Religion plays, and has always played, a crucial role in American life. In the past 75 years, however, religiosity has been in rapid decline. What’s causing the decline? In a new study from the American Enterprise Institute, demographer Lyman Stone helps answer. Lyman joins this episode to uncover his findings, including the history of religious life in the United States dating back four hundred years ago and how secular education is likely playing a large role in declining religiosity.

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As the United States continues to wrestle with the fallout of COVID-19, many people are falling back on their faith and the church for peace. Many churches have decided to hold services online, and local governments have also stepped in and put parameters around church attendance to help mitigate the spread of the virus. Some actions taken by local governments have been appropriate, but some others leave us wondering if the government has overstepped. How can we tell the difference between measured responses and overreaches, and what should the role of the church be during these times? What has the church’s response to pandemics looked like in the past? Acton’s President and co-founder, Rev. Robert Sirico explains.

Homeschooling is growing in popularity. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education has shown that it’s grown at a rate of over 60% in the last decade, as many families are deciding that educating their children at home is better sending them to public or private schools. But Harvard University has a different opinion. In Harvard Magazine’s May/June 2020 issues, one Harvard Law School professor calls for a ban on homeschooling, saying it may keep children from “contributing positively to a democratic society.” Kerry McDonald, senior education fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, joins the podcast to respond.
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Russell Kirk has long been known as perhaps the most important founding father of the American Conservative movement in the second half of the 20th century. In the early 1950s, America was emerging from the Great Depression and the New Deal, and was facing the rise of radical ideologies abroad; the American Right seemed beaten, broken, and adrift. Then in 1953, Russell Kirk released his masterpiece, “The Conservative Mind.” More than any other published work of the time, this book became the intellectual touchstone for a reinvigorated movement and began a sea change in Americans’ attitudes toward traditionalism. In this episode pulled from the archive, Bradley J. Birzer, professor of history at Hillsdale College, recounts the story of Kirk’s life and work, with attention paid not only to his writings on politics and economics, but also on literature and culture, both subjects dear to Kirk’s heart and central to his thinking.

Acton’s President and Co-Founder, Rev. Robert Sirico, offers some thoughts on what the role of the government should be during a crisis. When we’re confronted with unique crises, especially like the Coronavirus pandemic the world is facing now, there are justified government interventions. We can’t discount, however, the principle of subsidiarity as well as the division of labor and voluntary action. How can we wisely approach these principles in the reality of our current context? Rev. Sirico explains.

It’s now been three years since Michael Novak passed away. Novak was Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher and author, and was a powerful defender of human liberty. In this episode, Acton’s Samuel Gregg shares Novak’s history, starting with his time on the left in the 1960s and 70s and recounting his gradual shift toward conservative thought that culminated in the publication of his 1982 masterwork, “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.” In this book, Novak grounded a defense for a free market in Judeo-Christianity, influencing how many Protestants and Catholics thought about economics. As Gregg recently wrote, “No religious intellectual can match Novak’s influence in facilitating this transformation through the written word in America and throughout the world.”

If you’ve traveled to Washington, D.C., before, it’s likely that you’ve flown through Washington Dulles International Airport, named after President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. In fact, over 60,000 people travel through Dulles airport every day, but not many people know much about its namesake. John Foster Dulles served in the early years of the Cold War and pursued a vigorous foreign policy meant to isolate and undermine international and expansionist Communism. Undergirding his foreign policy was a commitment to natural law, a realistic understanding of human nature and a clear vision of freedom. Since his death in 1959, Dulles has been characterized only as a dour, puritanical and simple man. Joining the podcast today to shed more light on the life of Dulles is John D. Wilsey, associate professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In this conversation, John brings perspective to Dulles’ legacy, uncovering both his public and private life, and showing how simple explanations of Dulles just don’t help us accurately understand the man or his times.

On February 5, Pope Francis addressed a crowd of economists and Finance Ministers that had gathered together for a seminar on “New Forms of Solidarity Towards fraternal Inclusion, Integration and Innovation.” During his speech, the pope addressed the economy, sin and finance, and he also called for wealth distribution in order to alleviate poverty. “The world is rich and yet the poor increase around us,” he said. “If extreme poverty exists in the midst of wealth (also extreme) it is because we have allowed the gap to widen to become the largest in history.”The pope says it’s a “fact” the poor have only grown poorer while the rich continue to get richer – is this really true? Can poverty really be alleviated through wealth redistribution? Acton’s president and co-founder, Rev. Robert Sirico, comes on to the podcast to answer.

Did you know that there are over 1,300 endangered species in the United States? Polar bears, northern spotted owls, red wolves, Florida panthers and even monarch butterflies are all on the endangered species list. We’ve been given a mandate to take care of the earth and all living creatures on it. How can we make sure that vulnerable animals are protected from extinction? This week, Jonathan Wood joins Acton Line to show how market-based approaches are the best way to tackle the issue. Jonathan is an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, where he litigates environmental, property rights and constitutional cases.

On December 10, 2019, shoppers in a Kosher market in Jersey City, N.J., became the targets of anti-Semitic violence. A man and a woman opened fire in the grocery store, killing four people. Just a few weeks later, a man wielding a machete broke into a Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York and stabbed five people who were in the midst of celebrating Hanukkah. One victim, 72-year-old Josef Neumann, was left the most seriously injured and remains in a coma. These two atrocious incidents are just a fraction of a trend of anti-Semitic attacks in the United States. In a letter written to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, four New York Jewish officials wrote that, “Simply stated, it is no longer safe to be identifiably Orthodox in the State of New York. We cannot shop, walk down the street, send our children to school, or even worship in peace.” Not even a full century after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head. What’s causing the outbreak and what can be done to counteract this hatred? Rev. Ben Johnson, senior editor at Acton, breaks it down.