Today, we’re bringing you a conversation from our recent Business Matters 2021 conference. Business Matters brought together leading experts and CEOs to address some of the most critical issue and biggest challenges facing businesses in these volatile times. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil, we have seldom seen a more uncertain time for our businesses and for the world. Business leaders are being tested by switching to remote work, closing and reopening offices,...
Mar 01, 2021•52 min•Ep. 21
In this episode, we’re bringing you an Acton Lecture Series event from December of 2016, featuring Ilya Shapiro speaking on judicial abdication and the growth of government. Ilya Shapiro is the director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review. In this discussion, Shapiro recounts the fight for the Supreme Court during the 2016 presidential campaign and how that battle crystalized the importance of judges' both h...
Feb 15, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 20
In this episode, we’re bringing you the most recent presentation from our Acton Lecture Series program, featuring the recipient of the Acton Institute’s 2020 Novak Award, Dr. Gregory Collins. Named after distinguished American theologian Michael Novak, this honor rewards new, outstanding scholarly research concerning the relationship between religion, economic freedom, and a free and virtuous society. It recognizes those scholars early in their academic career who demonstrate outstanding intelle...
Feb 01, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 19
Today, we’re bringing you a presentation from our Acton Lecture Series program from January 2020 with Adam MacLeod, professor of law at Faulkner University, explaining the rise of morality in public discourse. According to MacLeod, our most contentious controversies today are moral. Political neutrality has failed. We disagree not only about questions of efficiency and democracy but also about what is right to do and who we are becoming as a people. We have not yet understood the implications of...
Jan 18, 2021•58 min•Ep. 18
On December 2nd, 2020, the economist Walter E. Williams passed away at the age of 84. Williams worked his way out of grinding poverty in the Philadelphia housing projects to chair George Mason University’s economics department. Over his career he authored 10 books and more than 150 other publications, and become one of the most recognized commentators on our American public life of the last four decades. Williams spread his message of racial equality, the dignity of work, and the morality of cap...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 17
In this Acton Lecture Series program from December 3rd, 2020, founder of the Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation Justin Beene addressed the topic of transformational leadership in a time of crises. Today’s “new normal” demands authentic leaders who are grounded and yet reflective. Many of us go through life without a rhythm of both reflecting and discerning. Beene discusses how leaders can grow and contribute to the flourishing of our families, organizations, and culture during a ti...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 16
In this Acton Lecture Series program from November 5, 2020, Acton Institute's Eric Kohn spoke with David French, senior editor at The Dispatch, about the outcomes of the 2020 election and his new book, “Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” In “Divided We Fall,” French surveys the landscape of a politically and culturally polarized America, examining the true dimensions and dangers of this widening ideological gap. Just two days after the 2020 election, Fren...
Nov 18, 2020•59 min•Ep. 15
It might come as a surprise, but poverty rates in the developing world are dropping dramatically. In fact, economic growth in developing nations has far outpaced the growth of high income countries. Thus, not only has the world experienced a historic reduction in poverty over the last twenty-five years, but global income today is much more equal than at any time in the last 100 years. This event presents the good news about poverty alleviation.This event was co-sponsored by America's Future Foun...
Oct 03, 2018•1 hr 2 min
How Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg forged a consensus that helped make the American Century. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 25, 2018•58 min
As one of only two presidents to have never formally joined a church, people have wondered just how much Abraham Lincoln himself was under God when he said that the United States should consider itself as such as it strove for a new birth of freedom.However, the Civil War shifted the ground decisively under Lincoln's feet. In the cauldron of war, he discovered that God was not merely a remote force or a faceless universal power, but a personal, intelligent, and willing God who intervened in the ...
Aug 10, 2018•59 min
John Suarez is the program officer of the Washington, DC based Center for a Free Cuba. He has been interviewed by TV, radio and print media on Cuba. Mr. Suarez is a human rights activist. He holds degrees from Florida International University and Spain’s Universidad Francisco de Vitoria. He has testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington DC, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, and served as an interpreter for Cuban dissidents in Congressional heari...
Apr 26, 2018•57 min
A Soviet spy who was converted to Christ, Whittaker Chambers sacrificed everything for the sake of his Christian witness against injustice. As one of the most profound Christian thinkers of the 20th century, Chambers offers reflections on religion and public life with far-reaching implications for the 21st. This lecture will explore how his story points to uncomfortable lessons for Left and Right alike in our own day. ===Greg Forster, Ph.D. serves as the director of the Oikonomia Network at the ...
Feb 21, 2018•1 hr
Only the family can provide the sense of security and identity that every person needs. Civilization itself depends on children having a good first year.Family breakdown is expensive. Taxpayers provide programs to step in when the family fails. Businesses have trouble finding workers they need, with even basic skills. Individuals and families struggle to make ends meet when families don’t work together. What exactly are we going to do about all this? Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, long-time Research...
Jan 26, 2018•1 hr
Acton’s 8th Annual Chicago Open Mic Night took place on Wednesday, November 8th at the University Club of Chicago. The panel for the evening included:Paul Bonicelli, Ph.D., Director of Education and Programs, Acton InstituteIsmael Hernandez, Founder and Director, Freedom and Virtue InstituteSamuel Gregg, D.Phil., Director of Research, Acton Institute Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 14, 2017•1 hr 34 min
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 Reformation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 26, 2017•1 hr 25 min
In The Fifth Estate: Think Tanks, Public Policy, and Governance, James G. McGann illustrates how policymakers have come to value the independent analysis and advice provided by think tanks and why it has become one of the defining characteristics of the American political system. Drawing on case studies in both foreign and domestic policy, McGann clarifies the correlation between think tank research and the policies enacted by the past three presidential administrations. He also describes a phen...
Aug 02, 2017•53 min
The US Supreme Court hangs in the balance when it comes to some of the most important areas of the law, with a couple of more vacancies possible, and there are an unprecedented number of vacancies anticipated on the Federal appeals courts. Leonard Leo - Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society - describes how this state of affairs presents a unique opportunity to transform the courts so as to engender a greater respect for limited, constitutional government. Hosted on Acast. See acast....
May 12, 2017•49 min
After World War II, Bill Buckley, Frank Meyer, and others assembled the “three-legged stool” of modern American conservatism: free markets, anti-communism, and cultural conservatism. It was a synthesis that elected Ronald Reagan and won the Cold War. But that synthesis is fraying, because cultural conservatism itself has diverging strains that came together in the 20th century, but are now going their separate ways. Cultural conserv...
Jan 19, 2017•55 min
The fight for the Supreme Court during the presidential campaign has crystalized the importance of judges' both having the right constitutional theories and being willing to enforce them. Too much "restraint" - like Chief Justice Roberts in the Obamacare cases - has led to the unchecked growth of government, toxic judicial confirmation battles, and even our current populist moment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 01, 2016•1 hr 1 min
In Victoria Coates’ 2016 book David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art the author argues that democracy has had a unique capacity to inspire some of the greatest artistic achievements of western civilization from the Parthenon to Picasso’s Guernica. While Dr. Coates does not maintain that this is an exclusive arrangement, or without its fair share of failure and catastrophe, ultimately democracy emerges as one of the great catalysts of western civilization. In this talk Dr. Coat...
Nov 04, 2016•1 hr
America has experienced a surge of populism in recent years that has turned the established order of our politics on its head. Where do these movements come from? What can history tell us about where they are going? And what can statesmen do to channel this political outrage for the good of the people? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 12, 2016•57 min
