Gehenna, a synonym for Hell, is a real place, or so the Bible tells us. You can see it today. It is a valley outside Jerusalem, the valley of the son of Hinnom, and it was where worshippers of the idol Moloch sacrificed children to sate their god’s hungers.

Gehenna was revived today in Newton, Connecticut, where as many as 20 children at last report were slaughtered in an elementary school this morning.

We learn in the book of Kings that in the seventh century BCE, the prophet Jeremiah demanded that King Josiah destroy the idolator’s temple in Gehenna to prevent more sacrifices to Moloch. We can presume from the newsworthiness of this act that child sacrifice was once a relatively common practice in the ancient Middle East, as we know it to have been in other pagan cultures.

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Not again. Here. In a school.

All over Connecticut Friday, people greeted each other with downcast eyes and a few mumbled words. Many cried, churches opened for prayer, events were canceled. Some veteran police officers and news reporters found it hard to keep their composure. Even the president fought back tears while speaking of the deaths.

The day felt, to those who remember it, like the somber, chilly day in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was shot.

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A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle killed 26 people ”” 20 of them children ”” in an attack in an elementary school in central Connecticut on Friday. Witnesses and officials described a horrific scene as the gunman, with brutal efficiency, chose his victims in two classrooms while other students dove under desks and hid in closets.

Hundreds of terrified parents arrived as their sobbing children were led out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in a wooded corner of Newtown, Conn. By then, all of the victims had been shot and most were dead, and the gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, had committed suicide. The children killed were said to be 5 to 10 years old.

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Dear Friends in Christ:

We are shocked and overwhelmed by the horrendous tragedy of the school shooting in Sandy Hook. We hold the victims, their families, and all who are affected by the shooting in our thoughts and prayers for healing and strength. We pray that those who have died will be held in the arms of our loving God whose heart aches for those affected by this tragedy.

We bishops have been in touch with the Rev. Mark Moore, the rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sandy Hook which is adjacent to the school were the shooting took place. We have also communicated with the leadership of Trinity Church, Newtown, and we understand that the Rev. Kathie Adams-Shepherd, rector of Trinity Church is on the scene ministering to the bereaved.

We are departing immediately for Newtown/Sandy Hook to be of whatever assistance we can. We will be in contact when we have additional information.

We invite all clergy to open our churches for prayer.

Please keep all who have died, the one who has perpetrated the shooting, and all affected by this incident in your prayers. May the God who we await this Advent season bring us hope and new life in Jesus the Christ.

Faithfully, Ian, Laura and Jim

The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens
The Rt. Rev. James E. Curry

Your thoughts, reactions and reflections please.

“Evil visited this community today,” Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy just told reporters in Newtown. “And it’s too early to speak of recovery, but each parent, each sibling, each member of the family has to understand that Connecticut – we’re all in this together.

“We’ll do whatever we can to overcome this event. We will get through it. But this is a terrible time for this community and these families.”

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Military counterterrorism officials are seeking more capability to pursue extremist groups in Africa and elsewhere that they believe threaten the U.S., and the Obama administration is considering asking Congress to approve expanded authority to do it.

The move, according to administration and congressional officials, would be aimed at allowing U.S. military operations in Mali, Nigeria, Libya and possibly other countries where militants have loose or nonexistent ties to al Qaeda’s Pakistan headquarters. Depending on the request, congressional authorization could cover the use of armed drones and special operations teams across a region larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, the officials said.

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“The Love and Fidelity Network opposes Harvard University’s formal recognition and funding of a group that seeks to associate human sexuality with violence, oppression, and humiliation,” Director of Programs Caitlin Seery said. “Universities should foster an environment where the dignity and beauty of sexuality is honored and affirmed ”“ and where reasoned debate is welcomed among those of goodwill who disagree over what constitutes the true dignity and beauty of human sexuality. Groups like Munch, however, do not seek to participate in that important debate. Rather, BDSM groups dishonor and degrade human sexuality precisely by associating it with violence and humiliation.”

“Our opposition isn’t about banning groups with whom we disagree or censoring private behavior. We support the recognition of many groups with whom we disagree precisely because we think an honest debate about how best to honor the dignity and beauty of sexuality is needed. It is about whether Harvard University should subsidize the promotion of violent and abusive behavior, which endangers all students, particularly women, both psychologically and physically.

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Watch the whole video (just under 7 1/2 minutes).

