Jews, Muslims can defeat common enemies

By Imam Mohammad Shamsi Ali and Rabbi Marc Schneier
Washington Post
January 25, 2010

A Gallup poll found that 43 percent of Americans admit to at least "a little" prejudice against Muslims, and that such self-reported feelings are strongly linked to the respondent's views on Jews. Remarkably, those who say they feel "a great deal" of prejudice toward Jews are about 32 times more likely to report feeling a "great deal" of prejudice toward Muslims, according to the polling company.

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Rally celebrates contributions from immigrants

Orange County Register
By Cindy Carcamo
January 26, 2010

Non-denominational Christians, Muslims, African American Evangelical leaders and other faith leaders joined business leaders, professors and labor leaders at First United Methodist Church of Santa Ana to call for what they called humane comprehensive immigration reform.

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A bipartisan prescription for
national health care reform

By Newt Gingrich and Andrew Von Eschenbach
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
February 1, 2010

As President Barack Obama insisted in his State of the Union Wednesday night, we cannot walk away from health reform now. It is too soon to write an obituary on much-needed changes on how we treat patients and pay for that care. People's lives are at stake. But we should not confuse the president's message as permission for more political maneuvering to adopt a Senate plan that the public has rejected in the polls and recently at the Massachusetts ballot box.

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God and Wall Street

By Rowan Williams
NEWSWEEK
Jan 29, 2010 (magazine issue Feb 8, 2010)

In our culture, we have become used to an attitude in which economic motivations, relationships, and conventions are fundamental: the language of seller and customer has wormed its way into practically all areas of our social life, even education and health care. The implication is that the most basic interaction between one human being and another is the carefully calibrated exchange of material resources.

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A brief history of religion and the U.S. census

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
January 26, 2010

The U.S. Census Bureau has not asked questions about religion since the 1950s, but the federal government did gather some information about religion for about a century before that. Starting in 1850, census takers began asking a few questions about religious organizations as part of the decennial census that collected demographic and social statistics from the general population as well as economic data from business establishments.

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Why is Pat Robertson so quick to condemn Haiti?

Miguel A. De La Torre
Ethicsdaily.com
January 19, 2010

Robertson is forced to blame Satan, and the Haitian people, for if he doesn't, faith becomes complicated. It forces him -- and us -- to wrestle with the theodicy question. How can an all-loving God allow such evil, like an earthquake, to occur?

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March Conference on Latino immigration to Atlanta will connect faith communities

Faith And The City eNewsletter
January 14, 2010

“Latino Immigration to Atlanta: Connecting Faith Communities and Addressing Critical Issues” will present findings of a three-year study of Brazilian, Guatemalan, and Mexican immigrants in metro region and bring together community leaders, activists, policymakers, students, and scholars to discuss challenges and opportunities that Latino immigration poses for congregations and society at large.

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Islamic Society president on earthquake in Haiti

By Ingrid Mattson
Islamic Society of North America
January 15, 2010 (downloaded)

It has been reported that a prominent Christian leader, Pat Robertson, has said that Haiti has been "cursed" by a "pact with the devil." Fortunately, this is not the mainstream Christian position and my friend, the Reverend Paul Raushenbush, has rejected Robertson's "blaming the victims" theology. Religious leaders must take a stance against extremist voices in their community, and I am glad to see Rev. Raushenbush respond to Robertson's ridiculous and offensive suggestions.

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Anne Frank rescuer lives on

By Steven A. Rakitt
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 13, 2010

"Isn't it wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to make the world a better place?" Anne Frank wrote these immortal words in her diary when she was a young teen during World War II. She was able to do so because she and her family were kept alive by Miep Gies, a Dutch woman who died this week at the age of 100.

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Reid got it right

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
MiamiHerald.com
January 13, 2010

The gist of Reid's comment, then, is that a dark-skinned man who announced his candidacy thusly – ``I'm gon' run for president. I ax for your support.'' – would have trouble being taken seriously. I find that an unremarkable contention. George W. Bush couldn't pronounce ``nuclear'' if you put a gun to his head, and you need a GPS and a Sherpa to get through Sarah Palin's winding utterances, but their race buys them at least a measure of forbearance that – call me crazy – I don't think a dark-skinned candidate could expect.

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Religion and women

By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York times
January 10, 2010

Religions derive their power and popularity in part from the ethical compass they offer. So why do so many faiths help perpetuate something that most of us regard as profoundly unethical: the oppression of women?

