As modern officials try to assess the risk global warming might present to the American Southwest, they’re paying a lot of attention to what scientists say about how climate changes affected the region’s ancient past.

Archaeologist Kristen Kuckelman has spent many years digging in the ruins of ancient farming villages on the Colorado Plateau and analyzing the artifacts and specimens she takes from them.

The people who lived in these ancient villages, which are known as pueblos, were part of a large culture that thrived for several hundred years in the high desert plain that covers parts of modern Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. Archaeologists call them Anasazi, or Ancient Pueblo People. One of the best known of their pueblos is in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Listen to it all from NPR.

“The gospel of grace begins and ends with forgiveness ”¦ grace is the only force in the universe powerful enough to break the chains that enslave generations. Grace alone melts ungrace.”

–Philip Yancey, quoted in this morning’s sermon

The great demographer and economist Thomas Malthus was 23-years-old the last time a British summer was this rain-soaked, which was back in 1789. The consequences of excessive rainfall in the late 18th century were predictable.

Crops would fail, the harvest would be dismal, food prices would rise and some people would starve. It was no coincidence that the French Revolution broke out the same year.

The price of a loaf of bread rose by 88 per cent in 1789 as a consequence of similar lousy weather. Historians of the Left like Georges Lefebvre used to see this as a prime cause of Louis XVI’s downfall.

Nine years after that rain-soaked summer, Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population. It is an essay we would do well to re-read today.

Read it all.

The way tens of thousands of ordinary people have banded together to fight rising floodwaters and help the poor, elderly and ill has revealed God’s love, not his wrath, says a Christian leader in England’s medieval town of Tewkesbury.

Much of central and southern England has recently suffered the effects of flooding following intense rain.

Tewkesbury’s 12th century abbey is surrounded by floodwater, yet the vicar in charge, Canon Paul Williams, speaks only of the amazing love shown by local people to one another.

He praises the way ordinary inhabitants have responded to one of the worst natural disasters to hit Britain in recent years.

“What I see is divine intervention among ordinary people, and it is revealed in their community spirit,” Williams told journalists visiting parts of devastated Gloucestershire, in central England, with church and civic officials last week.

Read the whole article.

A new book by a survivor of domestic violence says churches are failing abused women through a combination of bad advice, faulty theology and a Catch-22 where women are told divorce is not an option and yet held in contempt for staying in the situation and tolerating abuse.

Author Jocelyn Andersen opens Woman Submit! Christians & Domestic Violence by describing a brutal attack by a former husband that she believes, except for God’s grace, should have left her dead.

A self-described Bible-believing, evangelical Christian, Andersen told EthicsDaily.com she was raised as a Baptist but now attends an independent evangelical fellowship not affiliated with any denomination. She doesn’t use those labels in her book, however, because it is a problem she says crosses denominational lines.

Andersen says one big reason that men who profess to be Christians beat their wives is the doctrine of wifely submission.

Read it all.

When Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his quilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court.

The judge asked, “Guilty, or not guilty?” When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, “That’ll be ten dollars — a dollar for every mile you went over the limit.”
Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. “You have violated the law,” he said. “The fine must be paid–but I am going to pay it for you.” He took a ten dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! “That,” said Billy Graham, “is how God treats repentant sinners!”

–Used in this morning’s sermon by yours truly

GONZALEZ: Pope represents a small but growing number of the wrongfully incarcerated in this country who have had their convictions overturned and then been released. These innocent men and women were convicted and sent to prison for a variety of reasons such as incorrect eyewitness identifications, police and prosecutorial misconduct, and coerced confessions. However, after surviving prison and proving their innocence, exonerated individuals often face a multitude of new challenges once they’re released.

LOLA VOLLEN (Founder and Executive Director, Life After Exoneration Program, LAEP): They come out like newborns with nothing and stripped of their identity and their dignity. And then —

GONZALEZ: And left to fend for themselves?

Ms. VOLLEN: Yes, and what they have to fend against is ongoing injustices.

GONZALEZ: Lola Vollen is the founder and executive director of the Berkeley, California-based Life After Exoneration Program, called LAEP by its members.

VOLLEN: It’s an effort to help those whose lives have been virtually destroyed by the criminal justice system move forward in a meaningful and satisfying way, to help them heal and move forward.

