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Faith And The City e.Newsletter
May 11, 2007
Dr. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, professor of law at Emory University and an internationally noted scholar and human rights activist, is featured on Faith And The City Forum on Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters cable TV network. The broadcast schedule appears at the end of this article.

"The divides are not Islam and western society, the divide is between people who have different values. We must promote connections between people who want to contribute to human values. People who share that commitment can collaborate across cultural divides."

Morehouse’s choice
Morehouse College recently named Dr. Robert Michael Franklin as its 10 th president. A 1975 alumnus of the college, Franklin is a founding member of the Faith And The City Board of Directors, past president of the Regional Council of Churches Board, and current RCCA Advisory Council chairperson-elect.
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Mentor A Family Program
is discontinued for lack of funds
Faith And The City e.Newsletter
April 26, 2007
Faith And The City today announced the termination of its Mentor A Family Program, effective April 15, due to discontinuation of funding by the program’s donors, which are placing more emphasis on other initiatives to combat homelessness.
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Maryland is first state to require living wage
By Steven Greenhouse
New York Times
May 9, 2007
Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland signed the nation's first statewide living wage bill yesterday, giving fresh momentum to a movement that seeks to raise wages through legislation. Under the law, employers with state contracts will generally have to pay workers a minimum amount - $11.30 an hour in the Baltimore-Washington corridor and $8.50 an hour in the rural counties, where wages and prices are usually lower.
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A candidate, his minister and the search for faith
By Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
April 30, 2007
CHICAGO - Members of Trinity United Church of Christ squeezed into a downtown hotel ballroom in early March to celebrate the long service of their pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. One congregant stood out amid the flowers and finery: Senator Barack Obama, there to honor the man who led him from skeptic to self-described Christian.
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Use of Wiccan symbol on veterans' headstones is approved
By Neela Banerjee
New York Times
April 24, 2007
To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans' headstones. The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case.
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Hip Hop profanity, misogyny and violence: Blame the manufacturer
By Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
May 7, 2007 (posted)
On a Spring day at McDonald's fast food restaurants all across Black America, counter clerks welcome female customers with the greeting, "What you want, bitch?" Female employees flip burgers in see-through outfits and make lewd sexual remarks to pre-teen boys while bussing tables. McDonald's managers position themselves near the exits, arms folded, Glocks protruding from their waistbands, nodding to departing customers, "Have a good day, motherf**kers. Y'all my niggas."
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Rewriting the ad rules for Muslim-Americans
By Louise Story
New York Times
April 28, 2007
For years, few advertisers in the United States have dared to reach out to Muslims. Either they did not see much potential for sales or they feared a political backlash. And there were practical reasons: American Muslims come from so many ethnic backgrounds that their only common ground is their religion, a subject most marketers avoid.
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Matters of faith find a new prominence on campus
By Alan Finder
New York Times
May 2, 2007
Peter J. Gomes has been at Harvard University for 37 years, and says he remembers when religious people on campus felt under siege. To be seen as religious often meant being dismissed as not very bright, he said. No longer. At Harvard these days, said Professor Gomes, the university preacher, "There is probably more active religious life now than there has been in 100 years."
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P.E. classes turn to video game that works legs
By Seth Schiesel
New York Times
April 30, 2007
Children don't often yell in excitement when they are let into class, but as the doors opened to the upper level of the gym at South Middle School here one recent Monday, the assembled students let out a chorus of shrieks. In they rushed, past the Ping-Pong table, past the balance beams and the wrestling mats stacked unused. They sprinted past the ghosts of Gym Class Past toward two TV sets looming over square plastic mats on the floor. In less than a minute a dozen seventh graders were dancing in furiously kinetic union to the thumps of a techno song called "Speed Over Beethoven."
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In turnabout, infant deaths climb in South
By Erik Eckholm
New York Times
April 22, 2007
For decades, Mississippi and neighboring states with large black populations and expanses of enduring poverty made steady progress in reducing infant death. But, in what health experts call an ominous portent, progress has stalled and in recent years the death rate has risen in Mississippi and several other states.
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Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross
The Independent
Published: 15 April 2007
It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail. They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops.
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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.

May 14-16: "Alligators in the Swamp: Power, Ministry, and Leadership." Led by Beverly and George Thompson, respectively the editor of and a contributor to book bearing same title. Offered through The Alban Institute.
Read more about event ...
Read article about book ...

May 18: “ The Role of the Black Church in Combating HIV/AIDS in the African American Community: Focusing on HIV vaccines.” The Hope Clinic, SisterLove Inc., and Hopewell Baptist Church. Call 877.424.4273 or email vaccine@emory.edu.

June 5: “Third Annual Interfaith Service to Recognize hunger Awareness Day.” Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta (FAMA) and the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Call 404.892.3333, ext.1440, or visit website by clicking below.
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