th Century historian Dumas Malone praised Thomas Jefferson as the exemplar of liberty. “To all who cherish freedom and abhor tyranny in any form, [Jefferson] is an abiding hope that springs eternal,” declared Malone. Continue Reading...

Noah, the Mad Environmentalist

Admittedly, this writer attended a viewing of Noah last week with trepidation. A March 17 New Yorker profile on director Darren Aronofsky gave good cause for suspicion the film would be yet another Hollywood environmentalist screed wherein humanity is depicted as a cancer on God’s creation. Continue Reading...

Homeschooled Students are More Politically Tolerant Than Their Peers

Critics of homeschooling have long maintained that it fails to inculcate students with the civic virtues necessary to maintain our republican form of democracy. But a study finds that when it comes to willingness to extend basic civil liberties to people who hold views with which one disagrees, homeschooled students are more tolerant than their peers: Scholar Albert Cheng’s just-published fascinating and provocative study provides one of the first solid portions of empirical evidence about whether the homeschooled become more or less politically intolerant than others.[3] Continue Reading...
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Video: Elise Hilton on Human Trafficking

Today was the day for our event highlighting the growing problem of human trafficking, and a great panel discussion it was; we’ll be posting video from the event soon. In the meantime, you’ll have to be satisfied with the following clip, featuring Acton Communications Specialist Elise Hilton. Continue Reading...

Ashoka the Great in the History of Liberty

Today at Ethika Politika, I review The Ox-Herder and the Good Shepherd: Finding Christ on the Buddha’s Path by Addison Hodges Hart: Addison Hodges Hart, a retired pastor and university chaplain, offers in The Ox-Herder and the Good Shepherd a wonderful exercise in comparative religion, examining the common ground that can be found in spiritual practice between Christianity and Buddhism. Continue Reading...

The Four Most Imporant Legal Questions in the Hobby Lobby Case

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby contraception case. But which arguments will have the most influence on the justices? Michael McConnel, a respected Religion Clauses scholar from Standford, explains which four arguments are most likely to be important: Cutting through the politicized hype about the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga case (“Corporations have no rights!” Continue Reading...

When Work is a Holy Undertaking

At Patheos, Joel J. Miller discusses how God uses work to fashion our souls: Not long ago I looked at an icon of Archbishop Luke of Simferopol and Crimea, a recent Orthodox saint who lived from 1877 to 1961. Continue Reading...