A split in the Anglican Church over the issue of homosexuality “would not be a disaster, but it would be a failure”, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of Church leaders, Justin Welby said he wanted “reconciliation”, but that would mean “finding ways to disagree well”.
Views range from liberals in the US – who accept openly gay clergy – to conservatives in Africa, who do not.
There are fears of a permanent schism in the 80m-strong Communion.

Read it all from the BBC.

Gov. Nikki Haley wants to spend $19 million to hire 144 prosecutors so that police officers no longer are the ones prosecuting domestic violence cases in South Carolina.

Haley unveiled a number of requests and executive orders in a press conference Thursday aimed at reducing instances of domestic violence in South Carolina, which has been ranked No. 1 in the nation for the rate of women murdered by men.

South Carolina is one of three states in the country where police officers ”” not lawyers ”” prosecute domestic violence crimes in the courtroom.

Read it all from the local paper.

McIntosh shielded her three sons from much of the domestic violence in their home. She hoped to keep her marriage intact until her youngest son graduated from high school.

“I kept thinking it would get better because I knew the good person in there,” McIntosh said. “I knew I wanted to keep a home for my boys and wanted to keep us together.”

Finally, Tracy Swinney told his mother she had to leave his father. They divorced, and the family’s home was foreclosed. When Dabo learned his parents were divorcing, he cried in the field house at his high school.

Read it all and enjoy the video also.

since same-sex ”˜marriages’ became legal in Great Britain in 2014 a number of Church of England laity and clergy have entered into them. In addition the majority report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality (the ”˜Pilling’ report) recommended in 2013 that priests should ”˜be free to mark the formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service’ and if this recommendation eventually becomes Church of England policy the pressure to move from this half way house to the solemnization of same-sex ”˜marriages’ will become acute.

What all this means is that although the debate about the blessing of same-sex relationships and the ordination and consecration of those in such relationships have not gone away the new storm centre in the Anglican Communion is going to be same-sex ”˜marriage.’

In this paper I provide an introduction to this debate by setting out and assessing the arguments for same-sex ”˜marriage’ put forward in reports from the Scottish Episcopal Church, The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. At the end of the paper I will give an overview of what I think we have learned about the key issues in the debate and the challenges facing the Church of England and the Anglican Communion.

Read it all and yes I mean the pdf of the full report.

You see, the researcher that they’re filming, a guy named Harry Harlow [in 1960], was trying to prove– and I know this is going to sound crazy. He was trying to prove that love is an important thing that happens between parents and children.

And the reason why he felt the need to prove this point was at the time– and again, I know this is going to sound kind of out there. The psychological establishment, pediatricians, even the federal government were all saying exactly the opposite of that to parents.

Deborah Blum: It’s actually one of those things that you say, how could they have thought that? But psychology just didn’t believe in love. And if you go back and you pull any of the psychology textbooks, really almost pre-1950, you don’t even find it in the index because it was not a word that was used.

Read it all or better listen to it all (emphasis mine).

…there are three ways we can make Christmas Eve if not perfect then at least good. These come down to us from the pages of the Bible.

First, a good Christmas Eve is when God’s Savior is received. Hear the words of the Angelic messenger: “Do not be afraid.” Though sin, guilt and shame lurk in the closets and storage rooms of our lives, though insecurities and imperfections are at every turn, and debts and failures abound””“”¦unto you is born a Savior”¦.” The One born in Bethlehem, who lived a perfect life in obedience to his Father dying a shameful death bearing the sins of the world, and rose from the tomb in the power of the Spirit, is alive today. He speaks a word to each of us: “Behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears my voice I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.” When we open to him, accepting his forgiveness, his perfection is draped over us and our true dignity is restored. In the words of a famous carol, “When charity stands watching/and faith holds wide the door/the dark night wakes, the glory breaks/and Christmas comes once more.”….

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GREENVILLE, S.C.–A sign in a classroom here at Berea High School, northwest of downtown in the largest urban district in the state, sends this powerful message: “Failure Is Not an Option. You Will Pass. You Will Learn. You Will Succeed.”