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Once again, these statements are almost certainly accurate, but how would one verify them? Later in the article, the gay clergy issue is broadened to include gay and lesbian church musicians and parish officers.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that this story is not valid. I am also not saying that Gledhill should not have written it. I am simply noting that this is a classic case in which a reporter would have to work very hard to create any kind of skeleton of facts on which to hang all of these sweeping statements of opinion that are beyond verification. Where do you get “facts”? Private polls?

Sigh. What to do?

Read it all.

There is no hope and a future for any diocese or parish that remains connected to TEC. The Mark Lawrence case and various abuses of the canons should make this clear. This is a spiritual fact: TEC is terminally ill and the cancer will eventually spread to every part of the body.

Network bishops must prepare for separation as best they can and stay united in fellowship with each other and their Common Cause partners. Don’t wait for the “Windsor bishops.” Once there were 60 Irenaeus bishops, then 40 AAC bishops, now there are 20 “Windsor Bishops” and a dozen (and counting down?) Network bishops. Unless you are prepared to act and act in concert, you and your clergy and dioceses will be picked off one by one.

Network bishops and dioceses must be prepared to lose their rank and property. Many faithful priests have already paid this price as a matter of conscience and been summarily deposed. Congregations have walked away from their sanctuaries and now worship in schools. It is now time for the Network bishops and dioceses to take this risk by breaking communion with false and lukewarm colleagues in TEC. Remember the fires of Oxford!

Read it all.

Democrats will nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008 and Barack Obama will be her running mate, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicts.

The GOP will have three “formidable” choices in Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, said Gingrich, who is considering whether to get into the race.

Gingrich is ruling out John McCain’s chances among the Republican contenders.

Read it all.

It’s the question that preachers, teachers and parents dread, especially if they were shaped by the cultural earthquakes of the 1960s.

But no one fears it more than youth ministers, who hear the private questions that young people fear to ask their elders. Youth pastors work in the no man’s land between the home and the church.

This is the question: “Well, didn’t you do any of this stuff when you were a kid?” The young person may be asking about sex, drinking, drugs, cheating or, perhaps, lying to parents about any of the above.

If youth ministers stop and think about it, they will realize that they usually say something like the following while trying to answer these questions, said the Rev. David “Duffy” Robbins, a United Methodist who teaches youth ministry at Eastern University near Philadelphia.

“If I answer that it’s none of your business and the answer is between me and God, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll hear that as a ‘yes,’ ” said Robbins, writing in Good News magazine. “If I answer ‘yes’ to your question, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll take that as permission to make the same mistakes that I’ve made. If, on the other hand, I say ‘no,’ there’s a good possibility that you might reason that then I couldn’t possibly understand what you’re facing or what you’re going through right now.

Read it all.

Read it all.

A SENIOR Downing Street aide has sounded out Washington on the possibility of an early British military withdrawal from Iraq.

Simon McDonald, the prime minister’s chief foreign policy adviser, left the impression that he was “doing the groundwork” for Gordon Brown, according to one of those he consulted.

Brown, who arrives at Camp David in Maryland today to meet President George W Bush, said yesterday that “the relationship with the United States is our single most important bilateral relationship”.

Downing Street remains emphatic that he will not unveil a plan to withdraw British troops, who are due to remain in southern Iraq until the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. A spokesman said there had been no change in the government’s position.

Read it all.

Note: This content may not be appropriate for some blog readers.

After the fire in the Petit home was under control, Jennifer Hawke-Petit was found deceased on the first floor. Recent high school grad Hayley Petit, who was to attend Dartmouth in the fall, was found at the head of the stairs. Michaela Petit was bound to her bed, and according to the Hartford Courant, the child’s body was so badly burned in the fire that engulfed the home that police are not sure how she died….

The tragedy is too much to grasp for the Cheshire community, based on reports in the local and national media. This is perhaps compounded by the fact that both Dr. Petit and his wife were healers. Jennifer Hawke-Petit was a nurse and one of two directors of health at a private boarding school. After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis almost a decade ago, Hawke-Petit became active in the Connecticut State chapter of the MS Society and her daughters had joined in, raising money in Hayley’s name over the last 8 years to the tune of more than $50,000. Michaela Petit was planning on following in her sister’s footsteps.

I prayed for the whole community of Cheshire this week as they seek to regain their footing in the aftermath of this horrific crime. Read it all–KSH.

Do not miss them.

