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Freedom Undone in the Court
There I sat, blinking under the fluorescent lights in the auditorium style classroom during my constitutional law class. I had gone to law school because I wanted to learn how to be a lawyer. I wanted to learn how to “think like a lawyer.” That's what all the marketing brochures from the admissions offices in law schools all over the country promise incoming students. I didn't know exactly what it meant to think like a lawyer. I assumed I would be asked to use reason and logic to apply the facts of a particular occurrence to the law that governed such an occurrence.Exit Truth, Enter Tyranny
Os Guinness, speaker of international renown, was born in China, educated in England, graduated from Oxford University, and authored several books, one of the most recent being a brief but lucid and powerful meditation on the crisis of truth in our contemporary Western world. The book is entitled Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, & Spin (Baker Books, 2000). Guinness' central thesis is that “truth matters supremely because in the end, without truth there is no freedom . . .The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom
During the height of the Cold War, former President Ronald Reagan caused a firestorm of protest when he branded the Soviet Union as the “evil empire.” Liberals and progressives spared no criticism of Reagan blaming him for increasing tensions between the U.S. and its communist rival.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.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.The Right To Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War over Religion in America
Mary Dyer was regarded as a “very proper and comely young woman”—that is, before she broke the law and was hanged. Her crime: being a Quaker in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Laws against this were on the books and notice had been given. Everything was legal. Was it moral?'There's No Such Thing as "Business" Ethics'
The wave of recent corporate scandals has spurred an increased interest in business ethics. As illegal and unethical behavior is exposed in the business world, society has demanded reform.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: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.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.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.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.