By one measure, Berea, with more than 1,000 pupils, is helping more students succeed than ever: The graduation rate, below 65 percent just four years ago, has jumped to more than 80 percent.

But that does not necessarily mean that all of Berea’s graduates, many of whom come from poor families, are ready for college ”” or even for the working world. According to college entrance exams administered to every 11th grader in the state last spring, only one in 10 Berea students were ready for college-level work in reading, and about one in 14 were ready for entry-level college math. And on a separate test of skills needed to succeed in most jobs, little more than half of the students demonstrated that they could handle the math they would need.

It is a pattern repeated in other school districts across the state and country….

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On the day before Christmas Eve, Reverend Jonathan Erdman had a heavy heart. In a somber letter to his parish, he announced his decision to resign as rector, effective January 10, 2016. Invoking Martin Luther, he explained the issue of conscience which made this decision inevitable. “After prayer and study of scripture, I am not able to approve same-sex marriage as rector of Calvary.” Jonathan would not perform a gay blessing, nor as shepherd of the flock at Calvary, could he allow one to be performed in his parish. In an act of pastoral concern for the few LGBT members of his parish this may affect, he arranged for same-sex members of Calvary to be married by other clergy at the Episcopal cathedral nearby. Predictably that was not enough.

As soon as General Convention allowed for same-sex blessings in the Episcopal Church, certain members of Calvary Church were eager to begin. I’m sure the self-righteous indignation was palpable as Fr. Jonathan informed this vestry–a different vestry from the one in place when he arrived to which his views on same-sex marriage were specifically addressed–that same-sex blessings would not take place at Calvary Church. Fr. Jonathan apparently did not give priority in his ministry to arguing from the pulpit for or against the secular social agenda strangling the ECUSA. An orthodox high churchman, graduate of Yale Divinity School, and former curate at St. Thomas 5th Avenue under the now-retired Reverend Andrew Mead, Fr. Jonathan Erdman loved and ministered to parishioners from all walks of life and of all sexual orientations. There are some that too quickly confuse the difference between withholding judgment of an individual’s sins and celebrating them (or allowing them to be celebrated under your authority) as a sacrament of the Church.

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“We’ve been praying for this little guy since October when we were matched with him for adoption from China. Since that time, the adoption process has been steamrolling along and we are now all set to travel and pick him up”¦on December 23!

It has been a blur these past few week, but we are ready and excited to make the trip across the globe and pick up the newest member of our family. And, yes, we are all going ”“ Tyler, Lanier, and all the kids, along with Tyler’s parents ”“ for the two week trek to China!…”

You can read the rest here and there.

Chai Feldblum isn’t a minor figure. She is the head of the on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, having been appointed by President Obama, and will be in that post until her term expires in 2018. Long before she was elevated to the EEOC chairmanship, Feldblum was known for her view that there are almost no situations in which disputes between religious liberty and gay rights should be resolved in favor of religious liberty.

It fell to Andrew Sullivan (whose voice I miss more and more every week) to defend freedom to the crowd. You really should read the whole Reason report to hear what he had to say. It includes a link to Andrew’s presentation, in which he says that the LGBT-industrial complex needs to keep the bogeyman of Oppression alive (“These people’s lives and careers and incomes depend on the maintenance of discrimination and oppression”), and says that religious liberty is just about the most important American freedom.

The hard truth is that Andrew Sullivan, alas for us all, is irrelevant to the debate now. When I saw him this spring in Boston, he told me that he can’t go on some campuses now because the gay left hates him for speaking out for religious liberty, and in particular for Brendan Eich. Think about that: fewer than four years ago, the president of the United States was formally committed to maintaining traditional marriage in law. Now, we have Court-mandated gay marriage from coast to coast, and Andrew Sullivan, who has done as much or more than any single person to make that happen, is now regarded by the gay rights movement as some sort of reactionary because of his liberal views.

Read it all (emphasis mine).

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

(Warning–Hard content to confront–KSH).

I’m not writing this article for my father. I’m writing it for the people in the parking lot.

Yes, if you say something, you may ruin the relationship you have with that person. You may get embarrassed in front of the other hockey parents. You may have to go through the awkwardness of filing a police report.

