America's Young Theologian writes about Gandhi, Graffiti, and Christian Ethics:

"Bourgeois suburban Christianity is limited in practice to largely interpersonal matters. It tends to see the command to love others as elevating the personal encounter with another person over working to alleviate the structural conditions that enslave others. [Given the impersonal nature of people's daily lives, this may seem right, but one cannot claim love while failing to address the structures of poverty and classism.] So, they send teenagers on mission trips dressed in GAP clothing, largely unconcerned with their own suburban exclusion, greed, and perpetuation of poverty."

Upon reading her "beloved" issue of Burma Issues, Brethren Priestess registers alarm that "the military is intent on wiping out Christianity in Burma, according to claims in a secret document believed to have been leaked from a government ministry."

Can't get enough of Islamoyankee's sharp analysis of religious issues this week at Faith in Public Life? Check out his discussion of Shi'ism.

Over at JSpot, Lenny finds an article on community organizing that kinda convinces him to pay a little more attention to Obama.

If you know what WHINSEC / SOA means, you'll appreciate that Chuck Currie writes about the Chicago UCC minister who just got a ticket to the grey hotel for protesting outside Ft. Benning in Georgia.

What a lil' controversy? On Street Prophets a "Pro-Life Secular Liberal" writes about how abortion doesn't fit with the principles of her childhood Universal-Unitarianism.

CrossLeft posts Olbermann's recent "special comment" on Bush and terrorism and Jaws 2.

Ryan Beiler blogs at God's Politics Blog about Sen. Biden's launch speech to Sen. Obama: "NEWS FLASH TO WELL-MEANING WHITE FOLKS: When you praise people of any minority or ethnicity for being "articulate," you're suggesting that you have deeply held stereotypes about people that don't look like you that are only overcome by what you see as noteable exceptions."

City of Brass notes "The incoherence of Ghazali." Poor Cristo Lumen. Apparently his entire blog got erased.

Not surprised, Mainstream Baptist, confirms a recent report that points out that Baptist women head to other denominations.

Be sure to read Jeff Sharlet debuting on Talk to Action by writing on that weirdness known to Americans as the National Prayer Breakfast. Here's something to go with your Frenchy-blend:

"Today, the National Prayer Breakfast is a gathering of all faiths, in Jesus' name. To be fair, the organization that produces it -- so deliberately lowkey that they encourage the misperception that it's an official government event -- tones down its true strangeness in honor of the attendance of the president and hundreds of congressmen. For instance, they don't bring up what they consider the leadership lessons of... Hitler. Yes, Hitler."

Catholics United for the Common Good can't take the conservative bashing of the late, great Fr. Drinan.

Homogenizing her coffee and recent Catholic news, Pam's House Blend mixes it up over an Italian newspaper report on the difference between papal moral absolutes and the advice given in the confessional box.

Yes, human trafficking is a modern reality that must be stopped notes Faithfully Liberal. The Rev. Deb Haffner wonders about who gets to define "family values."

And finally, the NCC blog notes a Goode day for America . . .when an interfaith delegation went to invite Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode to a Muslim service.