This Month's Cover
Magazine

Sojourners Magazine: March 2009

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Watch Marshall Ganz as he teaches young organizers how to tell their story and inspire social change.

Important Resources for Social Change are at your fingertips! See the list.

Onleilove Alston of the Poverty Initiative talks about empowering the poor to fight for themselves.

Jesus People Against Pollution's Charlotte Keys talks to Sojourners about taking on a global corporation to save her hometown.

Longtime D.C. activist and pastor Mary Cosby talks with Sojourners about the importance of forgiveness.

Poet Pamela Porter reads her poem about Thomas Merton's photography.

Ed Spivey Jr. on that newfangled thingamajig, Facebook.

A compilation of books, films, and training materials for making social change happen.

Cover Story

The art and craft of social change.
What does it look like to proclaim the gospel and invite people to follow Jesus in a way that leads to the work of justice?
Here's an opportunity to help make social change happen: Join us in the nation's capital in April.
Seven ways to build a movement that includes poor and rich.

Feature

Evangelist Charlotte Keys and the 'Jesus People' she organized took on a global corporation to save a small town.
How I went from being a corporate CEO to an anti-poverty activist.

Commentary

A few e-mails can help fight AIDS.
How to splinter the Taliban and support Afghans.
Lessons from Gaza.

Columns

Being the trusting sort, I clicked on the link. Life is different now.
Forgiveness is an act of will. Fake it until you make it.

Culture Watch

The Complete Leader's Guide to Christian Retreats, by Rachel Gilmore; In Romero's Legacy, by Pilar and John Hogan; Wage Theft in America, by Kim Bobo; and Becoming the Answers to Our Prayers, by Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove.
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, by James W. Douglass. Orbis.
Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money, by Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson, with Patricia Snell. Oxford University Press.
An excerpt from This Flowing Toward Me: A Story of God Arriving in Strangers.
Writing for Hollywood -- with Jesus in mind.
Does the Obama era herald a post-racial United States?

Departments

Five desert photographs taken by Thomas Merton.
Thanks for Jim Wallis’ thoughts in “A Pastoral Strategy for Hard Times” (December 2008). Our church is gearing up to assist more folks in our church and local community.
Eugenia Bonetti, a Cath­olic sister in Rome, is tackling a tough social evil: human trafficking.
The memos to President Obama in the January issue are interesting for what they omit as well as for what they include.
[Regarding “A New Faith Coalition,” by Jim Wallis, January 2009]: Those who characterize abortion as “single-issue politics” often use the goal to “reduce the number o
Reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary for March.
After reading (for the second time) the “Dear President Obama” letters, I was disappointed that no one mentioned the need to reduce the huge U.S. military budget.
Like many U.S. municipalities, Alexandria, Virginia, is facing financial cuts. But in an unusual move, city officials hired ethicist Michael A.
In the wake of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depres­sion, tens of millions of Americans have suffered substantial financial losses, with many losing their savings, homes, and jobs.
During some moments of pre-Christ­mas calm, I had a chance to read the memos to President Obama (“Dear President Obama,” January 2009).

Web Extra

Poet Pamela Porter shares about her discovery of rare photos taken by Thomas Merton during his search for a hermitage.
Onleilove Alston was a 2008 Beatitudes Society Fellow at Sojourners.
Listen in as Pamela Porter reads her poem, Unknown Country.
Ed Spivey Jr.'s latest H'rumphs video chronicles his misadventures on the latest social networking craze, Facebook. Listen in to the hilarity that ensues after Ed finally "becomes a friend."
Marshall Ganz, a lecturer on public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, shares the importance of narrative in initiating social change during a presentation at Sojourn
When Associate Editor Rose Marie Berger contemplated "forgiveness" in preparation for her monthly column in Sojourners magazine, she knew who to go to: elder-prophet-pastor Mary Cosby, 86,
Charlotte Keys, an evangelist, Columbia native, and founder of Jesus People Against Pollution, a group dedicated to environmental justice for the people of Columbia, spoke with Sojourners