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An uneasy feeling

By Bob Herbert
New York Times
January 5, 2010

Voters were primed at the beginning of the Obama administration for fundamental changes that would have altered the trajectory of American life for the better. Politicians of all stripes, many of them catering to the nation's moneyed interests, fouled that up to a fare-thee-well.

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The wrong side of history

By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times
November 19, 2009

Critics storm that health care reform is "a cruel hoax and a delusion." Ads in 100 newspapers thunder that reform would mean "the beginning of socialized medicine." The Wall Street Journal's editorial page predicts that the legislation will lead to "deteriorating service." All dire – but also wrong. Those forecasts date not from this year, but from the battle over Medicare in the early 1960s.

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Leo Frank saga still reveals a lot about our nation and ourselves

By Steve Oney
Atlanta Journal Constitution
November 3, 2009

On Aug. 17, 1915, Leo Frank, a Cornell-educated Jewish industrialist, was lynched just outside Atlanta. The Frank case, however, was about more than racism and anti-Semitism. It was also about the conflicting perceptions of the nation's haves and have-nots, the chasm between the people who appear to run things and those who feel they lack a say.

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Former evangelist Frank Schaeffer: Christian Right is 'trolling for assassins'

AlterNet
November 19, 2009

And what it's coalescing into is branding Obama as Hitler, as they've already called him, as something foreign to our shores. We're reminded of that. He's born in Kenya-as brown, as black, above all, as not us. He is Sarah Palin's not a real American. But now, it turns out, that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers, to which all these biblical illusions are directed who should be slaughtered, if not by God, then by just men.

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Mormon Church backs Salt Lake City's gay-rights ordinances

By Tamara Audi
Wall Street Journal
November 19, 2009

Gay-rights activists in Salt Lake City got the backing of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a successful push for city nondiscrimination ordinances – a sign of the complex landscape of the gay-rights debate.

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Advocate for military's Jews speaking up for Islam in wake of Fort Hood killings

By Eric Fingerhut
JTA
November 16, 2009

Weinstein says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's alleged killing of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood is inexcusable and reprehensible. But he also believes it is important to investigate reports of harassment that Hasan allegedly faced as a Muslim in the military – mistreatment that Weinstein says could have contributed to his mental state.

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Young Muslim American voices are more important than ever

By Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, Sally Steenland, Marta Cook , Eleni Towns
Center for American Progress
November 16, 2009

The "Young Muslim American Voices Project," made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, emerged after several months of research and interviews with young Muslim American leaders across the country. Last week, these leaders came to Washington for a roundtable meeting to discuss the challenges and opportunities they identified as most pressing.

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GSU football coach Bill Curry to speak at RCCA’s Pastors Breakfast Dialogue

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
October 30, 2009

Faith And The City and the Regional Council of Churches of Atlanta will welcome Bill Curry, Georgia State University’s first head football coach, as keynote speaker at RCCA’s monthly Pastors Breakfast Dialogue on December 10.

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Opinion: Fact and fiction on the
abortion-reduction bill

By David Gushee, Joel Hunter and Ronald Sider
Associated Baptist Press
September 14, 2009

We are pro-life evangelical Christians with long records of ministry and scholarship in which we have stood up for the unborn and for a society in which every child is welcomed into life and provided the opportunity to flourish. But we also recognize the legal and cultural realities in our nation right now in relation to abortion law.

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A Jewish case for health reform

Mark J. Pelavin
The Jewish Standard
October 26, 2009

As Jews, we are taught to care for justice – and a system that leaves millions uninsured and millions more underinsured is far from just. Our tradition teaches that an individual human life is of infinite value, and yet one American dies every 12 minutes – 45,000 each year – because of lack of health insurance and restricted access to the care they need.

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A Neocon Bible: What would Jesus say?

By David Gibson
Politics Daily
October 7, 2009

The new neocon Bible also says words like "laborer" and "comrade" and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") are used in "liberal" translations like the English Standard Version, and that this "socialistic" terminology "improperly encourages the 'social justice' movement among Christians."

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Play the race card: Why avoiding the
issue doesn't help

By Raina Kelley
NEWSWEEK
September 19, 2009 (From magazine issue September 28, 2009)

I had actually been looking forward to the aftershocks of an Obama victory. Maybe I'm the one who's naive, but I thought of the election of the first African-American president as the ultimate teachable moment. I wasn't expecting a holiday. But almost anything, really, would be better than all this "post-racial" and "Kumbaya" crap we're being peddled.

