Faith And The City e.Letter
Sep. 19, 2005
Volume 4, Issue 9

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.

Power, Ministry, and Leadership Book
Inspired by Faith And The City
to be Published in October
Faith And The City e.Letter
September 12, 2005
Alligators in the Swamp: Power, Ministry, and Leadership, a book inspired in large part by the Faith And The City experience of the editor and two contributors, is scheduled for October publication by Pilgrim Press. The editor, George B. Thompson, and the contributors -- Beverly Thompson, Harvey Newman, and Jim Watkins -- explore the nature of power and the challenges it poses to pastoral ministry. Using the alligator metaphor as the book’s title, this team illustrates the complexity of power and how it can be used effectively.
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Needed: Public Religious Leaders for A Growing and Diverse Community
Faith And The City
August 19, 2005
The Faith And The City Leadership Institute "graduated" its inaugural class in June and is now accepting applications and nominations for the Class of 2006, which will begin in January and continue into May.
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Faith And The City Mentor A Family Program Now Aiding Hurricane Evacuees
Faith And The City e.Letter
Sep. 16, 2005
Drawing on five years of experience helping hundreds of men, women, and children in working homeless families to transition from shelters into permanent housing, the Faith And The City Mentor A Family Program is now expanding its services to aid Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the Atlanta metro community.
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Muslim Groups Help Katrina Victims on
9/11 Anniversary
CNN.com
Sep. 11, 2005
About 2,000 Muslim volunteers helped victims of Hurricane Katrina at Houston’s convention center Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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Has Katrina Saved U.S. Media?
Opinion by Matt Wells
BBC News, Los Angeles
September 5, 2005
Instead of secretive "Deep Throat" meetings in car-parks, cameras captured the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convention Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forward by those in power.
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Why Don't Journalists Get Religion?
A Tenuous Bridge to Believers
By Gal Beckerman
Columbia Journalism Review
May/June 2004
However central belief and faith might be to the American populace, our news media seldom puncture the surface in their reporting on religion. The theology and faith of the believers is kept at arm's length, and the writing is clinical.
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The Love that Does Justice
Speech by Michael Edwards
Rockport Leadership Conference
June 3, 2003
The essence of what I have to say this evening amounts to a bold - some might say extravagant or even dangerous - claim: that the future of our world depends on how successful we are in developing and applying a new social science of love.
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White People's Burden
Opinion by Robert Jensen
AlterNet
Aug. 31, 2005
The United States is a white country. What makes the United States white is not the fact that most Americans are white but the assumption – especially by people with power – that American equals white. Those people don't say it outright. It comes out in subtle ways. Or, sometimes, in ways not so subtle.
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Atlanta in List of Top Cities
By Janet Frankston
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 22, 2005
Atlanta, perennially in the top 10 or 15 in the annual survey, ranked second in 2000 and dropped to No. 11 in 2003. Humphrey Taylor, chairman of the Harris poll of Harris interactive, said the aura after the 1996 Olympics helped raise the city's profile and draw newcomers. And they keep coming in almost record numbers.
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Georgia's New Poll Tax
Editorial
New York Times
September 12, 2005
In 1966, the Supreme Court held that the poll tax was unconstitutional. Nearly 40 years later, Georgia is still charging people to vote, this time with a new voter ID law that requires many people without driver's licenses – a group that is disproportionately poor, black and elderly – to pay $20 or more for a state ID card. The law is a national disgrace.
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Atlanta Crime Lowest in Decades
City Newsbytes
Office of the Mayor of Atlanta
August 30, 2005
Within the past two years, each of Atlanta's seven major crime categories has experienced lows. Trends for 2005 indicate overall crime will be its lowest since 1969, while homicide appears on course to decrease by 50 percent in two years.
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SAT Math Scores Rise, Verbal Scores Flat
Public Agenda Alert
September 1, 2005
Average SAT math scores hit their highest level ever for the class of 2005, but verbal scores remained flat, according to the College Board. While minority students made advances in their scores, the report noted that minority students are still less likely to take college prep courses like physics and calculus.
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Left Behind, Way Behind
Opinion by Bob Herbert
New York Times
August 29, 2005
Only about two-thirds of American teenagers (and just half of all black, Latino and Native American teens) graduate with a regular diploma four years after they enter high school. Of those who graduate, only about half read well enough to succeed in college. Millions of American kids are not even making it through high school in an era in which a four-year college degree is becoming a prerequisite for achieving (or maintaining) a middle-class lifestyle.
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Census Says Poverty Rate Rises for
4th Straight Year
By Eunice Moscoso
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
August 31, 2005
The nation's poverty rate increased for the fourth year in a row from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. In addition, the number of people without health insurance increased by 800,000 during that time, although the percentage of uninsured remained the same at 15.7 percent.
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Crisis on the Mexican Border
By Sally Urvina
Christian Century
August 10, 2004
Last year over 200 people lost their lives as they tried to cross the border from Mexico into Arizona. They died from dehydration in the 120-degree heat of the Sonoran Desert. They died in storm drains as they tried to cross during the flash-flood season. They died in the trunks of vehicles that were abandoned by "coyotes" (smugglers), and in rollover accidents during high-speed chases.
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Interview with Uri Avnery
Tikkun
September/October 2005
It is a basic weakness of democracy that the democratic majority only comes out when it is severely provoked. And what is happening now in Israel, perhaps, is that the provocation by the settlers may reach a point where it will succeed in provoking the majority of Israelis to come out and fight for what they believe is important.
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Ecology in Islam: Protection of the Web of Life a Duty for Muslims
By Dr. Hasan Zillur Rahim
Islam Online
October 1991 (Archives)
Few know that Qur'anic verses describing nature and natural phenomena outnumber verses dealing with commandments and sacraments. In fact, of more than 6,000 verses in the Holy Qur'an, some 750, one eighth of the Book, exhort believers to reflect on nature, to study the relationship between living organisms and their environment, to make the best use of reason and to maintain the balance and proportion God has built into His creation.
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Calendar Events

Guidelines for Posting Events

Faith And The City posts brief listings of event notices that must include a website address for additional information.
To be posted, events should be concerned with public issues and/or civic dialogue.

Atlanta Regional Commission's Annual "State of the Region" Breakfast (Nov. 18)
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