Faith And The City e.Newsletter

February 1, 2007
Volume 6, Issue 2

Greetings! Faith And The City offers the information below 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.

Visit the new Faith And The City weblog – www.interfaithdialogueatlanta.org – and share your comments on the issues below and a range of others.

FATC News  

Faith And The City’s Newman receives
MLK Torch of Peace Award
Faith And The City e.Newsletter
January 30, 2007
On January 18, Georgia State University recognized a member of the Faith And The City family, Harvey Newman, Ph.D., with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Torch of Peace Award for faculty at the University’s 24th Annual Convocation honoring the slain civil rights leader. Dr. Newman serves as professor of urban policy studies at the University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and is a former director of the Faith And The City Program at Columbia Theological Seminary.
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Social Environment 

Atheist Richard Dawkins on 'The God Delusion'
By Terrence McNally
AlterNet
January 18, 2007
In the last few years, Americans have seen the dark side of religion. The events of 9/11 brought home the extremes to which some radical Muslims would go to defeat infidels and attain virgins. At home, we've seen assaults on the separation of Church and State and attacks on the teaching of evolution and the distribution of life-saving condoms. And now, it appears the godless are fighting back.
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The Dawkins Delusion
Opinion by Alister McGrath
AlterNet
January 26, 2007
Alister McGrath, a biochemist and Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University, may be Richard Dawkins' most prominent critic. As the author of "Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life," he was interviewed extensively for Dawkins' recent documentary, "The Root of All Evil." Not a frame of these interviews made it into the final edit. Below is a slightly modified version of remarks delivered by McGrath in response to Dawkins' latest book, "The God Delusion."
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Teepen: America's racist past still lives ...
just ask Oprah
Opinion by Tom Teepen
Cox News Service
January 12, 2007
Oprah Winfrey recently opened a private school in South Africa for 152 girls. The idea is to educate high-qualifying, high-promise young women from poor homes, nearly all of them black, for leadership roles. The TV talk show hostess put $40 million into the project. This, you'd think, would be universally accounted a good thing, and while Winfrey might not have expected praise to bubble like champagne in a flute, certainly she must have been caught off guard by the cascade of criticism that soaked her.
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Gonzales questions habeas corpus
Opinion by Robert Parry
Baltimore Chronicle (crom.com)
January 19, 2007
In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by a U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales questioned whether the U.S. Constitution grants habeas corpus rights of a fair trial to every American. Responding to questions from Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, Gonzales argued that the Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights; it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended.
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Global Issues  

Outsourcing Iraq war a grave threat to democracy
By Jeremy Scahill
Houston Chronicle (chron.com)
January 25, 2007
Already, private contractors constitute the second-largest "force" in Iraq. At last count, there were about 100,000 contractors in Iraq, of which 48,000 work as private soldiers, according to a Government Accountability Office report. These soldiers have operated with almost no oversight or effective legal constraints and are an undeclared expansion of the scope of the occupation. Many of these contractors make up to $1,000 a day, far more than active-duty soldiers. What's more, these forces are politically expedient, as contractor deaths go uncounted in the official toll.
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Education

To get a good school system,
do we have to start over?
Public Agenda
Dec. 21, 2006
One of the biggest stories in education recently was the report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. The high-powered group says the threat of competition from China and India is so serious, and the problems facing U.S. public education so dire, that the U.S. ought to effectively start over. The recommendations included bringing in private contractors to run schools and dramatic changes in teacher compensation. Proponents are already saying this report will be as significant as the famous "A Nation at Risk" report in the 1980s.
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Questionable conviction of Connecticut teacher in pop-up porn case
By Lindsay Beyerstein
AlterNet
January 19, 2007
Julie Amero, a 40 year-old substitute teacher from Connecticut is facing up to 40 years in prison for exposing her seventh grad class to a cascade of pornographic imagery. Amero maintains that she is a victim of a malicious software infestation that caused her computer to spawn porn uncontrollably.
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A stand against Wikipedia
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed
January 26, 2007
As Wikipedia has become more and more popular with students, some professors have become increasingly concerned about the online, reader-produced encyclopedia. The history department at Middlebury College is trying to take a stronger, collective stand. It voted this month to bar students from citing the Web site as a source in papers or other academic work. All faculty members will be telling students about the policy and explaining why material on Wikipedia – while convenient – may not be trustworthy.
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Faith and Politics  

Christian groups trade barbs on their sources of funding
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post
January 11, 2007
Two influential Christian nonprofit organizations questioned each other's finances yesterday, each suggesting that the other is beholden to big donors with partisan political motives. The clash between the National Council of Churches and the Institute on Religion and Democracy was a rarity in Washington, where liberal and conservative advocacy groups fight fiercely over issues but seldom dig deeply into each other's funding.
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Events

Guidelines for Posting Events

Faith And The City posts brief event notices that must include a website address for additional information. Events should be concerned with faith, interfaith and public issues.

Feb. 7: “War, Peace, Oppression.” Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta lunch meeting. Third in a series exploring perspectives from different faith traditions.
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Feb. 7: “The Role of the Black Church in Combating HIV/AIDS in the African American Community.” Recovery Consultants of Atlanta.
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Feb. 9: “Architecture’s Impact on Quality of Life: Financing, Funding and Fundamentals.” Designed for religious and non-profit communities and other market segments. Sizemore Group’s 4 th Annual Conference.
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Feb. 13: “Presbyterian Rally Day 2007.” Georgia Capitol and Central Presbyterian Church. Learn about policy and support policy makers
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Feb. 27: "When I Was In Prison:  A Conference on Prison Ministry.” Candler School of Theology.
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May 14-16: "Alligators in the Swamp: Power, Ministry, and Leadership." Led by Beverly and George Thompson, the seminar is based on their book, which bears the same title and was inspired by the work of Faith And The City. Offered through Alban Institute.
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