I can understand why a lot of people worry, “But what if I’m wrong?”

If you are wrong, that’s the absolute best case scenario. The alternative is that child is a prisoner in his own home. What you’re seeing in the parking lot or outside the locker room ”” whether it’s a kid getting grabbed and screamed at, or shoved up against a car ”” could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Read it all (Hat tip:DR).

Here are some key findings from the report:

1A declining share of children live in two-parent households. Today, 69% of children younger than 18 are living with two parents, down from 87% in 1960. A record-low 62% of children live with two married parents, while 7% live with two cohabiting parents. Meanwhile, the share of children living in single-parent households has increased threefold, from 9% in 1960 to 26% in 2014.

The rising prevalence of divorce, remarriage and cohabitation has caused other changes in family living arrangements, even among those living in two-parent households. In 2014, fewer than half of children (46%) lived in a household with two married parents in their first marriage, down from 73% in 1960.

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Six months have passed since Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed nine parishioners at an Emanuel AME Church Bible study.

The funerals are over. The flowers and tributes have thinned out on the Calhoun Street church’s sidewalk. President Barack Obama and his press corps have long since left town.

Charleston is trying to move toward normal again, but Deborah Stewart still misses Myra Thompson.

“She wasn’t just my sister-in-law,” Stewart said. “She was my friend.”

Read it all (and note the headline used above is from the print edition).

Evidence suggesting senior clergy tried to cover up sex abuse by an Anglican bishop has been uncovered by the BBC.

Two priests raised concerns about Peter Ball but were urged to keep quiet or saw no action taken, it has emerged.

And a couple who worked for now-jailed Ball, former bishop of Lewes and Bishop of Gloucester, said they also tried to raise concerns but were ignored.

Ball’s offending is the subject of an independent review and a national inquiry is looking at Church abuse.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The parallel is inexact, but peoples and cultures also have to deal with the power of hard memories. Painful traumas and experiences can be passed down generation to generation, whether it is exile, defeat or oppression. These memories affect both the victims’ and the victimizers’ cultures.

Many of the issues we have been dealing with in 2015 revolve around unhealed cultural memories: how to acknowledge past wrongs and move forward into the light.

The most obvious case involves American race relations. So much of the national conversation this year has concerned how to think about past racism and oppression, and the power of that past to shape present realities: the Confederate flag, Woodrow Wilson, the unmarked sights of the lynching grounds. Fortunately, many people have found the courage to tell the ugly truths about slavery, Jim Crow and current racism that were repressed by the wider culture.

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Prof Percy critiques Archbishop Welby’s decision to invite Archbishop Foley Beach of the breakaway Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to attend the Primates’ meeting, without consulting the official Episcopal Churches in the USA and Canada, and suggests:

”˜So the Archbishop of Canterbury could begin proceedings in January by offering an apology to American and Canadian Anglicans for his intemperate gestures towards ACNA, and his lack of consultation, which has undermined them. He should further apologise for dealing in territories and spheres of authority that are simply not his to meddle with.’

He also warns against using the widespread belief that the Anglican churches of the global south now form the majority and are the only ones growing numerically to cede ”˜more moral ground”¦to African churches”¦than might be judicious’ in divisive debates over sexual ethics.

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A spokesman for the Winchester Diocese said: “Canon Jeremy Davies made an application earlier this year for permission to officiate in the Diocese of Winchester.

“Due to the Church of England’s position on same sex marriage, as set out in the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance, Canon Jeremy Davies has been informed that his application has been unsuccessful.”

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According to a blogger in the ancient Iraqi city of Mosul, ISIS (also known as ISIL) leaders there have issued a “fatwa” against children with Down syndrome and other birth defects.

The only source for the story is the Mosul Eye, self-described as a “blog ”¦ set up to communicate what’s happening in Mosul to the rest of the world , minute by minute from an independent historian.” It has been repeated by dozens of mainstream and niche news sites, from the British Daily Mail through Fox News to Breitbart.