To find Mundri on a map of South Sudan, go here. Then find Uganda and the part of South Sudan that borders Uganda. About in the middle and slight up to the left from the border you will see the major city of Juba. Now head northwest (follow yellowish line) to the next city on the map which is Mundri (Town)

After a night of violent protests across Egypt that left at least five dead and hundreds injured, Egyptian tanks deployed this morning to protect the presidential palace, marking the first time since Mohamed Morsi’s power grab that the military has gotten involved….

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The humanitarian crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was top of Pope Benedict XVI’s concerns this Wednesday as he began his greetings in Italian with another appeal for aid for the people of the nation, the scene of armed clashes and violence. Emer McCarthy reports:

“A large part of the population lacks the primary means of subsistence” said the Pope, adding that “thousands of residents have been forced to flee their homes to seek refuge elsewhere”.

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Rival protesters have clashed outside the presidential palace in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, as unrest grows over a controversial draft constitution.

More than 200 people were injured as protesters threw petrol bombs and rocks – shots were reportedly fired.

Violence broke out when supporters of President Mohamed Morsi marched on his palace, confronting members of the opposition who were holding a sit in.

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If a cabal of Egyptian generals had been planning a coup, their moment to strike should be imminent. Tuesday saw new clashes between police and tens of thousands of antigovernment demonstrators outside Cairo’s presidential palace as a constitutional deadlock hardened into a not-yet-violent civil war between Islamists and their rivals ”” and as political camps brought their supporters onto the streets ahead of a Dec. 15 referendum on a controversial draft constitution. The turmoil plays out against the backdrop of an Egyptian “fiscal cliff” that urgently demands political stability. Still, even if the current scenario includes conditions similar to those that have preceded coups in unstable societies with powerful militaries, a putsch by Egypt’s generals remains unlikely.

“Remember,” says Century Foundation analyst Michael Wahid Hanna, “Egypt’s military didn’t enjoy their time at the head of the government after [President Hosni] Mubarak was ousted.” And while President Mohamed Morsi has antagonized his political opponents with a power grab that has put his decrees beyond judicial restraint, and with an unseemly rush to ram through a constitution critics say opens the way to authoritarian Islamist rule, he has been careful to keep the military onside.

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The United States bluntly warned Syrian President Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons as his forces lose ground to rebel fighters, and the United Nations said it was pulling nonessential foreign staff from Syria because of deteriorating security.

Warnings from President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials Monday reflected U.S. concerns over new intelligence indicating that Syria might be preparing to unleash some of its chemical agent stockpiles.

“The world is watching,” Obama said, addressing Assad in remarks at the National War College in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is, and would be, totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences, and you will be held accountable.”

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Writing to supporters around the Anglican Communion, Bp Chad Gandiya said that, despite a Supreme Court order recognising the cathedral as belonging to CPCA’s Diocese of Harare, excommunicated bishop, Nolbert Kunonga “did not leave willingly.”
“Yesterday Kunonga was evicted from the Diocesan Offices and Cathedral yesterday,” he wrote. “He refused to handover three diocesan cars in his possession. He came back later with thugs with chains who started chasing people beating some (some of the guards we had hired were beaten).
“When our people reported it to the police they were shunted from one office to the other because the police said, “they were too junior to deal with the Anglican matter”. Eventually they were served and riot police were sent who arrested some of the thugs and we are grateful for that.

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We, Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Africa and Bishop Presidents of National Caritas in Africa, coming from thirty four countries of the continent, gathered in a Conference on the identity and mission of Caritas in Kinshasa from November 20th to 22nd, 2012, express deep concern and solidarity with the Congolese people. We are outraged and shocked by the escalating armed violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo which is causing again a major human tragedy.

Thousands of men, women and children, the victims of this war which is imposed on them, are displaced and abandoned in destitution in Goma and its surroundings. They are exposed to the bad weather, hunger, rape and all kinds of abuses, including recruiting of children into the army. This constitutes an offence to their dignity as human beings and children of God.

We are convinced that the time is no longer for war or conquest, but rather to promote cooperation between peoples and that the territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of Congo must be protected and respected by all.

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Amid what is being termed as “genocide” of Christians by Boko Haram suicide bombers in Nigeria, Christians from this West African nation living in the U.S. have intensified their calls for the designation of the Islamist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department.

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Two bomb attacks have hit a church inside a military barracks in Kaduna state in northern Nigeria, killing and injuring several people, officials say.

A military spokesman told the BBC two vehicles were driven into the barracks in Jaji in what he described as “surprising and an embarrassment”.

It is not clear how many casualties there were or who was responsible.

