To test one’s convictions, an honest thinker must consider competing viewpoints to confront one’s own dearly held beliefs and presuppositions. Perhaps, after considering an opposing view, one sees an error in one’s own view. Perhaps a seeker after truth sees how he or she was right all along. But there may be nuances and contours and depths newly discovered through considerations of an opposing view. Or perhaps one sees the same view but now from a new confidence, a different vista, ever enriching the perspective. Truth is likened to a diamond, where beholding different dimensions of it only adds to its beauty and goodness.

Free speech is worth defending not just for the sake of freedom—it is for something far grander. It is worth defending for the sake of truth. Freedom of speech is good and wonderful, but it is an instrumental good in the service of the intrinsic good of knowledge and wisdom—ultimately, truth. As G. K. Chesterton said, “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” Solid, like rock-solid truth.

These are dark days when free speech is stifled, such that the vocation of academia for truth-seeking is severely hindered. But there are glimmers of hope. The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) is a new organization dedicated to defending academic freedom. (I am a member.) It condemned MIT’s decision to disinvite Professor Abbot. After MIT’s embarrassing surrender, one of AFA’s founders, Robert P. George of Princeton University, invited Professor Abbot to lecture at Princeton. Professor Abbot then delivered the same lecture on the same day that he had been scheduled to lecture at MIT—but he spoke at Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions instead. Enrollment in the Zoom event for the lecture grew so large that Princeton had to increase its Zoom capacity for it. Thousands of people attended or viewed the lecture.

Read it all.

“Free speech is worth defending not just for the sake of freedom—it is for something far grander. It is worth defending for the sake of truth.” https://t.co/85STL0hLLG

— Andrew T. Walker (@andrewtwalk) November 1, 2021

Foes of mandatory coverage of abortion in New York State insurance law will have another hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a New York state court to reconsider their decision. The law’s narrow religious exemption wrongly disqualifies many religious groups which object to providing abortion, critics said.

A group of Anglican nuns is among the objectors.

“We believe that every person is made in the image of God,” said Mother Miriam of the Sisterhood of Saint Mary, an Anglican body. “That’s why we believe in the sanctity of human life, and why we seek to serve those of all faiths—or no faith at all—in our community. We’re grateful that the Supreme Court has taken action in our case and hopeful that, this time around, the New York Court of Appeals will preserve our ability to serve and encourage our neighbors.”

The Sisterhood of Saint Mary, also known as the Sisters of the Community of St. Mary, is aligned with the Anglican Church in North America. It was founded in 1865 and claims to be the oldest Anglican religious order in the United States.

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"We’re grateful that #SCOTUS has taken action in our case and hopeful that, this time around, the New York Court of Appeals will preserve our ability to serve and encourage our neighbors.” #ReligiousFreedom #ProLife @BECKETlaw https://t.co/UeeOUmfVke

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) November 1, 2021

Radner posits that “God has, until the present, been using Anglicans as a figural outworking of Christian reconciliation in a fragmented, post-Babel world.” Reconciliation of the divided church has been achieved through Anglican habits encapsulated in three Latin phrases: ecclesia semper reformanda est (ongoing reform of the church), ad fontes (retrieval of the apostolic tradition), and lex orandi, lex credendi (reciprocation of prayer and belief). Another contributor to the book, Anglican journalist and theologian Barbara Gauthier, maintains that Anglicans have wrought reconciliation through the three streams of Scripture, sacrament, and Spirit, “representing Anglicanism’s evangelical, sacramental, and charismatic traditions.”

Because Anglicanism seems to be dying, Radner suggests letting it go as “a discrete ecclesial vocation and allowing its historic and contemporary forms to be remade for some further divine purpose.” This echoes the late Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey’s vision about the built-in obsolescence of Anglicanism, as summarized in the book by Stephen Bayne: “The vocation of Anglicanism is to disappear because Anglicanism does not believe in itself but believes only in the Catholic Church of Christ; therefore it is forever restless until it finds its place in that one Body.” Bray makes a similar point: “If Anglicanism is anything, it is a servant church in which every member has a ministry and in which all who believe in Christ are equally welcome.”

Indeed, a servant church may ultimately become invisible if the schisms in the worldwide church are healed, but ecclesial unity may not be possible without “Anglican essentials,” which have faded from the Global North. What other room off the hall summons the entire Christian family to the belief and practice of the undivided church during the first five centuries, as outlined by 16th-century Anglican Divine Lancelot Andrewes: “One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries and the Fathers in that period (the three centuries before Constantine and the two after) which determines the boundaries of our faith”?