According to the Mosul Eye’s December 14 Facebook entry, “the Shar’i Board of ISIL issued an ‘Oral Fatwa’ to its members authorizing them to ”“ in the fatwa’s words, ‘kill newborn babies with Down’s Syndrome and congenital disorders and disabled children.'”

Read it all.

I had expected to see a giant of a man. In fact, Howard reflected the humble Scottish roots of his home. Rather than a six-foot plus giant, Sally and I met a man who she could look at eye to eye, but his welcome and heart was the size of Texas. It was common to hear that he was meeting with students not just to review the current chapter dedicated to their thesis (what the British call a dissertation) but to pray with them. He opened his home to welcome those students and host them, making sure their arrival in Scotland and a foreign land had left them feeling at home.

He engaged in theological discussion and debate as a conservative of deep conviction who demanded that one’s work be thorough but also fair to the views being challenged. He spoke with a soft voice that communicated with clarity and gravity about the way one should regard the Scripture. That captured people’s attention. The depth of his awareness covering a sweep of topics was stunning. Despite all of that ability and knowledge, what struck one about Howard was his humility and devotion to God. His critique was delivered with a gentleness that not only made clear what might be misdirected but also that showed he cared about how that critique was received.

One incident after my time in Aberdeen is still clear to me. On a return visit to Aberdeen, we brought our family with us. Our two girls had been born in bonnie Scotland, but my son had not. It was the first and only time Howard met our son, who was a very young, playful, five-year-old boy at the time. The Marshalls had a tea warmer in the shape of penguin. Another aspect of Howard’s personality is that he had a classic Scottish wit. So Stephen spotted the warmer and was drawn to it. He offered Stephen to let him play with it and got down on the floor with him to share in the moment. Stephen took advantage of his new playmate and promptly placed the penguin on Howard’s head, leaving both of them laughing and my wife nothing short of horrified. But that was Howard, sensitive to where people were coming from with an eye to where they could go. When I remember Howard Marshall, it is this moment that most typifies him as a person.

Read it all from Darrell Bock.

After more than four decades of serving as the nation’s economic majority, the American middle class is now matched in number by those in the economic tiers above and below it. In early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households combined, a demographic shift that could signal a tipping point, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.

In at least one sense, the shift represents economic progress: While the share of U.S. adults living in both upper- and lower-income households rose alongside the declining share in the middle from 1971 to 2015, the share in the upper-income tier grew more.

Over the same period, however, the nation’s aggregate household income has substantially shifted from middle-income to upper-income households, driven by the growing size of the upper-income tier and more rapid gains in income at the top. Fully 49% of U.S. aggregate income went to upper-income households in 2014, up from 29% in 1970. The share accruing to middle-income households was 43% in 2014, down substantially from 62% in 1970.

Read it all.

ESPN E:60 presents: Longshot: The Journey of Stephen Curry from Northern Lights Communications on Vimeo.

Middle-class parents risk turning their children into alcoholics by offering them drinks at home, according to government research which showed that affluent teenagers were twice as likely as the poorest to be regular drinkers.

Young people from middle-class backgrounds are also more likely to have tried alcohol and to continue with the habit once they have started, said the survey of 120,000 15-year-olds.

Charities warned that many parents still mistakenly believe that introducing their children to alcohol at home, even a glass of wine with a family dinner, might protect them from becoming problem drinkers. Despite being legal, it is likely to have the opposite effect, campaigners said.

The study, the first of its kind published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, a body funded by the Department of Health, found that 70 per cent of boys and girls aged 15 in the least deprived areas had tried alcohol, compared to 50 per cent in the most deprived.

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Syed Rizwan Farook was looking for a woman. A few years ago, not long out of college, he went online to find a match. He was slim, dark-eyed, 6 feet tall and living with a parent in Riverside, his dating profiles explained.

He was Chicago-born, with Pakistani roots. He didn’t drink or smoke. He avoided TV and movies, preferring instead to tinker with old cars, work out and memorize the Quran. He had a $49,000-a-year government job as a health inspector and wanted a young wife who shared his Sunni Muslim faith.

