Faith And The City e.Letter
Feb. 21, 2005
Volume 4, Issue 2

Greetings! Faith And The City offers the following information for your review. Use the associated links to learn more about each topic. For information on a wider range of public issues, visit our home page at http://www.faithandthecity.org.

Our New Religious Politics
By Mark Silk
Religion in the News, Winter 2005
But over the past quarter century the American civil religion has been invaded by what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile calls political religion – religion as an instrument of domestic political combat. It was Falwell and company who began the now completed process of turning white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc. In 2004 the GOP fully embraced the idea that churches and synagogues of all sorts were where to go for votes.
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Why America Needs a Spiritual Left
By Michael Lerner
Tikkun, January/February 2005
We are not advocating that people on the Left should all become religious or spiritual. What we are advocating for is a Left that is friendly not only to secularists and militant atheists, but also to people of faith who share a commitment to peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. We advocate for a Left which believes that the most po werful critique of this society must be rooted in challenging the way this society's capitalist marketplace fosters an ethos of selfishness and materialism.
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Interfaith Alliance Applauds President’s Expanded Moral Vision
Press Release
The Interfaith Alliance, Feb. 3, 2005
The Interfaith Alliance applauds the president for expanding his moral values agenda in his State of the Union address. The Interfaith Alliance has repeatedly stated that the moral values debate must reflect a wide array of religious and ethical concerns, beyond gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research…. We call on the president to remember his own words of compassion for the weak and the vulnerable when he expands tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans. Too often, such tax cuts require reductions in funding for social programs.
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Response to 2005 Inaugural Address
Rabbi Jack Moline
The Interfaith Alliance, Feb. 16, 2005
But I would also be remiss if I did not note with great disappointment that the President's choice to offer God's blessing at the end of his inauguration ceremony disenfranchised millions of non-Christian Americans with his choice of signature language. All the promises of equality and equal consideration are empty if a person's faith is relegated to second class because it is called by a different sacred name.
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Budget Cuts on Main Street
By Ron Scherer
Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 9, 2005
More than at any time in the four years of the Bush administration, Main Street will be feeling the impact of the federal budget if the president's spending plan is adopted.
From Altoona, Pa., where Amtrak stops, to the nation's congested airports, Americans could be looking at changes that will affect their everyday lives – everything from after-school programs to cotton harvests – as a result of bigger-than-normal cutbacks.
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Iran : The Wrong Threat
By Ignacio Ramonet
LeMonde diplomatique, February 2005
“The majority of the Iranians viewed the American interventions against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq sympathetically, because they rid us of two regimes that were fiercely hostile to us. But these threats by Washington and Israel serve the interests of the most conservative currents and improve the election chances of the most anti-reformist candidates. For Iranian democrats, it’s a disaster.”
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Austrian Muslim Women at Heart of Defending Islam
By Ahmed Al-Matboli
Islam Online, Feb. 14, 2005
Austrian Muslim women stood up to be counted, feeling, like men, duty bound to defend their religion and clear misconceptions about Islam in the western media. Reinforcing the eminent status they enjoy under Islam, they established last month the Muslim Women Forum in Austria (FMFO) as an affiliate to the Islamic Religious Authority (IGG) to get the message across.
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Discussions on Dharma
Hinduism Today
October/November/December 2004
From the language of puja and the Trinity to organ donation and gay marriage, the Mela's religious leaders offer their sagely opinions. There were six main topics: the Hindu concept of Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva); the Hindu approach to the post 9/11 world; organ donation; gay marriage; whether one must be born a Hindu to be a Hindu; and whether Sanskrit is the only proper language for worship.
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Life After High School: Young People Talk about Their Hopes and Prospects
Public Agenda Alert, Feb. 9, 2005
Public Agenda's latest study, "Life After High School," surveys young adults to examine the decisions they make about work and college. We found the vast majority of young adults strongly believe in higher education. But the survey raises questions about the trade-offs many minority students have to make on their college choices. The study also portrays the hit-or-miss career path for those without a degree.
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Back to Beat Street
By Scott Thill
AlterNet, Feb. 11, 2005
Hip hop may have outgrown its impoverished upbringing in some corners of the mediasphere, but the majority of its offspring are nevertheless still struggling to stay alive in an environment teeming with a host of new and time-tested oppressive policies, including rampant media consolidation, racial profiling, police abuse and much more. Those are still the thorny issues of hip hop you will never see tackled on BET and MTV, because they don't sell the fantasy. Which is this: Everything is fine. Keep drinking that 40-oz. And whatever you do, don't organize.
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Event: Disability Day at the Capitol (Feb. 24: 10am – 2pm)
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Event: Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta (FAMA) Assembly (Mar. 2: 12 noon)
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Event: Enlightened Path to Muslim-Christian Understanding (Mar. 2: 8pm)
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Event: Religions in a World of Violence: Virus or Vaccine? (Mar. 3: 7:30 pm)
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Event: Social and Ethical Research Issues: Cultural Issues in Minorities (Mar. 30)
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Event: Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta (FAMA) Assembly (May 4: 12 noon)
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Event: World Pilgrims Trip to Israel (August 2005)
Contact: Sherry Frank, 404.233.5501

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