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Magazine

Sojourners Magazine: March-April 1999

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Cover Story

It was an extraordinary feeling to be set free after years of deprivation.
A remarkable new "seminary-behind-walls" program at Sing Sing prison helps to rebuild lives and offer hope.
I could not escape the still, silent voice that gnawed at the core of my soul. It followed me wherever I went.

Feature

Organizers Carol Richardson and Heather Dean, mother and daughter, talk about how the movement to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas became a family affair.
Reading the book of Revelation without the rapture.
I have always felt some tension about using the church's common lectionary.
Notes from a small southern town.
What's morality have to do with economics?

Commentary

The African-American church and AIDS.
Mitch's devastation has been the opportunity for Jubilee.
We're called to faithful discipleship, not creedal rigidity.
Disguising brutality in prisons.
What does Augusto Pinochet have to teach us?
From computer giants to the world's biggest oil companies, merger has become the favorite sport of the world's corporate and financial elites.

Columns

United States policy toward Iraq needs a radical change.
The final column of a six-year run gives the author permission to write in the first person, wouldn't you say?
Or did you think Y2K was another Calvin Klein perfume, the kind promoted by pouty models who look like all they want from life is more heroin?

Culture Watch

Wuthnow's "ecclesiastical chaos theory"
Moyers on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Luis Rodriguez grapples with the helter skelter
Ancient music for the contemporary church
Twenty-five years ago, I was a 19-year-old college kid joyously wallowing in Watergate.
Urban churches bridge barriers of neighborhood, class, and race
Lessons from The Poisonwood Bible.
Henri Nouwen on spirituality and justice

Departments

Environmentally responsible business practices don't always lead to a decrease in profits.
I WAS VERY SHOCKED and upset with your January-February 1999 cover photo.
Several peace demonstrators received prison sentences in early January for hammering on a B-52 bomber...
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty will go into effect faster than any other major treaty, according to Jody Williams, ambassador of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. 
Hurricane Mitch already spurred us to publish one commentary ("A Mature Compassion," by Marvin Rees, January-February 1999).
WHILE SUSAN Hogan/Albach's article on the shortcomings of contemporary Christian music ("High Fidelity Faith," January-February 1999) contained some valid points, I confess that I find the whole
The United Nations General Assembly voted in November to proclaim the first decade of the 21st century "The Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World (2001-2010)
THE TIMING COULDN'T have been more awful. A murderous spasm was loosed on Baghdad a week before Christmas; Clinton and his captive coven of generals crowded the screen, lying up a lather.
Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that seeks to end sanctions against Iraq, was notified by the federal government in early December that a penalty may be imposed against them and several
Ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova was awarded the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought by the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, last December.
IT WAS GREAT to read your articles about the resurgence of the nuclear disarmament movement in the January-February 1999 issue.
for Grace Lorch
MARVIN REES MADE a very good case for debt cancellation to help Honduras and Nicaragua get back on their feet after the devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.
Ohio State University head football coach John Cooper put himself in a pickle when he agreed to endorse a company that the Farm Labor Organizing Committee AFL-CIO (FLOC) says engages in unfair la
AIDS in Africa has reached epidemic proportions, and an American clergyman told a gathering in Zimbabwe this winter that he knows one of the main reasons why: male sexual permissiveness.
National Summit addresses impact of welfare reform.
I JUST DISCOVERED Sojourners the other day, and thank God I did. Many thanks to you and to Aaron McCarroll Gallegos for the commentary on the Christian response to homosexuality.
The Committee to Give Direction about and for Pastoral Care for Homosexual Members encouraged Christian Reformed churches to repent for failing to minister to gay and lesbian members.
WE ALWAYS ENJOY Ed Spivey's "H'rumphs" column, but "First Dance" (January-February 1999) is the funniest yet. I (Bob) laughed out loud repeatedly; more sedate Gwenny was nearly as audible.
Twice in two months, a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, picketed Broadway United Methodist Church in Chicago with signs declaring "Fags die. God laughs."
I AM CONCERNED about Aaron McCarroll Gallegos' article ("Practicing What We Preach," January-February 1999).