“Someone who takes her religion very seriously and is always trying to improve her religion and encouraging others to do the same using hikmah (wisdom) and not harshness,” he wrote on BestMuslim.com, one of several dating and matrimonial sites he used.

Read it all.

The profiles of the suspects behind the Paris terrorist attacks reflect a pattern often seen among perpetrators of previous atrocities””a group of guys who turned from drugs and petty crime to terrorism. What’s new is the potency of the movement that mobilized them.

To many in the West, Islamic State represents a medieval-style death cult. To its sympathizers, estimated to number in the thousands or even tens of thousands in Europe, its radical message of reviving the Sunni Muslim caliphate is strengthened by the fact that it already rules over territory.

Scott Atran, a Franco-American academic who has interviewed hundreds of radical Islamists over years, likens the rise and allure of Islamic State to the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks in czarist Russia and the National Socialist Party in Weimar Germany.

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Darcy Corbitt-Hall recently moved…[to North Dakota] from Alabama.

“Coming to North Dakota and then suddenly realizing I don’t have that ability in my church is very upsetting,” Corbitt-Hall says. “I can’t align myself with organizations that don’t treat everyone the same and don’t work for full inclusion.”

Along with Darcy, other congregants that attend Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church, share the same beliefs.

Amy Phillips adds, “Marriage equality is a human right. Our church clearly wants to support that right and be able to celebrate the union of all people, any people that want to marry each other.”

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The Revd Stephen Trott has tabled a Private Member’s Motion at General Synod, as follows:

“CIVIL PRELIMINARIES TO MARRIAGE IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

The Revd Stephen Trott (Peterborough) to move:

“That this Synod, noting the Registration of Marriages Regulations 2015 and the growing burden and complexity of the legal requirements imposed on members of the clergy who conduct weddings in the Church of England, invite the Archbishops’ Council to bring forward draft legislation to replace ecclesiastical preliminaries to marriage by universal civil preliminaries, such as those which have been in operation in Scotland ”¦ when banns were replaced by a Marriage Schedule issued by the civil registrar.”

He has raised the issue before. I

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On Christmas Eve, Joanne and Bill Gussler scraped up the money they could, traveled to Las Vegas and found a chapel where they exchanged their vows. It was 1955. Money and time were tight. Bill was on a short leave from the Navy, so there was no frill or fancy for their wedding.

“I had daisies when I got married,” Joanne says. “They were cheap, that’s why I had them.”

Sixty years later, at age 80, Joanne is getting the wedding she always wanted to Bill, now age 90.

Read it all and don’t miss the pictures.

Fine for teachers, but it can be tough on parents’ schedules and wallets.

In fact, the district says the schedule is so unpopular with families that it expects to loose several hundred students to other school systems.

“My best friend, she and her family, her two brothers, they moved to a private school because of the four-day school week,” says fifth-grader Chloe Florence. And that’s bad news for Apache Junction Unified, which is funded on a per-student basis.

Jennifer Florence says it just doesn’t add up, but her family has decided to stick it out.

“In a philosophical sense we believe very strongly in public education. So we are trying to support the system. Abandoning a ship, it will sink.”

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Call it medicine. Call it Christian kindness. Call it a miracle, even.

On Tuesday, in a small, windowless office at the Medical University of South Carolina, 3-year-old Diana Maria Gutierrez-Guzman heard her mother’s voice for the first time in her short life.

It was a beautiful thing to watch. Diana, frightened by the noise, turned to her mother for comfort. Her mom started crying.

Read it all and please dont miss the video, all from the local paper.

The Church of England is attempting to clarify its rights over church schools when the Education and Adoption Bill becomes law next year.

At present, there is uncertainty over the position of diocesan boards of education when, under a provision in the Bill, an inadequate school can be forcibly transferred to academy status under a different provider.

The Government has strongly resisted amendments to the Bill, which is intended to speed up the improvement of schools that are giving cause for concern. This will be achieved, the Government argues, by giving Ministers the right to force failing schools to become academies, and circumvent local consultation and objections that have hitherto delayed the process.

Instead of being secured in legislation, the Church’s position will be set out in a Memorandum of Understanding associated with the Bill.

Read it all.