Faced with a decision on how quickly to draw down troops, President Obama spoke by videoconference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday as his nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan cautioned against walking away from its 10-year-old war.

The U.S. must “ensure that the country doesn’t degenerate into a safe haven for al-Qaeda,” Ryan Crocker told skeptical lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing.

The White House, meanwhile, challenged the findings of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee probe of U.S. aid in Afghanistan. The panel’s Democrats issued a report saying that nearly $19 billion in aid over a decade has generated waste and corruption and been of limited success.

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O God, who by the preaching of thy blessed servant Columba didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in Scotland: Grant, we beseech thee, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show forth our thankfulness to thee by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan offered an unvarnished assessment on Wednesday of the nearly decade-old war, but he told a skeptical Senate committee that the United States could not afford to walk away anytime soon.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ryan C. Crocker, the nominee, said that the United States had abandoned Afghanistan once before, after its war with the Soviet Union in 1989, with “disastrous consequences” ”” the rise of the Taliban. “We cannot afford to do so again,” Mr. Crocker said.

Mr. Crocker nonetheless acknowledged a panoply of problems facing Afghanistan, including government corruption that he said would become “a second insurgency” if left unchecked. He said the United States’s goal in Afghanistan was merely to help the Afghans create a “good-enough government,” not necessarily a model democracy. While progress has been hard, he said, the situation was not hopeless.

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The hugely expensive U.S. attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan has had only limited success and may not survive an American withdrawal, according to the findings of a two-year congressional investigation to be released Wednesday.

The report calls on the administration to rethink urgently its assistance programs as President Obama prepares to begin drawing down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer.

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Many people first see Jeremy Begbie at a distance, onstage with a grand piano. He sits on a piano stool, leans forward with a lover’s total attention, and plays four bars of anything from Chopin to Boulez. Then he leaps up, leaving the audience musically bereaved and longing for the piece to go on (unless it’s Boulez). From the half-finished music, Begbie carries the audience’s attention straight into theology. (Usually, later in the presentation, he will also play a piece all the way through.)

Begbie studied music and philosophy in his native Edinburgh, but after finding faith in Christ he shifted his energies into theology, which he studied at Aberdeen and Cambridge. He was ordained by the Church of England and served in a West London parish until he was appointed to teach systematic theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. His books focus on the interplay between theology and the arts, and especially music: Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (2000), Theology, Music and Time (2000), and most recently Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (2007), which won the Christianity Today 2008 Book Award in the theology and ethics category. He has started arts and theology initiatives at both St. Andrews and at Duke (where he currently spends spring semesters). Nonetheless, he still sees himself as a systematic theologian rather than an “arts theologian.”

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At least a million Christians celebrated the Uganda Martyrs’ Day at Namugongo shrine yesterday with the lead celebrant calling for “serious dialogue to address political and social problems in the country”.

Clad in the ceremonial catholic robes, Archbishop Sabino Ocan Odoki of Arua Diocese, told pilgrims that this will be the only way to amicably solve the country’s problems instead of “the walk-to-work campaign and teargas”.

“Uganda is known for her beauty and hospitality but it is also known for political turbulence and tribalism. We should address this through dialogue,” he said to a crowd which included the newly-appointed Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Sekandi who represented the President, and pilgrims who had trekked from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, DR Congo, among other countries.

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The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, has urged Moslem leaders in the country to call their members involved in the killing of Christians in the North to order, warning that Christians could no longer continue to be on the receiving end during riots in any part of Nigeria.

In a speech delivered at the second session of the 28th synod of the Diocese on the Niger, taking place at the Immanuel Church, Onitsha, the Bishop of the Diocese, Rt. Rev. Owen Nwokolo, wondered why Christians should be massacred in the guise of protesting in favour of a political candidate who lost during the recent general elections.

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Economists have found themselves repeatedly making excuses. First it was the snowstorms. Then it was Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster which crimped the supply of parts to car assembly plants in America. Then, as the snow melted, floods ravaged Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, and tornadoes battered Alabama and Missouri. America has suffered five incidents of extreme weather this year, each inflicting at least $1 billion in damage.

The most important special factor has been petrol. Prices jumped from $3 per gallon at the end of December to $3.90 in early May. That has siphoned off much of the purchasing power that consumers should have extracted from December’s tax agreement and subsequent gains in employment. Total consumer spending rose at just a 6.7% annual rate in the three months to the end of April, but most of that increase was eaten up by inflation. Real spending grew by a paltry 2.2%.

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Thousands of pilgrims yesterday flocked to both the Catholic and Anglican shrines at Namugongo, near Kampala, to mark the Martyrs day.

Every June 3, Christians of the two denominations in the region and the rest of Africa pay homage to the 45 Martyrs, who were killed by Buganda King Muwanga II in 1884, for converting to Christianity.

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O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before thee the blessed martyrs of Uganda, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The operation was capture or kill. How do you know when to shoot?

It’s based on what the person is doing when we show up. In a capture mission, you’re putting yourself at more risk. You make that decision in a split second. Does he have a gun? Is he being compliant? The more you do it, the more adept you get at it.