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‘Other’ voters emerge in Atlanta races

By Steve Suitts
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
October 20, 2009

Whatever their true ancestry, most choose not to declare any traditional racial or ethnic identity. Today these “other” adults represent 12 percent of Atlanta’s registered voters, while self-identified blacks are 50 percent, whites are 37 percent, and Hispanics and Asians are only one percent.

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Mental health conference offers information for faith leaders

Event Announcement
Regional Council of Churches
October 12, 2009

FaithWorks will sponsor the Faith, Family and Mental Health Conference, Thursday, Nov. 19. Metro Atlanta clergy of all faith traditions – including seminary faculty and students, as well as Stephen Ministers of all denominations – are invited to attend. The conference is designed to heighten awareness of mental and addictive illness and to educate participants about resources to help address congregational and community needs.

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Emory grad school becomes James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies

Emory University Website
August 24, 2009

Emory's Board of Trustees has approved naming the Graduate School after James T. Laney, Emory University president from 1977 until 1994. (Ed. note: Dr. Laney co-founded Faith And The City with Ambassador Andrew Young in 1999. Both served until recently as co-chairs of the organization.)

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Georgia is failing its poor families

By Clare S. Richie
Atlanta Journal Constitution
October 15, 2009

Poverty in Georgia is on the rise, with more children living in poverty than adults or seniors. In fact, even before the recession, one in five of Georgia’s children were living in poverty. Families in poverty don’t have the resources to meet their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Can you imagine this for your family? Georgia cannot afford, financially or morally, to ignore child poverty.

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Want to love your neighbor? Pay fair wages

By Kim Bobo
Religion Dispatches
September 7, 2009

A landmark new report, "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America's Cities," demonstrates the pervasiveness of wage theft. Among the workers surveyed: Fully 26 percent of workers were paid less than the legally-required minimum wage, and 60 percent of those underpaid were underpaid by more than $1 per hour.

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Lessons for the GOP from the Gipper

By Lou Zickar
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
October 6, 2009

Lately, it's become fashionable for Republicans to argue that the party must move beyond Ronald Reagan if it wants to recapture its majority next year. Reagan represents the past, the argument goes. The GOP needs to stand for the future.

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Gandhi's message resonates in Muslim societies

Plain Dealer
By Amitabh Pal
September 29, 2009

The fact that Muslims are engaging again and again in the practice of nonviolence to counter tyranny and injustice gives the lie to the notion that Islam is an intrinsically violent religion. Gandhi understood this in his day as he tried to reconcile Hindus and Muslims. We should understand it in our day – thereby honoring his memory.

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How does sexual abuse affect the faith community?

Georgia Center for Child Advocacy

Faith organizations are not immune to child sexual abuse. Offenders are attracted to organizations that serve children and provide a trusted venue for which they can interact with them. In fact, 93% of the admitted child molesters surveyed considered themselves religious. It is imperative that faith-based organizations and houses of worship are structured to protect children from sexual abuse, thus setting a precedent for the rest of society.

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Choosing sides: In health care, Jesus sides with poor

By Drew Smith
ETHICSDAILY.com
August 26, 2009

If we read our Bible carefully, we will find that God is always on the side of the poor and vulnerable. If we are to be on God's side of the issue of health care, then we must side with the poor and vulnerable of this nation. We can and we must speak with greater authority, even if those who stand against health care reform continue to scream. We have the power to change things, if we only will.

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As a pediatrician, a Muslim, and a mother: Speaking out for health-care reform

by Asma Mobin-Uddin
Sojourners: Faith, Politics, Culture
August 25, 2009

God calls on us to uphold the sacredness of each life, to honor the dignity of each person, and to take care of our neighbors. As a pediatrician, as a Muslim, and as a mother, I stand here today with my brothers and sisters from the community to call for a humane approach to health-care reform.

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Faith, truth and tolerance in America

By Edward M. Kennedy
American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches
Delivered October 3, 1983, Liberty Baptist College

Where it is right to apply moral values to public life, let all of us avoid the temptation to be self-righteous and absolutely certain of ourselves. And if that temptation ever comes, let us recall Winston Churchill’s humbling description of an intolerant and inflexible colleague: “There but for the grace of God goes God.”