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Nigeria’s military is offering about $1.8 million in rewards for information leading to the arrest of top members of a radical Islamist sect that has killed hundreds of people in the country this year alone.

Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said in a statement Friday the bounty for Boko Haram sect leader Abubakar Shekau is $312,500.

The statement says information on four other named top sect officials would earn the informant $156,000 each. It then listed 14 “commanders” and each had a $62,500 bounty.

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More Christians are under threat than any other faith group, some two hundred million, according to a recent book published by journalist Rupert Shortt.

Shortt, the religious editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of several books on religious topics, recently published his latest book, “Cristianophobia,” (Random House).

Well before the September 11 attacks, many Christian communities were faced with severe problems of intolerance, he noted in the book’s introduction, and in the last decade the problem has worsened dramatically.

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Another day of loud booms and deadly weaponry plummeting from the sky wracked Israel and Gaza on Sunday, with fresh casualties reported on both sides of a conflict that international leaders scrambled to end.

Rescuers pulled the bloodied bodies of children from the wreckage of a Gaza home Sunday after an Israeli airstrike, which Israel said targeted a top Hamas militant. The Israelis initially said the operative was killed, but they later said he may have survived.

And about 120 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces reported. At least 38 were intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile-defense system, the IDF said — but one struck a car in the Israeli town of Ofakim, injuring an unspecified number of people, while another hit a woman’s carport while she was inside her house in Ashkelon. Fresh sirens sounded Sunday in Tel Aviv, but the IDF said it had intercepted at least two rockets headed for the city.

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Israel said its air force bombed the house of a Hamas commander in the Gaza Strip after militants fired more than a dozen rockets toward southern Israel, trampling hopes for a three hour ceasefire during a brief visit by Egypt’s premier to the tiny stretch of land.

Israel had agreed to halt it’s three-day assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip if militants refrained from firing rockets at Israel. It would have been the first break in the escalating conflict….

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According to reports, one of the issues raised by the government team was that one of the mediators had taken contrary position against the government-funded Joint Task Force (JTF), while another was said to have a son fighting alongside the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Magreb (AQIM) in Mali. Another member was said to have only recently been forgiven by the sect after an accusation of financial impropriety.

While such reports were still taken with a pinch of salt by many with the belief that the government and the sect would find a way through, the announcement by General Buhari last week appeared a huge stake. Buhari, while speaking at the Board of Trustees meeting of his party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said he could not mediate for the sect.

The General said: “How can I represent people I do not know, that I do not believe in whatever their cause is? How can I work for a government that has failed to do the most important thing of protecting lives and property with all the military, with all the resources available? How do I work for them?”

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The research examined by the commission “clearly shows that media violence consumption increases the relative risk of aggression, defined as intentional harm to another person that could be verbal, relational, or physical,” the report said.

More than 15 meta-analyses, each bringing together multiple studies, have been published on the link between media violence and aggression. The results of all these studies found that exposure to media violence not only increases aggressive behaviour, but also aggressive thoughts, feelings, physiological arousal, and decreases prosocial behavior.

It is mistaken to think that the aggression must be immediate or severe, such as shooting someone, the report qualified. It can take a variety of forms, such as a child being more defiant and disrespectful, or an adult being less open to others.

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Caught this over the weekend, really worth the time. If you do not know the story, you need to–KSH.

Dozens of young men have been shot dead in Nigeria by the military in Maiduguri, residents in the north-eastern city have told the BBC.

An imam told the BBC about 11 youths from his street alone were killed, including four of his own sons.

The alleged extrajudicial executions happened as Amnesty International accused the security forces of abuses in its crackdown on Islamist militants.

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Anglicans who are struggling at the front line in the battle to turn back gender-based and family violence can take comfort.

As of this morning, they know they have absolute, unequivocal support from their leaders in the Anglican Communion.

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Iranian warships have arrived in Port Sudan in an apparent show of support for the government in Khartoum, one week after it accused Israel of bombing an arms factory in the Sudanese capital.

Iran’s state news agency confirmed yesterday that two vessels, a destroyer and a helicopter carrier have docked in Sudan’s main port on the Red Sea and their commanders will be meeting Sudanese officials.

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Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith.

Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression. Only two days ago, a suicide bomber crashed a jeep laden with explosives into a packed Catholic church in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100. The tragedy bore the imprint of numerous similar attacks by Boko Haram (which roughly translates as “Western education is sinful”), an exceptionally bloodthirsty militant group.

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