So why did the team make the choice to kill Osama bin Laden?

The guys in the room made that decision. If you want to be in a position to make those types of decisions, go join the team. Otherwise, just say thank you.

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Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Rev. Benjamin Kwashi, has advised Gov. Jonah Jang of Plateau to appoint only God-fearing people as commissioners.

Kwashi gave the advice on Sunday in his sermon at the inauguration of Jang and his deputy, Ignatius Longjan, in Jos. He tasked the governor to ensure that he cared for the less privileged during his second term in office. Kwashi also advised Jang to drop some of the commissioners who served in his first term.

“The list of your commissioners would have been ready by now but I advise you to review it.

“Godly people, who feel the plight of the poor, orphans and widows, should be brought on board in your second term to execute your programmes for the people,” Kwashi said.

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Moammar Gadhafi insists he will not leave his country, South Africa’s president said Tuesday after he met the embattled Libyan ruler.

South Africa President Jacob Zuma’s office said he had pressed Gadhafi to agree to an African Union proposal for a cease-fire and dialogue to settle the Libya conflict and that the Libyan leader agreed.
“Col. Gadhafi called for an end to the bombings to enable a Libyan dialogue,” it said. “He emphasized that he was not prepared to leave his country, despite the difficulties.”

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For a small cadre of CIA veterans, the death of Osama bin Laden was more than just a national moment of relief and closure. It was also a measure of payback, a settling of a score for a pair of deaths, the details of which have remained a secret for 13 years.

Tom Shah and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998.

Though it has never been publicly acknowledged, the two were working undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida’s war on the United States, they are believed to be the first CIA casualties.

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There will be no mass break up of the CofE, they appreciate accommodation as a theological as well as social virtue. A few will go off to Rome, but not many, a few will go independent, but not many, and the church will have a new progressive face. The new centre will not be as tolerant as the old, they will demand obedience and the wings will be gradually squeezed to eccentric irrelevancy.

Not so in Scotland. Admittedly we have seen the anglification of the CofS due to increasing standardisation of viewpoint courtesy of the influence of the media, and a drastic weakening appreciation of and understanding of theology courtesy of our method of training ministers. However, there is a core difference in denominations.
As Malcolm [Duff] points out the centre no longer holds. That viewpoint which evangelicals could once deride as Auld Kirk, traditional, cautious and always seeing problems with anything new or enthusiastic, the view represented by the ex-Moderators in the play pen at the Assembly, has gone. Progressives, always more adroit politically and with greater access to and sympathy from the media have, as with the CofE, taken over the centre ground.

The big difference in denominations is that we have a centrifugal force at our core. In our history principle has usually come before compromise. At times this has been self destructive hair splitting, at other times it has meant awe inspiring faithfulness. The neo-Protestant progressive centre has little understanding of our history. They look south today and see that nothing terribly dreadful has happened or will happen, the CofE will continue under progressive management and a few trouble makers will have disappeared.

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(ENS) As Sudan’s wanted President Omar al-Bashir said that he would not remove his Khartoum troops from the disputed oil-producing Abyei region, church and world leaders are insisting that advocacy for the war-torn south and for a lasting peace must continue.

“It seems only a little while ago that we were ratcheting up our advocacy with our government and other friends of the international community to ensure a safe and timely referendum,” said Richard Parkins, executive director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (AFRECS), referring to the historic January plebiscite when southerners voted almost unanimously to secede from the Islamic north….

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Pakistan on Friday in what officials described as an effort to measure Pakistan’s commitment to fighting Islamic extremism after the killing of Osama bin Laden badly strained relations with the United States. It did not appear to go well.

The atmosphere of her initial meetings ”” visibly frosty ”” underscored the tensions between the two countries, which have threatened to lurch into open confrontation since Navy Seals found and killed Bin Laden on May 2 in a military garrison town only 35 miles from here. Mrs. Clinton, the highest ranking American official to visit Pakistan, was joined by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who arrived separately as part of a carefully orchestrated diplomatic encounter.

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The EU is complex — horribly complex — and now divided by income as well, and it would be hard to find a better description of its current crisis.

It would also be hard to find a better example of the nature of the crisis than the disputes over Ireland’s corporation tax and bailout interest rate.

They encompass the two great flaws which this crisis has exposed. There is insufficient commonality in Europe to make the citizens of one member state feel that they have some obligation towards the citizens of others.

Nor do the institutions exist which might drag the citizens along while it met obligations on their behalf, without them interrogating too much.

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The depth of the split between the progressive and traditionalists appeared during a debate over the section that would allow the induction of ministers and deacons “ordained before May 2009 who are in a same-sex relationship”.

Traditionalists claimed that the section was a “Trojan horse” which could pull the church apart.

The Rev Andrew Coghill, of the Presbytery of Lewis, described the section as a “hand grenade”. He said: “I believe it will be ruinous for unity of the church, potentially multiplying homosexual inductions the length and breadth of the country. The church almost pulled apart over one such induction.”

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For those Kirk members who feel compelled to leave the Church following today’s vote, the question of where they go is littered with potential problems, both theological and practical. If, as it would seem, it is more likely those in the traditionalist wing of the Church walk, then there are two options.

