student loans
A grassroots jubilee: Debt resister Thomas Gokey
"One of the powers of debt is to isolate us. We have to overcome that isolation, and it's tricky."
interview by Amy Frykholm
Watching the academy gut itself
The cost of tuition has has gone up 1,200 percent in 30 years. The odd thing is that when a person takes full advantage of the educational system and earn a Ph.D., then the very same universities that have been trying to convince us that education is worth that much inflation, turns around and tells the Ph.D. that their hard work is worth about . . . 1-3K per class for an adjunct teaching position. So the value of education is being cut by the very same people who are trying to sell us an education.
Stubborn hope
Despite bleak forecasts, many of today’s teenagers refuse to buy the marketed temptations to despair and fear. They’ll find a way.
Money anxiety and the ministry
I grew up in the midst of the Prosperity Gospel movement, and it’s left its mark, I’m afraid. I believed that God would bless (meaning financially bless) those who served the Almighty. It wasn’t only service, but God’s favor also came with financial reward.
The virtues of debt
I stood in the damp grass, on a warm afternoon, eating a veggie dog at the foreclosure-free picnic, with members of Mercy Junction. My husband started a worshiping community in Chattanooga, and they determined that housing issues would be a central part of their ministry. So they gathered, in solidarity with a man who was facing foreclosure after losing his job.
Saving the family
So can we put Newt Gingrich's personal life and rhetoric aside and focus on how we can fix our families? Can we move the discussion of family away from demonizing same-gender relationships and taking rights away from women? Can we have an honest discussion about what we can do to help American families?