Results from a recent Pew study may concern and confuse those who care about the place of faith in the community.

The American legal system is based on equality before the law—but does legal equality mean identical treatment? Duane Ruth-Heffelbower, J.D., M.Div., associate professor of peacemaking and conflict studies at Fresno Pacific University and director of the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies, has an alternate view that is being successful in the Valley and beyond.

Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of the future with hope. Despite the difficulties and dangers faced by him and others working for human equality, King kept faith—in God, people and the possibility of a better world. Ken Martens Friesen, associate professor of history and political science at Fresno Pacific University, examines how we’re doing 44 years later and sees hope as well in this Scholars Speak.

It has been 51 years since the Democratic Republic of the Congo received its independence from Belgium—more than five decades since the people received their alienated right of freedom—and the country will have its second democratic election November 28.

It’s happened to all of us: we’re at the mall, enjoying the air conditioning and shopping for summer clothes when we stumble across a holiday display, complete with plastic snow and Christmas trees. We shake our heads, complain about the commercialization of Christmas and walk off, knowing we’ll be back, credit card in hand…soon. — Ed.

Shrinking government budgets have put college and university financial aid under the political microscope. While there is general agreement that the system needs fixing, one segment of higher education has been either misunderstood or ignored: the independent non-profit. Hear more from D. Merrill Ewert, President of Fresno Pacific University, in this edition of Scholars Speak.

School is an experience with society that shapes the rest of a child’s life. Peter Kopriva, professor in special education and early childhood development, looks at ways to help children adjust that pay off beyond the classroom.

Events in Egypt are beyond the speed of instant communication. History/political science professor Ken Martens Friesen looks to Berlin and China in 1989 and Iran in 1979 to see which way Egypt could go in 2011.

Doug Kulungu (BA ’10) is concerned about his homeland. The Congo has been in the grip of civil war for more than 15 years. Not just soldiers suffer in this war; women are victimized by rape as a weapon of terror.Doug brings this horror to life in this edition of Scholars Speak.