Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'family'

I Am Woman: Hear Me Whine

I have been duped. I thought, along with my husband, that we were doing a good thing by raising our children in a household that valued traditional marriage and saw our children as gifts from God. Continue Reading...

Demographic Winter is Coming

I was a guest on today’s Coffee & Markets podcast, where we discussed the complex challenges facing America as reflected in recent demographic trends. What do declining birthrates across the developed world indicate? Continue Reading...

Chick-fil-A and Free Exchange

Former governor, pastor, and presidential candidate (and current radio host) Mike Huckabee has been a primary driving force in turning today, August 1, into an ad hoc appreciation day for the fast food company Chick-fil-A. Continue Reading...

ResearchLinks – 07.20.12

Review Essay: “Was Robert Bellarmine Ahead of His Time?” John M. Vella, Homiletic & Pastoral Review Despite his rehabilitation in the last quarter of the 19th century, Bellarmine’s intellectual legacy remains mixed. Continue Reading...

Charity Begins at Home

In a paper at the symposium I noted in yesterday’s post, Richard Helmholtz described the application of natural law in a particular case in which the judges observed that “charity begins at home,” since “it is a natural impulse to do good to one’s own family.” Continue Reading...

America’s Real Inequality Problem

David Deavel’s review of Mitch Pearlstein’s From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation has been picked up by First Things and Mere Comments. Continue Reading...

Call for Universal Preschool Misguided

Michigan’s State Board of Education is now calling for expanded funding to pay for universal preschool for 3- and 4-year olds. One could hope that this news story slipped through a worm hole from a parallel universe in which Michigan has a budget surplus, where businesses are flocking to the state to take advantage of a business-friendly tax structure, and where government-funded preschool strongly correlates with future educational performance. Continue Reading...

AU: Rousseau, Love, and Perpetual Adolescents

Since reading Rousseau raises a questions on almost innumerable topics, you can imagine that the Q&A after a lecture I gave on Rousseau was broad and varied. Among other things, love, family, and problems with relationships and maturity within modern liberal culture were a recurring theme. Continue Reading...

The Audacity of the Savior State

The current issue of Touchstone magazine features an impressive cover essay by Douglas Farrow, Professor of Christian Thought at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. In “The Audacity of the State,” Farrow uses the biblical Ichabod motif to examine the crumbling pillars of the family and church, which when properly respected form critical foundations for a flourishing society. Continue Reading...

Family Economics

It should be obvious that developments within a social institution as fundamental as marriage will have an economic impact. Sorting out cause and effect in such cases is no easy matter, however; the temptation is to draw easy and simplistic connections. Continue Reading...