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Samuel Gregg, Director of Research at the Acton Institute, delivers the opening plenary lecture of Acton University 2017 at DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Gregg’s lecture focuses on the very real threats faced by religious believers around the world (and especially in developing nations), and the pressures that are increasing on religious liberty …
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On Thursday, June 22 2017, the Acton Institute presented a panel discussion on the topic of what Christianity has to offer the poor. Panelists included Michael Wear, founder of Public Square Strategies LLC; Anne Rathbone Bradley, Vice President of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics; Elizabeth Bruenig, Assistant Editor of the …
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On June 20, 2013, William McGurn, the Editorial Page Editor of The New York Post, delivered a plenary address to participants in Acton University at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Prior to assuming the editorship of the Editorial Page of the New York Post, he was a vice president for News Corporation, where he …
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Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president emeritus of the Acton Institute, gave this plenary address during Acton University 2017. He spoke on the importance of virtue in society and that the most influential institution in any society is the family. If we truly believe in human flourishing, then change starts at home and in our local …
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Dr. William B. Allen Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy, Michigan State University. William B. Allen, emeritus professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science and emeritus dean, James Madison College, at Michigan State University. He served previously on the United States National Council for the Humanities and as Chairman and Member of the …
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Samuel Gregg gives his plenary address at Acton University 2015.
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Engage the Speaker Session for “Islam, Reason, and Freedom” (AU2021). Original Lecture description below. It is no secret today that Islam has authoritarian interpretations that reject the principles of human freedom. This includes imposing religion through state power, punishing people for “apostasy” or “blasphemy,” or degrading women or minorities. This lecture will delve into the …
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It is no secret today that Islam has authoritarian interpretations that reject the principles of human freedom. This includes imposing religion through state power, punishing people for “apostasy” or “blasphemy,” or degrading women or minorities. This lecture will delve into the formative centuries of Islam to map out the roots of the problem, while also …
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It is no secret today that Islam has authoritarian interpretations that reject the principles of human freedom. This includes imposing religion through state power, punishing people for “apostasy” or “blasphemy,” or degrading women or minorities. This lecture will delve into the formative centuries of Islam to map out the roots of the problem, while also …
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Some people think social justice is a twentieth century invention of left-leaning thinkers, but this starts the history of social justice midstream. To understand its true meaning, we must look farther back to its real historical origins. The first known use of the phrase “social justice” was by a Jesuit Thomist, Luigi Taparelli, in his …
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Some people think social justice is a twentieth century invention of left-leaning thinkers, but this starts the history of social justice midstream. To understand its true meaning, we must look farther back to its real historical origins. The first known use of the phrase “social justice” was by a Jesuit Thomist, Luigi Taparelli, in his …
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In a lecture titled “Islam and Freedom: The Challenge and The Hope”, Mustafa Akyol—senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity—discusses political and social problems that exist in the Muslim world, including authoritarianism and terrorism, and the prospects for finding ways to strengthen the idea of individual liberty within the Islamic …
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In conformity with Nietzsche’s prophecy, the modern West is experiencing a radical desacralizing of the social order, unprecedented in world history. The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer described it as an era in which Westerners had learned to manage life without reference to God. American sociologist Philip Rieff refers to our era as one in which …
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While the formal significance of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation might be celebrated by Protestants and lamented by Catholics, reflecting back on sixteenth-century reform 500 years removed affords valuable lessons. The occasion also allows us to highlight the theological and legal thinking of a most remarkable though much forgotten figure of the Protestant …
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We often say right and wrong are vague and hard to know. The natural law tradition says that’s nonsense: the moral basics are known to every human being. If this is true, then we aren’t ignorant, just self-deceived. So what happens if we tell ourselves that we don’t know what we really do?
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We live in dark times. Christians wonder: Are the best days of the Christian faith behind us? Has modernity made Christian thought irrelevant and impotent? Is society beyond all hope of redemption and renewal? In Renaissance, Os Guinness declares no. Throughout history, the Christian faith has transformed entire cultures and civilizations, building cathedrals and universities, …
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In “The Conservative Heart,” Arthur C. Brooks, the prominent economist and president of AEI — the leading intellectual think tank on the right — offers a bold new vision for conservatism as a movement for social and economic justice. Brooks contends that after years of focusing on economic growth and traditional social values, it is …
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Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics and New York Times bestselling author, delivers an address entitled “Why Libertarians Need God” as part of the 2014 Acton Lecture Series in the Mark Murray Auditorium of the Acton Building in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his address, Richards argued that …
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Imagine if we had captured Adolf Hitler at the end of World War II, a man responsible for spearheading a global war of aggression bent on domination, the slaughter of millions of Jews, with a total death toll nearing 50 million lives. Now imagine he sits in the witness chair at Nuremberg, and says, “Don’t …
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You know, we can learn a lot about how important Christian principles are for a culture simply by comparing the French Revolution to another revolution that happened a few years earlier, across the Atlantic—the American Revolution. “Freedom from God.” For many people that sounds pretty good— Freedom from that grumpy old rule maker in the …
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Medieval Europe got rid of slavery, but it came back with a vengeance during the age of exploration. Before long, Christians from every sailing nation were rationalizing the practice of seizing non-Europeans, putting them in chains, and placing them on the auction block. Fortunately, though, that’s not the end of the story. The story of …
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When Americans think of the Pilgrims, a few things spring to mind: Thanksgiving; the Mayflower; Plymouth Rock. But if you go any deeper than that, things get blurry in a hurry. Were the Pilgrims peace loving Puritans who simply sat down at the table of brotherhood with the pagan Indians? Or, were they fiendish, opportunistic, …
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Faith or reason. Religion or science. Tradition or progress. This is how many people in our culture, today, think. They see these things in opposition. But the history of the West is one of faith completing reason. The scientific revolution was ignited not in ancient Greece and Rome, but in Christian Europe. Europe took off …
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You may have heard it said that Western democracy is based on ancient Greek democracy. The democracy of ancient Athens did serve as an inspiration for modern democracy. But there’s one important element missing from the Greek model: they had no firm foundation for higher law. Because of this, ancient Greek democracy became mob democracy. …
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Did you know that the opponents of Christianity have—for centuries—controlled the very terms by which we understand the history of Christianity, arguing that Christianity hobbled the Roman Empire, snuffed out scientific progress, and threw the world into the Dark Ages? Many people don’t even give Christianity a hearing because they think, “Why would I want …