The shorthand for Anglicanism is “reformed catholicism.” That seems as relevant today as ever because Geneva, Rome, and Constantinople have not come together in the ministry of Word and sacrament. And yet, as Bray recognizes, Anglicans in the Global North have either ignored or revised the formularies of the tradition—the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Homilies, the Ordinal, and the Book of Common Prayer—which are critical to its work of reconciliation: “Can a theological tradition exist without theology? That often seems where we are heading, but if we ever get there, Anglicanism will be as good as dead. Theological renewal is essential if we are to survive.” The via media of the Anglican tradition (interpreted in various ways as a mediator between Catholicism and Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, popery and Puritanism) constitutes “the best of Anglicanism and its template for the future of Christianity after Christendom,” but also “evokes the worst aspects of Anglicanism: the spineless, muddling middle way that encourages a managerial mentality and gives rise to a false peace without principles,” avers ex-Episcopalian, Catholic theologian R. R. Reno.

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How my Anglican family—85 million strong—resembles the Brothers Karamazov and what it means for how we engage each other. https://t.co/Gsk9iEWXOF

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) November 1, 2021

China’s growing military muscle and its drive to end American predominance in the Asia-Pacific is rattling the U.S. defense establishment. American officials see trouble quickly accumulating on multiple fronts — Beijing’s expanding nuclear arsenal, its advances in space, cyber and missile technologies, and threats to Taiwan.

“The pace at which China is moving is stunning,” says Gen. John Hyten, the No. 2-ranking U.S. military officer, who previously commanded U.S. nuclear forces and oversaw Air Force space operations.

At stake is a potential shift in the global balance of power that has favored the United States for decades. A realignment more favorable to China does not pose a direct threat to the United States but could complicate U.S. alliances in Asia. New signs of how the Pentagon intends to deal with the China challenge may emerge in coming weeks from Biden administration policy reviews on nuclear weapons, global troop basing and overall defense strategy.

Read it all.

“That’s just one #weapon system,” he said in a @Bloomberg Television interview.

“The #Chinese #military capabilities are much greater than that. They’re expanding rapidly in #space, in #cyber and then in the traditional domains of #land, #sea and #air.”https://t.co/nG1fjBCSrM

— Andrew Erickson 艾立信 (@AndrewSErickson) November 1, 2021

Two middle school students are being praised for their quick action when their bus driver experienced a medical emergency.

Conner Doss and Kane Daugherty are students at East Paulding Middle School outside Atlanta and were on a full bus when the incident happened, according to CNN affiliate WSB-TV.
“I come out, I come in the aisle and look down. Miss Julie’s face is bright red and shaking,” Doss told WSB.

The driver managed to pull over and that’s when they realized something was wrong.

“I hear her say, ‘Hey! Somebody help!’ So, I run up. She’s over here shaking really bad,” said Daugherty. “I picked up the [dispatch radio], I said, ‘Somebody help. Our bus driver feels really dizzy.’ Somebody called her phone.”

The dispatcher was able to call 911, help the boys set the emergency brake, flashing lights and emergency stop arm.

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"Because of their quick and decisive actions, a potentially dangerous situation was avoided."https://t.co/7oudoIzlhK #Look4Lykke #FindTheGood

— Jade Walker (@jadewalker) October 28, 2021

The Church of England is to consult dioceses, cathedrals, national institutions, parishes, schools, and other interested parties on a proposed routemap to achieve net zero carbon by 2030, as papers are published for November’s inaugural meeting of a new General Synod.

The draft routemap, published among today’s General Synod papers, suggests how all parts of the Church of England can make changes together to achieve the ambitious target set by General Synod in 2020 to be net zero carbon 20 years ahead of the Government’s targets.

It includes recommendations for building maintenance, heating and the availability of specialist advice for each setting alongside how the central Church and dioceses can offer support.

The newly elected Synod will be formally inaugurated on Tuesday November 16 at the start of a two-day meeting.

Items on the agenda include a debate on the wealth gap in the UK and discussions about Church matters including the recent review of governance and the development of a new vision and strategy for the Church of England in the 2020s and beyond.

That includes an ambitious goal to double the number of children and young people in churches.

Read it all.

We are consulting dioceses, cathedrals, parishes, schools, and other interested parties on a draft plan for the Church of England to achieve net zero carbon by 2030.

