This Month's Cover
Magazine

Sojourners Magazine: May-June 1997

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Cover Story

Change agents often wish to make the church over in an ideal image, and prematurely herald new Pentecosts.
M y son Daniel asks me when he will have a bar mitzvah like our friend’s son.
A few years back, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, George Bush was talking about a new world order.
Jim Wallis has done an outstanding job of describing the new ecumenism that is fostering dialogue among black, mainline Protestant, Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal churches.
From the strength of our church traditions has come a new ecumenical spirit for the 21st century.
Evangelical and ecumenical have been terms unfortunately divided. The "evangel" is the uniter.

Feature

Truth-telling and the healing of South Africa.
In the midst of contradictions, challenges, and divisions, Western believers and Muslims meet.

Commentary

Lawyers push for end to executions.
The struggle for quality schools.
Mac Charles Jones: an appreciation.
Care needed in "corporate welfare."
Hong Kong churches prepare for July1.
The addiction of campaign money.

Columns

This issue of Sojourners is sponsored by the good folks at Procter & Gamble, makers of a respected line of consumer products, including their popular fat substitute, Olestra...
It had been several years since I'd visited New York City.
The hardest mothering of all is to give your children their own existence.
The nation’s social welfare policy is changing dramatically, and the religious community will play a vital role in the transition to something new.
Ecumenism will happen not so much as a result of doctrinal discussions, but through real-life activities on behalf of a suffering world.
The loaves and fishes in the Bible story of the "feeding of the five thousand" (a major sandwich-making operation) should spring to mind whenever hungry people congregate.

Culture Watch

The mass audience message is on the front page: "Rosenberg spied."
Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement.
Two March events consistently wreak havoc on my Lenten disciplines: the March Madness of NCAA men’s basketball and the annual Academy Awards ceremonies.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life on video.
Strategies to end the civil rights movement in the '60.
Billy Bragg's music adapts to life's changes.
Since 1991, Douglas John Hall has published three large volumes designed to provide an essentially systematic theological statement that reflects the North American context. 
The long and winding journey of Dr. Joycelyn Elders
Theologian Douglas John Hall's systematic approach.
Icons invite seekers into the mystery of faith.

Departments

THANKS FOR THE excellent article "The Issue is Poverty" (March-April 1997). As someone who has worked in the inner city of Brooklyn for 35 years, I agree.
I WAS DISMAYED to learn that in serious studies of Mary Magdalene written in the ’90s the gospel according to Mary would have to be "fictionalized".
In spite of the end of the civil war in El Salvador and a strong challenge in the March 16 elections to ARENA...
Much of the world sees the peace process in Palestine and Israel as taking place between Muslims and Jews, forgetting that there are many Palestinian Christians who are also affe
THANKS FOR THE blessing of Sojourners magazine. 
I ENJOYED reading Duane Shank’s article in the January-February 1997 issue ("Call to Renewal" column).
The online magazine Slate reported recently that statisticians have been unable to disprove the existence of "Torah codes" in the Hebrew scriptures.
A nationwide "Pentecost for the Poor"
I am terribly disappointed with the March-April 1997 issue that claims "white supremacy" is an idol ("Blocking the Prayers of the Church," by Eugene F. Rivers 3d).
I AM WRITING in reference to "H’rumphs"—"The Only Election Guide You’ll Need" (by Ed Spivey Jr., September-October 1996).
Put God’s saving justice first, says Jesus (Matthew 6:33).
In the spirit of St. Francis, the SouthWest Environmental Equity Project works for the poor and the Earth.
WITH SOME truth Rosemary Radford Ruether, as quoted by Aaron Gallegos, suggests environmentalists ignore the issues of race and class.
As the first fruits of the strawberry season appear in supermarkets across the country, farmworkers, labor activists, and members of the religious community are organizing to demand better conditions...
Northern cardinal chips away at the blue light
Sometimes (well, occasionally) the words and image that we put on our cover come together quickly, seemingly with little effort on our part.