The fall was driven less by disappointing profits””though average earnings growth at American companies has fallen back into single digits this year””than by rising borrowing costs. Market interest rates have risen as investors become increasingly concerned about rising delinquencies in subprime mortgages and the effect of these on hedge funds and banks holding securities backed by such loans. These worries grew more acute this week when Countrywide, America’s largest mortgage lender, indicated that the subprime storm was starting to lash higher-quality mortgages. Few now expect to see signs of recovery in the housing market before the middle of next year, while a fast-growing number fear its troubles spilling into the broader economy. By Thursday afternoon, futures markets were pricing in a 100% chance of the Federal Reserve cutting short-term interest rates by December.

It is a repricing of risk that is at the heart of this latest move. Read it all.

(ACNS)

The Most Revd Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Kaduna and Bishop of Kaduna diocese, was installed as a Six Preacher yesterday during Evensong by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Rowan Williams, and the Very Revd Robert Willis, the Dean of Canterbury. The appointment is for five years and may be renewed. Archbishop Idowu-Fearon replaces Canon Dr John Polkinghorne, who has retired as a Six Preacher. Recent Six Preachers include Bishop John Robinson and Prof A J Mason, the translator of many hymns.

Archbishop Idowu-Fearon was born in 1949 in Nigeria. Although he trained briefly as a soldier, he soon decided that he wished to serve God as a priest and was ordained in 1971, becoming a bishop in 1990. He has a doctorate degree in Islamic studies, with special interest in Christian-Muslim relations, and is married to Comfort; they have two sons, Ibrahim and Dquda, and a daughter Ninma.

“We have already come to know Archbishop Josiah as a friend from his time spent teaching in our International Study Centre to the Canterbury Scholars course” said Robert Willis earlier today. “This appointment ”“ one of the first from the wider Anglican Communion ”“ enhances the concept of the teaching ministry at Canterbury Cathedral that was so firmly laid down by Cranmer at the time of the Reformation”. “I feel humbled by this appointment” Archbishop Idowu-Fearon said yesterday before the service, “remembering that this ministry was founded by Archbishop Cranmer. Being a Six Preacher will give me a sense of belonging to the community at Canterbury Cathedral which has existed for over 1,400 years ”“ my own Diocese of Kaduna is only 50 years old! I hope that this recognition will help me to be an ambassador for Christ, not just within the Anglican Communion, but to my Muslim neighbours”.

By Ed Beavan

THE RENOWNED evangelical speaker the Rev Dr John Stott called for Christians to continue to strive for ”˜Christ-likeness’ during his final major address before retiring from public ministry.

Speaking at the annual Keswick Convention, the 87-year-old former chaplain to the Queen told the audience that ”˜Christ-likeness is the will of God for the people of God’.

He warned his audience that being Christ like in ”˜patient endurance’ may become ”˜increasingly relevant as persecution increases in many cultures’, and highlighted the importance of the incarnation for Christians.

He said: “As Christ had entered our world, so we are to enter other people’s worlds.

This entering into other people’s worlds is exactly what we mean by incarnational evangelism.

All authentic mission is incarnational mission.”

He added that evangelistic efforts often failed because Christians did not reflect the Christ they are proclaiming.

To illustrate the point he highlighted the words of a former Muslim converted to Christianity, the Rev Iskandar Jadeed, who said: “If all Christians were Christians””that is, Christ-like ”” there would be no more
Islam today.”

Keswick Convention Council Trustee and preacher, Jonathan Lamb, said Dr Stott’s final address had been deeply moving.

“He may be known as one of the greatest Christian leaders of the 20th century, but few of us could remain unmoved by the sight of a stooped figure, now quietly spoken, calling us to become more like Jesus Christ,” he said.

“Emotions were high amongst the thousands present, each with memories of the power and clarity of John Stott’s writing and preaching, and thankful for a life of godliness, integrity and humility.

“How fitting that his final visit to Keswick should deliberately point to the Lord Jesus, whom he has served so faithfully.”

–From the Church of England Newspaper, July 20, 2007

From here:

The Standing Committee [of Alabama] and Bishop Parsley hosted a Diocesan Forum on “Communion Matters: A Study Document for the Episcopal Church”, at All Saints’ Church in Homewood, on July 24th, 2007. Here are the comments offered by Mr. George Elliott, our Senior Warden:

“Bishop Parsley, Mr. President, I am George Elliott, Senior Warden of the Cathedral Church of the Advent. I am joined by our Junior Warden and the members of the Vestry who stand here with me. I speak on behalf of this Vestry and have good reason to believe that I also speak for at least 70% of our 3,800+ member parish. As a friend in Christ, I am here to speak to you in love and with all due respect about the document, ‘Communion Matters’.

