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Religion & Liberty

Past Articles

Page 58 of 108

  • Isaac Thomas Hecker

    Friend and colleague of Lord Acton and Cardinal John Henry Newman, and founder of the Missionary Society of St. Paul (Paulist Fathers), Isaac Hecker is chiefly known for his efforts to reconcile Roman Catholicism with American liberal democracy.

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  • Frank S. Meyer

    With this simple statement from his 1962 book, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, Frank S. Meyer defined the goal of postwar conservatism: to create a society in which men are free to pursue virtue but not enforce virtue at the point of a gun.

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  • Christopher Dawson

    "Modern society is unintelligible unless it is studied as having deep roots in Christianity."

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  • K. Wilhelm Freiherr von Humboldt

    Described by Lord Acton as the “most central figure in Germany,” Wilhelm von Humboldt began his public career in 1802 as the Prussian envoy to the papal court. He returned to Berlin in 1808 to accept his appointment as the Minister of Public Instruction.

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  • Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, and Culture

    It can't be denied: many people of faith view the entertainment industry with a measure of suspicion. To answer some of this suspicion, Barbara Nicolosi and Spencer Lewerenz have compiled a collection of essays, Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, and Culture. Nicolosi and Lewerenz are two members of a circle of Hollywood producers, writers, and executives who conceived and support Act One, a Christian screenwriting program in Los Angeles.

    by Acton staff

  • Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis

    In the presidential campaign of 1992, George H. W. Bush's family values platform collapsed under the weight of a recession, and to many, the political discussion of morality retreated, taking refuge under the so-called Religious Right. But since the second election of George W. Bush, open talk of faith and morals has reentered the political arena with gusto. This is due partly to the reactive emergence of a Religious Left, such as is advocated in Jim Wallis's bestselling book, God's Politics.

    by David M. Phelps

  • From the gulag to the killing fields

    In a personal account of his internment in the Albanian gulag, Nika Stajka catalogued the fourteen types of torture that communist authorities used against prisoners. These ranged from shooting by firing squad to sleep deprivation to the cutting of flesh with scissors and knives. In his memoir, published in 1980, Stajka recalls:

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  • Rediscovering the natural law in reformed theological ethics

    After completing Stephen J. Grabill's book on the natural law in the thought of the Protestant Reformers, I wished - briefly - that he did not work at the Acton Institute. He has written a very important book, and I didn't want my recommendation of it to be tainted by favoritism toward a colleague and friend. That said, Grabill's book can more than stand on its own. It is a work of true scholarship; its origin as a doctoral thesis means that it is not a breezy read. The scholarly apparatus is heavy, as it needs be, for Grabill is out to challenge the conventional wisdom.

    by Sarah Salb

  • Emil Brunner

    "This inversion of the structure of the State which, instead of being built up from below, is organized from above, is the one great iniquity of our time, the iniquity which overshadows all others, and generates them of itself. The order of creation is turned upside down; what should be last is first, the expedient, the subsidiary, has become the main thing.

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  • Jean-Baptiste-Henri Dominique Lacordaire

    Lacordaire was born on May 12, 1802, near the French town of Dijon. In spite of his parents’ fervent religious devotion, young Lacordaire remained atheistic until a profound religious experience forced him from a career in law into divinity.

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