In Thursday’s RNS report David E. Anderson provides an analysis of the challenges facing Sudan after the death of its first vice president, John Garang: Whether Garang’s successor, Salva Kiir Mayarit-considered a brilliant soldier but an untested politician-can meet the challenges of implementing a peace accord and preserve the delicate unity of the Christian south and Muslim north remains an open question.

Marshall Allen describes “New Urbanism,” the architecture movement that calls for interdependence among residents, and how churches are adopting it as a means of fighting the isolation experiences by many churches and Christians.