Today a group of Calvin Seminary students enjoyed a lunchtime talk by Dr. John H. Armstrong, founder of ACT 3 and adjunct professor of evangelism at Wheaton College, “Missional-Ecumenism: The Protestant Challenge and Opportunity.” Dr. Armstrong spoke about his book, Your Church is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ’s Mission Is Vital to the Future of the Church, where he lays out his vision for missional-ecumenism. Rather than emphasizing the institutional and international focus of the older mainline ecumenical movement, Dr. Armstrong’s vision is focused on local and practical work that Christians of all stripes can do together. It is what happens when ecumenism meets subsidiarity.

The Acton Institute co-sponsored the luncheon along with ACT 3, and it was a pleasure to hear Dr. Armstrong’s story and about his engagement with Christians from a variety of different denominational and confessional traditions. One of the important points he made was the formative influence that Roman Catholic Social Teaching has had on his ethical thinking as a Protestant. He pointed especially to Rerum Novarum and the subsequent social encyclicals as important sources for Protestant dialogue and engagement.

Dr. Armstrong will be teaching the course on Introduction to Protestant Social Thought at Acton University 2011, and he will also be speaking at another local event here in Grand Rapids later this week. On Wednesday evening, Dr. Armstrong will discuss “Ecumenism and the Threat of Ideology.” Join us if you are able for a night of fun, fellowship, and discussion.

Dr. Armstrong blogs here and you can follow him on Twitter here.

Read more on When Ecumenism Meets Subsidiarity…

A number of Acton staffers, including myself, had the pleasure of attending the 2010 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society held in Atlanta, Georgia. There will be more on some of the goings-on at this event to come, but to get a sense of what our presence was like in the exhibition space, check out the pictures below. Kudos especially to Kara Eagle who did a great job with design (assisted by Melissa Burkholder) and execution of our exhibit space.

We had a great time meeting new people and reconnecting with old friends. This is an audience that Acton is committed to engaging in the long-term.



Last week we also launched the schedule for Acton University 2011, and we had a station (in use the above picture) for ETS attendees to register on-site.



We enjoyed a lot of foot traffic during the conference, and had the opportunity to introduce ourselves and our work to many people who either hadn’t heard of Acton or were not really very familiar with us.


We also had time, however, to deepen relationships with friends and discuss weighty matters related to stewardship, natural law, virtue, ethics, economics, and the Christian faith. We look forward to seeing you next year if you attend the ETS meeting in San Francisco.

Read more on Acton at ETS 2010…

Another election has come and gone, and once again the balance of power has significantly shifted in Washington, D.C. and statehouses across America.  Tuesday’s results are, I suppose, a win for fans of limited government, in that a Republican House of Representatives will make it more difficult for President Obama and his Democrat colleagues in the Congress to enact more of what has been a very statist agenda.  But even with the prospect of divided government on the horizon, we who believe in individual liberty and the principles of classical liberalism still have much to be concerned with.  Perhaps the primary concern is whether or not those Republicans who were swept into office—not due to any real love of the electorate for the Republican Party, but rather due to anxiety over the direction the Democrats have taken the country—will be able to hold to the principles of limited government and individual liberty that so many of them claimed to espouse during the campaign, or whether those principles will be abandoned in a mad pursuit of power.  Forefront in the mind of every lover of liberty should be Lord Acton’s famous maxim: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Read more on Video: Sirico on Christian Anthropology (and some thoughts on Election 2010)…

On October 21st at Acton’s 20th Anniversary Dinner, Richard M. DeVos – Co-Founder of Amway Corporation with his friend Jay Van Andel – was presented with the 2010 Faith and Freedom Award.  Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, cited DeVos for his “decades-long exemplary leadership in business, his dedication to the promotion of liberty, his courage in maintaining and defending the free and virtuous society, and his conviction that the roots of liberty and the morally-charged life are to be found in the eternal truths of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Read more on Video: More Highlights from the Acton Institute’s 20th Anniversary Celebration…

Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took to the airwaves this morning in Chicago on WVON’s Launching Chicago with Lenny McAllister to discuss today’s elections across the country from a Christian perspective.  You can listen to the interview using the audio player below, and don’t forget to follow Rev. Sirico on Twitter right here.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on Subsidiarity, Free Enterprise & the 2010 Elections…

Over the last 20 years, Acton Institute has worked to discover, cultivate, and encourage current and future business leaders and cultural influencers. Last week’s 20th Anniversary Dinner gave testimony to two decades of great effort. It is often easy to recognize current leaders like Kate O’Beirne (MC for the evening) and Richard M. DeVos (recipient of the 2010 Faith and Freedom award) but the future leaders are often less obvious to the untrained eye.

Read more on Acton Alumni: Changing the World…

One of the interesting things you learn when you start working at the Acton Institute is that the brother of Acton Institute co-founder and president Rev. Robert A. Sirico is an actor.  A pretty famous actor, actually.  And eventually it sinks in that Father Sirico’s brother Tony is, in fact, Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos.

Read more on Video: Rev. Robert Sirico’s Riskiest Investment Ever…

David Bahnsen, writing on The Bahnsen Viewpoint, has a great report on last night’s Acton dinner:

“Good news – the President has announced a reduction of the government work force by one million people (20%). Bad news – the cuts were ordered by President Raul Castro in Cuba.”

Read more on A Report from Acton’s 20th Annual Dinner…

News from the Acton Institute:

Grand Rapids, Mich. (October 22, 2010) – The Acton Institute won first place in the Ethics and Values category in the 2010 Templeton Freedom Awards for Excellence in Promoting Liberty competition. The award, managed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recognized Acton for its production of film documentaries that “communicate the principles and values of individual liberty and a free society.”

Read more on Acton Institute Wins Templeton Freedom Award for Ethics and Values…

I remember my first Acton event in 2002, a “Toward a Free and Virtuous Society” conference that I attended as a graduate student.

There are a number of things I remember quite clearly, but perhaps most striking was an occasion when someone said something to the effect that those with wealth are able to do more for the Kingdom of God than the poor. This is basically the same view that was once articulated in John Stossel’s special TV program on greed, that Michael Milkin had done more for the poor than Mother Theresa. To this I responded with the example of the widow’s mite (Mark 12; Luke 21). Fr. Sirico then proceeded to correct the mistaken view in a quite, shall we say, pointed fashion.

Read more on Reflections on Acton’s Twentieth Anniversary…