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Obama cautious on faith-based initiatives

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post
September 15, 2009

While President George W. Bush had expanded government contracts to faith-based groups, Obama promised to end that arrangement if the groups proselytized to the needy they served, or hired only members of that faith. But in office, Obama has proceeded far more cautiously.

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The reckless Right courts violence

By David Frum
The Week
August 13, 2009

Hysterical talk from TV and radio hosts may be a cynical marketing exercise. But it's getting too dangerous to ignore.… The president can be met and bested on the field of reason -- but only by people who are themselves reasonable.

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Pro & Con: Does raising the minimum wage help the economy?

By Doug Gatlin

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 11, 2009

YES: Higher wages mean workers spend more on life's necessities. If minimum wage earners were paid a living wage, they would spend it in the local economy — a powerful economic stimulus. And the government would save money on welfare payments and other savings that would be good for the nation’s economic health.

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Now online: Fairness for Georgia Families living wage video

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
August 5, 2009

“In Search of a Living Wage: Faith in Georgia” – an 11-minute video that is part of a statewide campaign – may be viewed now online. Designed especially to inform members of various faith communities and their congregations, the video offers business and moral arguments for a living wage for all working families in Georgia.

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Introductory, ecumenical JustFAITH workshop inspires passion, thirst for justice

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
August 5, 2009

If you are looking to encounter your faith in a way that challenges you, attend the JustFAITH Introductory Workshop, designed for all interested adults, on August 29 with JustFAITH founder, Jack Jezreel. This ecumenical event shares what Scripture, social teaching, and faith tradition reveal about our call to care for our brothers and sisters in need.

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The words of God do not justify cruelty to women

By Jimmy Carter
The Observer
July 12, 2009

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population.

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Why Obama could relate to Gates arrest

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Miami Herald
July 29, 2009

I'll tell you why Barack Obama said what he did. I think it's simple. I think he looked at Henry Louis Gates and saw his brother-in-law, his nephew, maybe himself if he were not who he is.

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White roofs catch on as energy cost cutters

By Felicity Barringer
New York Times
July 30, 2009

Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat. All that changed last month. Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

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Community colleges must evolve

By William D. Green
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 30, 2009

In the next seven years, the nation will need 41 percent fewer file clerks, 32 percent fewer computer operators and 27 percent fewer electrical and electronic equipment assemblers. But even as these relatively low-skill occupations disappear, the positions that community colleges prepare students to take will grow.

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Iran’s second sex

By Roger Cohen
New York Times
June 27, 2009

From Day 1, Iran’s women stood in the vanguard. Their voices from rooftops were loudest, and their defiance in the streets boldest. “Stand, don’t run,” Nazanine told me as the baton-wielding police charged up handsome Vali Asr avenue on the day after the fraudulent election. She stood.

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Commentary: U.S. should leave Iran alone

By Roland S. Martin
CNN Contributor
June 18, 2009

Isn't it ironic that the president's conservative critics want him to stand up for democracy in Iran, when it was the United States that chose to destroy democracy and install a dictator we could control more than 50 years ago?

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Religious freedom unkept vow in U.S.

By Azadeh Shahshahani
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 24, 2009

I have been watching with interest and apprehension the movement reverberating in my birthplace over the past few weeks. The cries of “Azadi” by the people who have poured out in the tens of thousands into the streets of Iran to demand greater freedom have defied the distance between us.

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Five ways to fix America’s schools

By Harold O. Levy
New York Times
June 8, 2009

American education was once the best in the world. But today, our private and public universities are losing their competitive edge to foreign institutions, they are losing the advertising wars to for-profit colleges and they are losing control over their own admissions because of an ill-conceived ranking system.

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When judicial activism suits the right

By Ramesh Ponnuru
New York Times
June 24, 2009

The two biggest controversies surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court have been her handling of that case and her comments about how ethnicity can affect judges’ reasoning…. The debates on these issues are highlighting a deep inconsistency in the way my fellow conservatives approach race and the law.

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What do you say when they say nobody’s honest?

by Rushworth M. Kidder
Ethics Newsline
June 22, 2009

There’s nothing new about this argument. It surfaces among the ancient Greeks. It finds expression in Thomas Hobbes’s view that men in a state of nature, unmediated by government, are condemned to lives that are “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” How to address it remains a key task of the world’s major religions. And how deeply it’s believed will determine how the citizens of any nation view one another along a scale stretching from suspicion to trust.

