Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'tradition'

March 04, 2020

Hubris old and new

Adam MacLeod, a law professor at Faulkner University in Alabama, wrote a couple of years ago in the New Boston Post  of “chronological snobbery,” the idea that “moral knowledge progresses inevitably, such that later generations are morally and intellectually superior to earlier generations, and that the older the source the more morally suspect that source is.” Continue Reading...
March 20, 2017

What is the role of tradition in renewing Western civilization?

Does tradition harm progress? Acton’s director of research, Samuel Gregg, in a recent article for Library of Law and Liberty, describes “tradition” as the handing down of beliefs, cultural molds, and historical ways of thinking and living, but also as a means to promoting human flourishing in renewing civilization. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2017

Saltiness and social justice

Does the theological conservatism of a church help or hinder its chances for growth? And what, if any, impact might that have on its social and political witness? In a new research study, sociologist David Haskell and historian Kevin Flatt explore the first of these questions. Continue Reading...
January 22, 2016

Against Idolatrous Conservatism

Christians continually struggle to find the right approach, balance, and tone in their political witness, either co-opting the Gospel for the sake of political ends or retreating altogether out of fear of the same. Continue Reading...
September 23, 2015

Video: Donald Devine On America’s Way Back

The Fall 2015 Acton Lecture Series kicked off on September 17 with an address from Donald Devine, Senior Scholar at the Fund for American Studies, and formerly – and most famously – Ronald Reagan’s Director of the Office of Personnel Management, where he earned the nickname “Reagan’s Terrible Swift Sword of the Bureaucracy” from the Washington Post. Continue Reading...
February 11, 2015

Book Giveaway: Win All 4 Primers on Faith, Work, and Economics!

Through Christian’s Library Press, the Acton Institute has published four tradition-specific primers on faith, work, and economics, including Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, and Reformed perspectives. Each offers a distinct contribution to the subject, and when taken together provides a rich and coherent framework for Christian stewardship. Continue Reading...
June 18, 2012

Amity Shlaes and the ‘Forgotten President’

I just read the introduction to Amity Shlaes’s forthcoming biography, Coolidge: Debt, Perseverance and the American Ideal. She has been very gracious in taking an interest in the work I have been doing on Coolidge and my recent Acton commentary on the 30th president. Continue Reading...
March 19, 2010

The Perils of Obedience

On his blog, Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowan links to an article about game show, The Game Of Death, that was recently broadcast on French television. According to the article (“Torture ‘Game Show’ Draws Nazi Comparison“) the program, “had all the trappings of a traditional television quiz show, with a roaring crowd and a glamorous and well-known hostess.” Continue Reading...