Faithful Philly Forum

It is unfortunate that Mitt Romney has now said that he will not be hiring any Muslims for any cabinet post should he be elected.  (Seems there are not enough of them in the country to warrant this kind of attention!) It is too bad he is so hopelessly misinformed about Islam.

On October 13, 138 Muslim clerics and scholars placed an ad in the New York Times calling for ”A Common Word Between Us and You”  and now over 300 American clergy and scholars have responded (Nov 18) with a Christian response called “Loving God and Neighbor Together.”  They committed themselves to doing programming and educational events that would promote dialogue between Muslims and Christians.

In addition an Anglican known as the Vicar of Baghdad named Canon Andrew White has been noted as a “Pursuer of Peace” and awarded recognition for his interfaith work. In part, as a result of his work the Muslim clerics of Iraq are prepared to sign a “fatwa against violence” (1) that will serve to end the enmity between the Shia and Sunni Muslims! This is of historic import! And the Churches for Middle East Peace are holding a conference call on 12/6 to talk from a religious perspective about the talks happening in Annapolis this week. Seems there is a lot of good peacemaking happening here…and a military budget is not required! Strange isn’t it what committed people of faith can accomplish that neither the politicians or the military can! 

1) peacemaking@list.usip.org

2) See 11/28 Action Alert from the Brethren Witness/Washington Office

It is now official that FOX and CBS will use sex to sell anything and will promote sexual content in shows (”In 2005, 70 percent of all television shows and 77 percent of prime-time shows contained sexual content.” according to Planned Parenthood.)  But, refuses to allow a condom commercial if the focus is on pregnancy prevention! Seems they will only allow such advertisments if it stresses health issues!

Now given the number of Viagra ads this is a most curious double standard. So the message of morality is men can and should be sexually potent and using pornography on tv is acceptable for primetime viewing but our “morality” won’t allow us to educate or promote anything to prevent pregnancy? This is wild! 

A heart-felt welcome to the seat of Mayor, Mr. Michael Nutter!  It seems so rare to find a politician who thinks outside of the box.  I so was pleased to read about a Michael Nutter plan to alleviate crime in Philadelphia: encouragement of businesses to hire ex-offenders.  Not only does he recognize that statistically crime will be perpetuated by poverty (i.e. ex-offenders not finding jobs), but he also recognizes that poverty is a key factor contributing to crime.  When people lack money, they lack a good education; when they lack education, they lack well-paying jobs to earn money.  Why can’t everyone realize the corruption of the system! 

The twentieth century, corrupt with a structure of segregation carried out by redlining and blockbusting (to name a couple), has created niches of poverty and violence. 

All is still not fair in “America.”  Those who have money refuse to live in places of poverty, and those who find better-paying jobs typically move out of these neighborhoods.  I think Nutter’s idea for businesses to hire ex-offenders is a good start to the dismantling of criminal activity in Philadelphia. 

I don’t get it. A group that names itself “Repent America” challenges the existing hate crime law that includes sexual minorities in Pennsylvania. What is the repentance about? Repent of protecting people’s lives? Repent that we might encourage lawsuits against those who resort to violence against sexual minorities just because they are sexual minorities? Are we to repent for being too compassionate or not being judgmental enough?

I know the Hebrew prophets sometimes stridently called for the need to repent and compassionately embrace the immigrants in their midst, (known as foreigners or aliens) who were being mistreated. They went on any number of tirades about the readiness of folks to go through the religious rituals but who failed to care for the widows and orphans in the community. And, the prophets went ballistic yelling about repentance of those who paid people unjust wages and exploited the workers.

Somehow I don’t think compassion is what “Repent America” is about…Oh yes, and they won the lawsuit by the way. The PA court ruled 5-1 the legislative process that was used to make this a law was indeed unconstitutional. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back.
http://www.equalitypa.org/news/news_view.php?news_id=51

I’m Meredith, the program intern at the Christian Association, and I’ll be talking about campus activism on here from time to time. I’m a sophomore at Penn, orignially from Milwaukee, majoring in political science, and apart from my social justice activities I write for the Daily Pennsylvanian and play viola in a chamber ensemble.

I’m also going to start getting in touch with West Philly places of worship and post a regular digest of what’s going on, as a way to start networking. We at the CA want to shape this blog into a hub for faithful peace and justice work in the area and can’t wait to build that with you!