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Interfaith Disability Connection presents 2009 “Beyond Ramp” conference

IDC Announcement
May 21, 2009

The “2009 Interfaith Disability Connection Summit: Pursuing Inclusion Beyond the Ramp” is an August 9 event that will focus on how religious communities can make their houses of worship and programs more accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities and their families.

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GOP walks fine line on opposing Sotomayor

By Ed Hornick
CNN
May 26, 2009

The Republican Party risks further alienation from Hispanics by challenging the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who would become the first Hispanic, and third woman, on the Supreme Court.

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In the absence of proof

By Bob Herbert
New York Times
May 23, 2009

The options are running out for Troy Davis, a man who has been condemned to death for killing a police officer in Georgia, but whose guilt is seriously in question.

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200 executions and counting: Texas Gov. Rick Perry's cruel death tally

By Liliana Segura
AlterNet
June 2, 2009

"Executions in the U.S. have become largely a Southern practice. Last year, 95 percent of all executions were in the South. It is the legacy of the Old South and its history of slavery, lynchings and segregation that is the reason why the South executes so many people compared to other parts of the U.S.”

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The Harlem miracle

By David Brooks
New York Times
May 8, 2009

Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused.

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New book praises Faith And The City public leadership program at Columbia Theological Seminary

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
May 4, 2009

A public religious leadership initiative, undertaken jointly by Faith And The City and Columbia Theological Seminary, is described in a new book as one of “ten successful collaborative organizations [that] accomplished positive socio-economic change at local, regional and national levels.”

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A crisis of affordability: How our public colleges are turning into gated communities for the wealthy

By Andy Kroll, Tomdispatch.com
AlterNet
April 3, 2009

Over the past 30 years, the average cost of college tuition, fees, and room and board has increased nearly 100%, from $7,857 in 1977-1978 to $15,665 in 2007-2008 (in constant 2006-2007 dollars). Median household income, on the other hand, has risen a mere 18% over that same period, from about $42,500 to just over $50,000. College costs, in other words, have gone up at more than five times the rate of incomes.

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Just 53% say capitalism better than socialism

Rasmussen Reports
April 09, 2009

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

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Islamic financing

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Educational Broadcasting Corporation
April 10, 2009

Here at home, amid all the losses in the banking and housing worlds, there is one conspicuous exception. It’s the Islamic practice of doing business without charging or paying interest on a loan. Throughout the recession so far, Islamic financing has been growing at 10 to 15 percent a year.

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What happened to the ban on assault weapons?

By Jimmy Carter
New York Times
April 27, 2009

The evolution in public policy concerning the manufacture, sale and possession of semiautomatic assault weapons like AK-47s, AR-15s and Uzis has been very disturbing. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and I all supported a ban on these formidable firearms, and one was finally passed in 1994.

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How to raise our I.Q.

By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times
April 15, 2009

If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong.

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Obama’s ersatz capitalism

By Joseph E. Stiglitz
New York Times
April 1, 2009

The Obama administration’s $500 billion or more proposal to deal with America’s ailing banks has been described by some in the financial markets as a win-win-win proposal. Actually, it is a win-win-lose proposal: the banks win, investors win — and taxpayers lose.

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Jack Kemp

By Dorothy Samuels
New York Times
May 6, 2009

A self-styled “bleeding heart conservative,” Mr. Kemp came to understand the importance of respecting the rights of people, regardless of race, during his time playing football. “I can’t help but care about the rights of the people I used to shower with,” he famously said.

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Empower teens to say no on their terms, not ours

By Jane Fonda
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 6, 2009

Sixty-two times each day, a teen girl somewhere in Georgia learns she is pregnant. That’s 62 lives changed forever. In far too many cases, these lives become much more difficult thanks to the huge challenges of being a mother too soon.

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What does God think about the economy?

Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta
March 19, 2009

Would paying closer attention to the precepts of our faith traditions have kept us from this economic calamity? What is the role of religious and moral ethics in an advanced capitalist economy? Discuss these questions and more at the FAMA Assembly Meeting, Wednesday, April 22, 2009, from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm, Emory University Center for Ethics.

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Columbia Seminary president to preach on 'Day 1'

Seminaries and sex

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Educational Broadcasting Corporation
March 27, 2009

According to many of America's pastors, one of the most common topics congregation members seek guidance about are sexual issues, such as teen sexual activity and marital infidelity. Yet few seminaries offer courses in sexuality, and fewer still require courses in this area.

