On of Chuck Colson’s heroes was Abraham Kuyper, and when we set out to publish a translation of Kuyper’s three volumes on the topic of common grace, Chuck was happy to support the project.

Here’s what he said about the first selection from the larger translation project, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art:

Abraham Kuyper was a profound theologian, an encyclopedic thinker, and a deeply spiritual man who believed that it is the believer’s task ‘to know God in all his works.’ In a day when secular science is seeking to establish hegemony over all knowing, and when postmodern art is threatening to bring an end to art, Kuyper’s solid, Biblical insights can help to restore perspective and sanity to these two critical areas of creation.

Read more on Colson on Common Grace…

On June 7th, 1993, Charles Colson made his first appearance at an Acton Institute event, speaking at our 3rd Anniversary Dinner in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the topic of the decline of American values. Colson’s rousing speech went over well with his audience that night, and still resonates today.

Read more on Video: Colson at Acton’s 3rd Anniversary Dinner…

Chuck Colson’s long association with the Acton Institute began in 1993 in part because, as he said, he “couldn’t believe that a Catholic priest had set up shop in the Vatican of the Dutch Reformed Church,” and he had to come to Grand Rapids to see for himself the work that Rev. Robert A. Sirico had begun. He came, saw, and was impressed, and thus began a nearly 20-year friendship with the President of the Acton Institute, who joined host Al Kresta on Ave Maria Radio’s Kresta in the Afternoon to reflect on Colson’s life, his conversion, and his many contributions to both evangelical Christianity and the broader ecumenical movement.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on the Life and Legacy of Chuck Colson…

As we move deeper into the 2012 election cycle here in the United States, many people are beginning to pay closer attention to the issues and candidates, and for many Christians this naturally raises questions about how Christian principles should be applied to the economic issues that are of such concern in the electorate this year. Pastor Christopher Brooks, host of Christ and the City on FaithTalk 1500 in Detroit, Michigan, was kind enough to invite Acton’s President Rev. Robert A. Sirico on his show on Monday to shed some light on how Christians should approach economic issues. They also took some time to remember the life and work of Charles Colson.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on Colson & Economics for Christians…

This country suffers no shortage of heroic tales. For the Union soldier who served under Ulysses S. Grant, there certainly was no greater leader. Often referred to by detractors as “a butcher” for the wake of Union dead left after his victories, he took the fight to the Confederacy. After the Wilderness campaign in 1864, where 17,000 Union soldiers died in just a few days, Grant unlike all the Union generals before him refused to lick the Federal wounds and retreat across the Rapidan River to resupply and reorganize. Instead Grant famously turned his massive columns not North, but South towards the heart of the Confederacy. Towards Richmond. Those that have studied the Civil War are familiar with the iconic story, as war whoops, hat waving, and wild cheering echoed across the forest. There was no doubt that The Army of the Potomac, which had suffered a barrage of whippings by General Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy, was under new leadership.

Read more on Review: Grant’s Final Victory…

Despite the rise of globalization and democracy, violent persecution of Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities is still shockingly common in many parts of the world. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has released its latest survey of religious freedom and as Doug Bandow reports, it makes for grim reading:

Read more on The Global Assault on Religious Liberty…

I saw the fine film Act of Valor last month, and I was struck by the level of sacrifice displayed in the lives of the service members featured. I have wondered in the meantime whether the scale of the sacrifice that’s been required of American service persons over the last two decades is sustainable.

Read more on Willingness and Ability to Serve in the Armed Forces…

Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Today marks the feast day of St. Benedict of Nursia, one of the fathers of Western monasticism. One of his most famous dictums was ora et labora: “pray and work.” His Rule served as the standard community rule for monasteries in the West for hundreds of years.

Read more on Benedict of Nursia on the Value of Work…

Galatians 2:10 reads, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” This is the conclusion to the Jerusalem Council, in which Paul and the leaders in Jerusalem are reconciled and unified, and where is decided that Paul and Barnabas “should go to the Gentiles, and they [James, Peter, and John] to the circumcised” (v. 9).

Read more on The Temptations of Poverty…

Today marks the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church. Not simply a fast, it is a time for that true asceticism which, according to Fr. Georges Florovsky, “is inspired not by contempt, but by the urge of transformation.”

Read more on Great Lent and the Ascetic Foundations of Society…