Find out more at https://t.co/CK6P6iqRjs.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) October 28, 2021

The U.S. and China are engaged in a “strategic competition,” as the Biden administration has put it, with Taiwan emerging as the focal point. But an ascendant view inside the administration seems to be that while China represents a serious economic, political and technological challenge to American interests, it doesn’t pose a direct military threat. This is a very imprudent assumption that could lead to war and, ultimately, American defeat. To avoid that disastrous outcome, the U.S. must recognize that China is a military threat—and conflict could come soon.

What makes China an urgent military threat? First, Beijing has made clear it is willing to use force to take Taiwan. Subordinating the island isn’t only about incorporating a putative lost province—it would be a vital step toward establishing Chinese hegemony in Asia. And this isn’t mere talk. The Chinese military has rehearsed amphibious attacks, and commercial satellite imagery shows that China practices large-scale attacks on U.S. forces in the region.

Second, China doesn’t merely have the will to invade Taiwan, it increasingly may have the ability to pull it off. China has spent 25 years building a modern military in large part to bring Taiwan to heel. China now has the largest navy in the world and an enormous and advanced air force, missile arsenal and network of satellites. This isn’t to say China could manage a successful invasion of Taiwan tomorrow—but Beijing could be very close. It will be “fully able” to invade by 2025, Taiwan’s defense minister said recently. China’s military power is improving every month.

Third, China may think its window of opportunity is closing. Many wars have started because one side thought it had a time-limited opening to exploit. Certainly this was a principal factor in the outbreaks of the two world wars. Beijing may reasonably judge this to be the case today.

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This is close to my view of the danger zone we are entering over Taiwan. The U.S. has raised its political commitment at a time when its military ability to deter China has been eroded and will take time to restore. Beijing confronts a closing window: https://t.co/0nRRLhlZXK

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) October 28, 2021

When Dr. Robert Stuart first arrived at the Medical University of South Carolina from Johns Hopkins in 1985, the Hollings Cancer Center wasn’t even a far-flung dream.

That’s because there was no oncology department to speak of at MUSC back then. There weren’t even board-certified oncologists on the full-time faculty. Stuart was the first one the hospital ever hired.

MUSC, he acknowledged, was late to the game.

“Roper had probably four or five (oncologists),” Stuart said. “That aspect of cancer medicine here (at MUSC) was almost non-existent.”

Read it all.

Born in Baton Rouge and raised in rural Louisiana, Dr. Robert Stuart's long oncology career in many ways demonstrates how cancer care has been transformed over the past several decades.https://t.co/1vo3zmJCY3

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) October 29, 2021

He said, “I know you all want to reach people—but it seems to me, when you’re choosing between comfort and blood, too many of you are making the wrong choice.”

I think of that conversation often when I think of the way many of us have grown alarmed by what’s sometimes called Christian nationalism—either in its more common and less virulent strain of “God and country” civil religion, or in the more explicit and terrifying ways we have seen Christian symbols co-opted by demagogic and authoritarian ethnocentric or nationalist movements.

Yes, this degrades the credibility and witness of the church. It grants delegated legitimacy to what the Bible itself denounces, and it turns the church into a captive servant to what can only be called an idol. What we often miss, though, is that what these nationalistic movements trade away is blood.

There’s a reason we see an American church riven apart by resurgent heresy trials. These inquisitions are far less likely to be about essential matters of Christian doctrine—the Trinity or the Virgin Birth or the bodily resurrection—than to be about some talking point of populist politics. In our world, politics is no longer about philosophies of government but about identity (“Whole Foods vs. Walmart”). And in such a world, nationality and politics, even in their smallest trivialities, seem far more real to people than kingdom-of-God realities that Jesus described in terms of a seed underground or yeast working through bread or wind blowing through leaves.

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Christian nationalism isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s heresy too.

My Nov @CTmagazine column is out from behind the paywall:https://t.co/vgt41BwQ02

— Russell Moore (@drmoore) October 28, 2021

Today marks the start of a formal period of Listening and Engagement which will run until Friday 10 December. The Commission wants to hear from a wide range of individuals and organisations and ensure that its work is shaped by the views and voices of people and organisations who have experience of care and care giving.

They are calling for contributions from:

• Those who draw on formal services
• Unpaid carers, and the relatives and friends of those who draw on care and support
• Those who work in the care sector and the voluntary and community sector
• Churches of all denominations and other faith communities
• Those who commission, provide and regulate formal services
• Community groups and people who provide informal support

The consultation launched today aims to gather views about the challenges experienced by those currently drawing on care and support and those who work in the sector.