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The great shame

By Bob Herbert
New York Times
March 21, 2009

New data released by the Pentagon showed an almost 9 percent increase in the number of sexual assaults reported in the last fiscal year — 2,923 — and a 25 percent increase in such assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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John Hope Franklin

By Brent Staples
New York Times
March 27, 2009

Every death leaves a conversation unfinished. The one I regret not finishing with the historian John Hope Franklin, who died Wednesday at the age of 94, focused on what it was like to be a rising black intellectual in the Jim Crow South.

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The Mexican Evolution

By Enrique Krauze
New York Times
March 24, 2009

While we bear responsibility for our problems, the caricature of Mexico being propagated in the United States only increases the despair on both sides of the Rio Grande. It is also profoundly hypocritical. America is the world’s largest market for illegal narcotics. The United States is the source for the majority of the guns used in Mexico’s drug cartel war, according to law enforcement officials on both sides of the border.

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The Daily Me

By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times
March 19, 2009

When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about. Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.

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Report: Global executions doubled
in 2008, U.S. #4 in state killing

By Liliana Segura
AlterNet
March 25, 2009

As usual, the United States received the dubious distinction of being the only county left in the Americas that "regularly executes." Last year, the U.S. carried out 37 executions, with Texas responsible for 18.

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Rosalyn Carter featured at Regional Council of Churches Pastors Breakfast Dialogue

RCCA Website
March 11, 2009

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, featured guest at the Regional Council of Churches Pastors Breakfast Dialogue on March 19, will discuss how our faith calls us to care for the mentally ill among us. The monthly event will be hosted by the Rev. Joanna Adams and Morningside Presbyterian Church, 7:30-9:00 a.m.

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Chrislam

God and empire

by David E. Anderson
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Public Broadcasting System
November 19, 2008

Reading the foreign policy positions of the top Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in a series of articles published in Foreign Affairs earlier this year, one found many descriptions of the United States. But not one of them used the “E” word — empire.

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The death of the news

By Gary Kamiya
Salon
Feb. 17, 2009

No one can predict what the new information age will look like, and my version may be excessively dystopian. But one thing is indisputable: Reporting must be kept alive. With all its limitations and faults, it is a light that illuminates the world outside ourselves. And in an increasingly virtual and solipsistic age, that light is needed more than ever.

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Our pigs, our food, our health

By Nicholas D. Kristof
New York Times
March 12, 2009

The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is yes.

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Seminary association to sponsor Latino immigration workshop on March 21

Faith And The City e.Newsletter
February 11, 2009

“Latino Immigration: Challenges for the Church” is a workshop for church leaders, including pastors, lay leaders, seminarians, and other interested individuals. Scheduled for Saturday, March 21, at Columbia Theological Seminary, the event is supported by the Faith And The City Programs at Columbia, Candler School of Theology, Interdenominational Theological Center, and McAfee School of Theology, working through the Atlanta Theological Association. Featured speakers include two scholars and authors on Latino/Latina faith and immigration issues, Harold J. Recinos, Ph.D., and Marie T. Friedmann Marquardt, Ph.D. To download the four-page brochure with program and registration information, click “Read more” below.

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How words could end a war

By Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges
New York Times
January 25, 2009

Across the world, people believe that devotion to sacred or core values that incorporate moral beliefs — like the welfare of family and country, or commitment to religion and honor — are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable. Our studies…. suggest that people will reject material compensation for dropping their commitment to sacred values and will defend those values regardless of the costs.

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Islam and modernity

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Educational Broadcasting Corporation
January 9th, 2009

Ziade says in this day and age the principles of modernity should be universal — principles like the acceptance of individual and women’s rights, reason, doubt, and the separation of mosque and state. Instead, she says, Islamists are taking Egypt back to another era.

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Religion and the Obama inauguration

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Educational Broadcasting Corporation
January 23, 2009

“The role religion will play in the administration remains to be seen, but in Washington this past week, faith was a major part of the inauguration festivities and the days that followed. Kim Lawton has our report.”

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Mercer professor releases statement on executive orders reversing U.S. detention policies

Press Release
Mercer University
January 22, 2009

It is striking that a refrain running through these executive orders is a concern for national security, foreign policy, and justice. The president has implicitly but clearly recognized today that the aberrant detainee and interrogation policies of the last seven years in fact damaged our national security, harmed our foreign policy interests, and violated core principles of justice.

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