The first is to splinter entirely and form themselves into an entirely new presbyterian church. Such an outcome would be similar to that of the Disruption in 1843, when the Kirk split over the Church’s relationship with the state, resulting in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland….

The second path would see members of the Kirk moving to the Free Church of Scotland, which holds a staunchly conservative view on homosexuality….

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The Church of Scotland has voted to allow the possible selection of gay and lesbian ministers in the future.

The controversial issue was being debated at the Kirk’s General Assembly.

A theological commission will now be set up and will report in 2013 before a final decision on the issue of gay ordination is taken.

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What the Assembly agreed today was this:

Resolve to consider further the lifting of the moratorium on the acceptance for training and ordination of persons in a same-sex relationship, and to that end instruct the Theological Commission to prepare a report for the General Assembly of 2013 containing:
(i) a theological discussion of issues around same-sex relationships, civil partnerships and marriage;
(ii) an examination of whether, if the Church were to allow its ministers freedom of conscience in deciding whether to bless same-sex relationships involving life-long commitments, the recognition of such lifelong relationships should take the form of a blessing of a civil partnership or should involve a liturgy to recognise and celebrate commitments which the parties enter into in a Church service in addition to the civil partnership, and if so to recommend liturgy therefor;
(iii) an examination of whether persons, who have entered into a civil partnership and have made lifelong commitments in a Church ceremony, should be eligible for admission for training, ordination and induction as ministers of Word and Sacrament or deacons in the context that no member of Presbytery will be required to take part in such ordination or induction against his or her conscience; and to report to the General Assembly of 2013.

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The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to continue dialogue on same-sex relationships and the ministry following the Special Commission report today.

After several hours of debate, commissioners voted by 351 to 294 to adopt deliverance 7B, which means a move towards the acceptance for training, induction and ordination of those in same-sex relationships for the ministry.

The Assembly also voted to allow ministers and deacons in same-sex relationships ordained before 2009 to be inducted into pastoral charges by 393 to 252.

A theological commission will be set up to bring recommendations to the 2013 General Assembly, as well as considering whether ministers should have freedom of conscience to bless civil partnerships and possible liturgy for such occasions.

As nothing has been formally enacted, the proposals do not need to consult the Kirk’s 46 presbyteries under the Barrier Act, but it does mark a significant departure from the Church’s traditional teaching, as acknowledged by the Commission’s report.

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Barack Obama will pressure David Cameron this week not to begin scaling back British forces’ involvement in Afghanistan later this year.

The American president, who arrives at London Stansted tomorrow to begin a full state visit to Britain, after a quick stop-off in Ireland today, will seek the Prime Minister’s backing for a tougher stance on a range of international and security issues from “AfPak” (Afghanistan-Pakistan) and combating homegrown terrorism to missile defence in the former Soviet Union. Mr Cameron will, in return, seek deeper American commitment for Nato action in Libya, where Britain and France seek help towards an exit strategy from the conflict.

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Anglican Lord Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the Rt Rev Dr Alfred Reid, has questioned the moral authority of the country’s leaders as he deli-vered the charge at the recent 141st synod of the Anglican diocese at the Breezes Resort and Spa, Falmouth, Trelawny.

Bishop Reid said the country was plunging deeper and deeper into an abyss of fear and despair as it struggled to define the line separating the constituted authority and the criminal underworld.

“What is the state of our Jamaican society at this time…in a case such as ours where the lines are blurred that should have differentiated constituted authority from the criminal underworld, and the ordinary citizens is most vulnerable not knowing who to trust and who to fear, where an honest person must compete with extortionists of various types and where the underground economy is probably bigger than the official one?” he asked.

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….66 percent of white evangelical Protestants said that “do not rejoice when your enemy falls” applied to bin Laden — compared to 53 percent of those from liberal “mainline” Protestant denominations. At the same time, 70 percent of those polled from “minority” churches — mostly African-American evangelicals and charismatic Latinos — said it was improper to celebrate in these circumstances.

Believers from the biblically conservative flocks were, however, more likely to believe God played a direct role in bin Laden’s defeat, with 54 percent of white evangelicals and 51 percent of minority Christians taking that stance.

“It’s a careful line that they are drawing, but that line is quite clear” in the survey results, said Robert P. Jones, chief executive officer at the Public Religion Research Institute.

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The synod said the 84 churches were burnt in riots that took place in Kaduna, Niger Adamawa Bauchi and Kano states, but did not give a breakdown of the churches burnt in each state.

A communiqué issued after the third session of the Seventh Synod of the Diocese of Minna Anglican Communion held at St James Anglican Church, Suleja Niger State also bemoaned the death of a number of members of the National Youth Service Corps taking part in their national service during the crises.

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South Sudan is due to become independent in July, but Abyei is still claimed by both sides.

The northern Sudanese Army says it has taken control of Abyei, a contested area on the border with South Sudan.

Sudanese state television, based in Khartoum, said northern troops had “repelled enemy forces” in Abyei town. UN officials confirmed the development.

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