They are also interested in identifying examples of good practice.

The Commission is particularly interested in the role that communities play in supporting people with disability and in later life to live well, in particular the role of church and other faith communities.

Read it all.

The Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care launches its survey today – help shape the Church’s long-term vision for care and support by telling us your thoughts about ageing, disability and our humanity in the light of who God is. https://t.co/EvJf3H5RCL pic.twitter.com/OJwMtzvLu6

— Stephen Cottrell (@CottrellStephen) October 27, 2021

Lymm Hall is an Elizabethan manor house built in 1603. It is Grade II* listed, making it among England’s most protected properties and creating a problem for its owner Kit Knowles, who is attempting to bring the hall up to modern standards of energy efficiency.

“We have an incredibly effective guide for creating high-performance buildings. But there are a lot of issues with applying that to historic buildings,” says Knowles, who runs Ecospheric, which works on pioneering sustainable development projects. Lymm Hall is a test bed for the company’s work to retrofit historic properties and, ultimately, will be a home for Knowles and his family too.

The house, in Cheshire, has some very particular issues: “It has a cockfighting pit, a moat and an icehouse, each protected in their own right,” Knowles says.

While some of the challenges at Lymm Hall are unique, the problem of how to make old buildings more energy efficient and end their reliance on polluting heating systems cascades through the UK’s property market. And it is a problem that must be solved if the UK is to meet its goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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Some unique examples. Not nec. detail relevant to the majority of homeowners – but demonstrates concerns raised around net zero adaptations and buildings considered of significance.

Grade I to net zero: can historic houses be made energy efficient? https://t.co/03tR8wm9c8

— BEFS (@TheBEFS) October 28, 2021

Since becoming founding members of the Financing a Just Transition Alliance in 2020, the Church Commissioners for England and Church of England Pensions Board have been active in identifying concrete steps that the financial sector can take to ensure that no-one is left behind as part of the transition to a low carbon economy.

This engagement with high carbon emitting investee companies has focussed on the issue of a Just Transition, ensuring that workers and communities are not left behind and are appropriately supported in the low-carbon transition.

Each company was actively considering how to address and achieve a Just Transition. However, their approaches varied greatly depending on factors such as location, developed versus emerging market, relationship with unions, governance, company size, status as local or international company, and ability to transfer and reskill employees within their own operations. For example, one company that the Commissioners is engaging with is training the operators of coal-fired facilities in a developing country to work in the fishing industry.

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Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa. It is also a vibrant and expansive center of Christianity: the present Christian population of 80 million is on track to double by 2060, placing Ethiopia far ahead of any European nation. The Orthodox make up 44 percent of Ethiopia, and 22 percent are evangelicals or “Pentays”—Pentecostals. Some 31 percent are Muslims.

But religion is by no means the only factor dividing the country, which is a patchwork of ethnic, tribal, and linguistic groupings. From 1975 through 1991, those diverse populations allied to resist and ultimately overthrow a savage communist dictatorship. After liberation, one of the most powerful ethnic groups seceded to form the new nation of Eritrea. The remaining groups cooperated, somewhat tensely, to rule the restored Ethiopia. That coalition was dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which effectively held power until 2018. The TPLF was then displaced by the new regime headed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has won golden opinions as a peacemaker. In 2019, he received the Nobel Prize for promoting peace with Eritrea. As a faithful Pentay, Abiy Ahmed represents that sizable and fast-growing share of the population.

But despite initial hopes, the country has descended rapidly into turmoil. As the TPLF became ever more disaffected, violence erupted with Ethiopian armed forces, and in 2020, a full-scale Tigray War was in progress. Ethiopian forces seeking to impose their rule on Tigray were assisted by allied Eritrean regulars, and also by some lethal ethnic militias. Massacres and atrocities mounted.

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The 🇪🇹 govt. & its allies have sought to destroy #Tigray & its people. Those in Western Tigray remain brutally occupied by Amhara forces as they enact their ethnic cleansing & genocidal campaign. Int’l community must act to alleviate Tigrayans’ suffering & stop #TigrayGenocide pic.twitter.com/9KBRerK6Xt

— Omna Tigray (@OmnaTigray) October 26, 2021

The Islamic State in Afghanistan could be able to launch attacks on the West and its allies within as soon as six months, and al Qaeda could do so within two years, a top Pentagon official told lawmakers on Tuesday.

The testimony by Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, diverged from an earlier Biden administration view that al Qaeda had been “degraded” in Afghanistan.