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The latest issue of WORLD (now available online and through our RSS feed) honors the finalists in the Acton Institute’s Samaritan Award competition (click the links below to read about each one). WORLD’s Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky writes:

For the third year in a row WORLD interns, in conjunction with the Acton Institute for the Study of Liberty and Religion (disclosure: I’m an Acton senior fellow), have visited and reported on the finalists in Acton’s nationwide Samaritan Award competition. Our five interns fanned out around the country last month, each visiting two finalists, and then came together for a week in New York of intensive editing. The interns learned to ask hard questions and to pin down details, including names. (They honored agreements in a couple of cases to use first names only to protect privacy.) All 10 of these faith-based finalists spend money garnered by voluntary contributions, not Washington lobbying: They are compassionate conservatives in the original sense of the term. All 10 emphasize real change in lives, not the passing out of spare change: As it turns out, eight of the finalists this year are rescue missions or rehab centers of various kinds; the other two are a program for developmentally disabled adults and another for women fleeing prostitution and strip clubs.

Our first five profiles are of Lighthouse Ministries (Lakeland, Fla.), New Life Center (Franklin, Va.), Fresno Rescue Mission (Fresno, Calif.), South Side Mission (Peoria, Ill.), and Faith in Action (Grand Rapids, Mich.). Then comes an intermission: an interview with psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, who explains how an odd coalition of cultural leftists and fiscal conservatives did not show compassion toward the mentally ill. The mentally ill now constitute at least one-third of our homeless population and are among the hardest to help when they refuse to take their meds. We hope to see more evangelicals helping them.

Then we have five more profiles of faith-based groups: Promise of Hope (Dudley, Ga.), Redwood Gospel Mission (Santa Rosa, Calif.), A Way Out (Memphis, Tenn.), Harvey House (Harvey, Ill.), and Panama City Rescue Mission (Panama City, Fla.). And we also announce this year’s Samaritan Award grand prizewinner and the two runners-up [scroll to the bottom of the page]—but, as you read the descriptions of the groups, you might enjoy guessing.

You won’t find stories of true compassion like this anywhere else. If you are not already a subscriber, we’d love to have you join our family of informed Christian readers so you won’t miss out on all WORLD has to offer, especially during this important election season. Click here for more info. Subscriptions make great gifts, too!