Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg made international headlines this week for a scathing speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019 in New York. Thunberg excoriated world leaders for their “empty words” and propagation of “fairy tales of eternal economic growth.” Her words present a stark picture, a personal image of the intergenerational challenges related to environmental and economic stewardship. The youth are those who will inherit the consequences of decisions made today, Thunberg reminds us, and her testimony attests to this often-overlooked moral dimension of policies and practices. Religious activism, even as it often focuses on politics, can also help remind us that the challenges of environmental stewardship are not fundamentally political or technical, but rather moral and spiritual. Abuse of creation arises from corrupted desire and broken relationships with God, humanity, and the world. Any solutions that are humanly achievable must therefore begin with the fundamental realities of our world.

Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy In America is renowned as one of the best examinations of early American society and politics, and remains one of the most insightful commentaries ever written on the practice of democracy in the United States. In this edition of Acton Line, John Wilsey, Professor of History and Christian Apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, discusses Tocqueville's masterwork and its continuing relevance for modern America. Wilsey also addresses the work of Tocqueville's traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, who wrote another important work that should be seen as a companion to Democracy In America: a novel titled Marie, or Slavery in the United States, which examines the darker side of 1830s America.