Katherine Marshall discusses the challenges that Joshua DuBois, head of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, faces and argues for the need to bring faith into discussions of important global issues.

At America, Charles K. Wilber explores the implications of Catholic social thought for the current economic situation.

At the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's 2009 Faith Angle Conference, Francis S. Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project, reflects on the question of divine action and asks, "Is God involved in the evolutionary process or did he just set it up and hope it would turn out all right?"

At AltMuslim, Ali Eteraz writes about the recent creation of a Sufi Advisory Council (SAC) in Pakistan, intended to fight extremism by indoctrinating Muslims with a "softer" interpretation of Islam through Sufism.

At Religion Dispatches, Frank Schaeffer questions whether atheism truly offers a different path than religion, or if it simply cloaks fundamentalism in a different rhetoric.

Rabea Chaundhry, an American Muslim woman, responds to Sarkozy's attempt to ban the burqa in France.

Robin Wright writes about the media blitz surrounding the YouTube video of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a protester in Iran, and how the mourning cycles of Shi'a Islam can keep her death politically relevant.

At Religion Dispatches, Wendy Cadge questions how prayer and prayer studies work.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou recalls the memory of the gay civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin at Killing the Buddha.

The SSRC seeks a Program Assistant for its work on religion and the public sphere. The Program Assistant will work closely with the Program Officer who administers projects on religion and the public sphere, supporting program work on religion and international affairs, as well as assisting with related publication and communication projects, including The Immanent Frame.  For more information, please see the full job listing.