The Common Good

God's Politics

Enemies of the State

by Anna Almendrala 04-09-2008

The Philippines Armed Forces have been implicated in most of the recent human rights abuses that have occurred in that country (almost 800 unlawful executions since 2001). Journalists, activists, pastors, and lawyers have been kidnapped, tortured, or even gunned down in public for daring to advocate on behalf of the economic, social, and civil rights of the poor.



But since 9/11, the U.S. government has given the Philippines army $245.6 million for "foreign military financing," [...]

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Where is Jonas Burgos?

by Anna Almendrala 04-08-2008

Imagine you're eating at a shopping mall food court when you suddenly hear shouting and see a group of uniformed men (neither police nor army) drag a young man from his lunch a few tables away. "I'm just an activist! I haven't done anything wrong!" he shouts as they cuff him and take him to a waiting van outside. What would Christ-followers do? What would you do?



This is the scene [...]

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Is King's Complete Message Breaking Through?

by Jim Wallis 04-07-2008

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he was trying to move the country to take on the moral issue of economic injustice. And, for the first time in many years, the remembrances of King's death (this one the 40th anniversary) urged the nation to do the same. Usually the nation's anniversary celebrations freeze-frame King as the nation's greatest civil rights leader whose famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was the extent of his message. Later calls for [...]

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A New Way to 'Proclaim Jubilee'

by Brian Swarts 04-07-2008


"Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
-- Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania


This week Congress will vote on the Jubilee Act, the most important debt legislation since 2000. I was an undergraduate theology student when the Jubilee 2000 movement made headlines, and it transformed the way I saw my faith. In [...]

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Recommended Reading: Taylor Branch on MLK

by Jim Wallis 04-07-2008

Read Taylor Branch's op-ed in yesterday's NYT Week in Review if you haven't already:



Civil rights, Vietnam, Dr. King, Memphis - these are historic landmarks. Even so, this [...]

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A Time for Jubilee

by Elizabeth Palmberg 04-04-2008

The subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. has raised just outrage at the behavior of predatory lenders. It's wrong to push a mortgage which the lender knows the borrower won't be able to pay back, driving homeowners into foreclosure and bankruptcy.

But when poor nations have unpayable debt-often the result of Cold War favors to corrupt dictators-they can't declare bankruptcy. They have to just keep paying, even if all they can pay is the interest, never touching the principal. Even if [...]

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Training for Change

by Jim Wallis 04-03-2008

I want to personally invite you to Washington, D.C., on June 13 through 16 to participate in Pentecost 2008: Training for Change. For more than a decade, we have held an annual mobilization around the time of Pentecost to lift up a vision of overcoming poverty to the nation. I believe that with your help we can make this a pivotal year of elevating poverty to the top of the national agenda, [...]

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Interview with Bob Abernethy

by Becky Garrison 04-03-2008

Following is an excerpt from an interview with Bob Abernethy that will appear in a forthcoming issue of The Wittenburg Door.


GARRISON: When you reflect over your years of doing Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, how would you assess the role of religion in [...]

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Honoring MLK by Changing the Wind

by Troy Jackson 04-03-2008

Friday, April 4, 2008, marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was 39-years-old, yet had already spent 15 years in a grassroots movement that radically reshaped the racial landscape in the U.S. He was not only a great preacher and civil rights leader, a Nobel Peace prize winner, and a courageous voice for peace and justice - King was also a [...]

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Video: Jim Wallis and Tony Perkins on CNN

by Administrator 04-03-2008

On CNN's The Situation Room, Jim Wallis and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins talk about evangelical attitudes in the election. Watch it:

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