News: Quick Links | Sojourners

News: Quick Links

Occupy America: A new great awakening
Starting with Occupy Wall Street, protests have spread across the United States with Americans from all walks of life decrying the economic inequities faced in our nation today. This movement is a new "Great Awakening" with implications for our spiritual lives.
Learn more HERE.

Occupy protesters' one demand: A new New Deal-well, maybe
"What is our one demand?" That question, put forth by one of the original and most iconic posters advertising the occupation of Zuccotti Park, still hasn't been answered. Many veteran occupiers believe that making specific demands would be counterproductive, while others are working hard to craft concrete proposals they think everyone can agree on.
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The liberal church of Herman Cain
Herman Cain has vaulted to the top of the polls as a Republican presidential candidate, but there's one audience that may prove tougher for him to win over: his hometown church. Cain, a conservative who recently said African-Americans were "brainwashed" into voting Democratic, is an associate minister at an Atlanta megachurch that has been a stronghold of liberal activism and is led by a pastor who cites Malcolm X as one of his influences.
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Colbert's pitch for job creation: Look out for the little guy
Stephen Colbert has an idea to get America out of its current jobs crisis: look out for the little guy.

Election-year goals of Christian group questioned
In the 1940s, an argument erupted among a group of American Christians far from the mainstream. Pentecostals, the spirit-filled worshippers known mostly for speaking in tongues, were at a crossroads, divided over the extent of God's modern-day miracles. If God made apostles and prophets during the New Testament era, did he still create them today?
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Why Herman Cain's immigration policy is an invitation to war and an assault on the constitution
In an interview last night with CNN's John King, GOP pizza czar and presidential frontrunner Herman Cain offered an odd immigration policy proposal - simply turn immigration over to 50 different states.
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Rich and poor, from St. Luke to Warren Buffett
In the Catholic Church's calendar, All Saints Day, Nov. 1, is coming soon, a day when we remember all the holy ones, those officially recognized or canonized and those not. They are models of Christian discipleship, exemplars of virtue and of justice and of charity, they are those we believe are now able to see God face to face and to intercede for us. Many of the saints gave their lives for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, the marginalized, the sick. The saints did not wall themselves up in the smug, solitary and self-congratulatory comfort of gated communities, but rather they broke down barriers that excluded the poor, and reached out to them, stood with them and raised up their dignity. They did not blame the poor for their poverty nor did they flatter the wealthy with thoughts of how much they deserved their luxuries.
Learn more HERE.

ICE deported more illegal immigrants in 2011 than it ever had before
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton announced on Tuesday that his agency removed 396,906 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2011, the largest number in the agency's history.
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Poll: Washington to blame more than Wall Street for economy
Most Americans blame Wall Street for the nation's economic predicament - but they blame Washington more. And in the democracy that fancies itself the capital of capitalism, more than four in 10 people describe the U.S. economic system as personally unfair to them.
Learn more HERE.

Alabama immigration law update: Farm work is hard
Last week, a federal appeals court blocked the part of Alabama's new immigration law-one of the harshest in the nation-that required public schools to check on their students' immigration statuses. A win for immigration advocates? Not so fast. The court preserved a section of the law that allows police officers to check a person's immigration status during traffic stops, and another making it a felony for illegal immigrants to conduct state business (like getting a driver's license).
Learn more HERE.

Would you pledge $20.14 to end the war in Afghanistan?
Last weekend marked another grim new milestone for the war in Afghanistan: more than twice as many U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since President Obama took office than in the eight years Bush was President. There is, quite literally, no end in sight. In 2014 -- three years from now -- there is supposed to be a "transition" to "Afghan lead" on the war. But if the Pentagon has its way, 2014 will not be a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. If the Pentagon has its way, there will still be tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2014, as there were when Obama took office. Indeed, if the Pentagon has its way, there will still be tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2024.
Learn more HERE.

Who does God want in the White House?
Vote for me or burn in hell. I can't imagine someone running for office saying that. And yet four candidates -- Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum -- have said they had a sense that God was leading them to run. How far can we be from "vote for me or burn in hell" when it seems we're already comfortable with "vote for me, I've been called by God"?
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Religion And Immigration: We Have Not Yet Begun To Love
If our love of God does not directly influence, and even change, how we engage in the issues of our time on this earth, I wonder what good religion is. "God talk" becomes an opaque screen in which we see only reflections of ourselves -- instead of any kind of true enlightenment or Light. "Anyone who says she loves God, and hates her brother or sister, is a liar" (1 John 4:20). None of us wants to be a liar, yet the high goals of religion make deceit and denial almost inevitable for all of us. (Read Paul's attempts to describe this paradoxical phenomenon in Rom. 7:7-25). For all of us, the daily question is this, "Have I even begun to love?"
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Church Officials Cleared of Charges for U.S. Capitol "Civil Disobedience"
Supposedly motivated by the civil disobedience of the Civil Rights movement and leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., a group of eleven leftist religious and civic officials, known as the "Rotunda Eleven," engaged in "civil disobedience" by praying and refusing to leave the U. S. Capitol Rotunda on July 28, 2011. The group "went to the Rotunda at the height of the budget debate to refocus the attention of Congress, President Obama, and the nation on the plight of millions of sick, poor, and working Americans," according to Bob Edgar who organized the protest, and is a former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. Edgar, now head of "Common Cause," claimed that "we walk in the shoes of Martin Luther King, Jr.," and speak for those "who have not been able to speak."
Learn more HERE.

What the Occupy protests tell us about the limits of democracy
On paper, it isn't easy to reproduce the oddity of the Occupy the London Stock Exchange rally that took place on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral last weekend. It's all very British - people are cooking pots of porridge on the sidewalk - yet reverent homage is being paid to the original Occupy Wall Street protests, too. The London demonstrators have even adopted the "human mic" used in New York's Zuccotti Park - the crowd in front repeats whatever the speaker says, so that the crowd in back can hear - despite the fact that megaphones and microphones have not been banned in London.
Learn more HERE.

Latinos to protest Obama's immigration policies
Latino activists said Monday they are planning a national "day of action" to protest President Barack Obama and demand an end to a controversial program involving local officials in immigration enforcement. Actions are scheduled for Tuesday in 10 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, New York, Houston and San Francisco.
Learn more HERE.

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