News: Afternoon Quick Links | Sojourners

News: Afternoon Quick Links

THE HUFFINGTON POST: Why Christians Need a Secular World

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times titled "The Evangelical Rejection of Reason," my colleague Randall Stephens and I argued that most of the GOP candidates, reflecting widespread evangelical sensibilities, were effectively rejecting secular knowledge. The argument was essentially an abstract of our new book, "The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age."

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MOTHER JONES: Long-Term Unemployment Getting Worse

Suzy Khimm points us to a new Pew report outlining the continuing cost of long-term unemployment during the recession. Both unemployment and long-term unemployment get worse among the least educated, and long-term unemployment gets worse with age. "The data show that once they lose their jobs, older workers are the most likely to remain out of work for a year or longer. In the third quarter of 2011, more than 43 percent of unemployed workers older than 55 had been out of work for at least a year."

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FINANCIAL TIMES: Time For Us To Challenge The Idols Of High Finance (By Rowan Williams)

It has sometimes been said in recent years that the Church of England is still used by British society as a stage on which to conduct by proxy the arguments that society itself does not know how to handle. It certainly helps to explain the obsessional interest in what the Church has to say about issues of sex and gender. It may help to explain just what has been going on around St Paul's Cathedral in the past fortnight.

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THE HUFFINGTON POST: Memo to GOP: Time to Notice Poverty

In the 1990s, many Republicans took the problem of hard-core poverty seriously. (One of those poverty-conscious Republicans was Sen. Rick Santorum, now the one presidential candidate who takes seriously the data on faltering upward mobility in America.)In 1999 and 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to improve educational outcomes for students from poor families. He defended the Earned Income Tax Credit. He drew attention to the problems facing the children of prisoners.

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PHILANTHROPY TODAY: Gates Previews Antipoverty Prescription For Summit (Opinion)

On the eve of delivering a report to the Group of 20 summit on creative ways for governments to invest in development despite straitened budgets, Bill Gates offered an outline of his prescription in a Washington Post opinion column. The co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said the global economic crunch threatens long-term progress in reducing poverty, disease, and child mortality.

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USAID: Celebrating 50 Years Of Progress

For fifty years, USAID programs have saved and improved lives around the world, advanced American values, increased global stability, and driven economic growth in emerging markets. In this video, you will hear President Kennedy's vision for foreign assistance, a vision that has been carried out by Agency staff around the world. They continue to work tirelessly to advance human dignity and global progress, focusing on innovative, smart solutions to solve development challenges.

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THE CHRONICLE OF PHILANTHROPY: Five Older Americans Honored For Building Charities That Solve Social Problems

Five people who set out to solve big problems in the United States and abroad have been named the winners of the sixth annual Purpose Prize, which recognizes people older than 60. One winner works to improve the care of Chinese orphans. Another introduces safe cooking techniques in developing counties. And another is spurring the growth of new businesses and jobs in Detroit.

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THE HUFFINGTON POST: An Open Letter To Congress From Leaders Of The Faith Community: Don't Cut Foreign Aid! (Opinion)

The human condition is a precarious one; we cannot separate ourselves from others who are suffering. All of us are vulnerable, and in these particularly vulnerable times, we have to be counted upon to do more to alleviate suffering in the world.

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