“We at the Advent are disappointed with the document because it does not lead us even to consider repentance and compliance with the clear advice and requests of the Primates; actually, it leads us down the path of attempting to justify the current direction of the Episcopal Church. We do not believe this is the course that God intends for us as Christians to follow. We humbly and respectfully implore the leadership of the Diocese of Alabama to stand up and do the right thing. Tell the leaders of the Episcopal Church to turn back from their current direction and comply with the recent demands of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

“Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you.”

French director Laurent Tirard’s second film, Moliere, has been likened to a French version of Shakespeare in Love.

Tirard is the screenwriter and director of the movie, which has its U.S. release Friday. The movie imagines an undocumented period of the great French playwright and actor Moliere.

Tirard talks with Robert Siegel about learning to be a director in America and learning about the differences between French and American cinema.

Listen to it all.

From the New York Times:

Investor reticence about the sex industry is changing notably, Mr. Gardiner said….

Mr. Gardiner said a key selling point in getting these deals done was to give the mainstream investors some public relations cover by repackaging the company in a more conventional way. For instance, he said, a company can still get a big chunk of revenue from the pornography industry but also branch out into mainstream business.

He cited as an example a company called Waat Media, which aggregates and distributes content to cellphones and has deals with several makers of explicit pornography, like Penthouse and the Vivid Entertainment Group. In September, Spark Capital, a mainstream venture capital firm, led a $12.5 million round of financing for Waat, but changed the company’s name to Twistbox Entertainment and packaged the company as a mobile content distributor.

Read it all (my emphasis).

Read it all.

A telling proverb in the Shona spoken by the majority of Zimbabweans goes Nyadzi dzinokunda rufu. In English, this means “embarrassment is worse than death”, and the words have rarely seemed more apt than over the past two weeks, as the latest twist in the ongoing struggle between the dictator, Robert Mugabe, and his would-be nemesis, Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, has been splashed across news pages and TV screens around the world. For what the world has seen are photographs purporting to depict Archbishop Ncube in the act of adultery.

On Monday 16 July, to a huge state orchestrated fanfare, a junior state employee named Onesimus Sibanda filed a case at the High Court in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, demanding damages of Z$20 billion (£80,000) from the archbishop, on the grounds that Archbishop Ncube had had sexual relations with his wife. Mr Sibanda’s declaration alleged that “on diverse occasions between the period beginning 2006 and in places particularly in the environs of Bulawayo and St Mary’s Cathedral, the defendant illicitly associated and engaged with the
plaintiff ’s wife, one Rosemary Sibanda, in an adulterous sexual relationship well knowing of the marital status of the plaintiff ’s wife”.

Read it all.

Scandals are nothing new to organized sports, but this summer they seem to be popping up everywhere.

Rather than watching cyclists pumping up the inclines of the Tour de France, fans have been treated to images of disqualified and departing contestants accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

What should be a glorious culmination to Giants slugger Barry Bonds’ pursuit of professional baseball’s all-time home run title has instead become a divisive debate over whether alleged steroid use will forever stain his monumental achievement.

Instead of smugly presiding over “I love this game” promotions, a chastened NBA Commissioner David Stern faced a packed news conference to admit that a league referee had wagered on games he officiated.

Read it all.

As an undergraduate at Harvard, Richard Lyman Bushman was offered some friendly advice by a favorite professor: he was a fine student, but his Mormonism was seen by the Harvard establishment as a “bunch of garbage.”

Mr. Bushman would do himself a favor, the professor told him, to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints behind as a relic of his upbringing.

“I reacted just the opposite,” Professor Bushman said in a phone interview. “I said, ”˜You’re not going to bully me, you big representative of Harvard culture.’ ”

That was 57 years ago. Since then, Professor Bushman has retained his Mormon faith even while forging an Ivy League academic career, earning posts at Columbia and Harvard.

In fact, as his teaching and research focused on colonial American history, Professor Bushman also managed to become something of an ambassador for Mormonism to the outside world.

Read the whole thing.

People who smoke marijuana daily or weekly double their risk of developing a psychotic illness over their lifetime, according to a study published Thursday.

Among all cannabis users, including sporadic experimenters and habitual users, the lifetime risk of psychotic illness increased by 40%, the report said.

“It’s not as if you smoke a joint and you’re going to go crazy,” said Richard Rawson, who directs the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at UCLA and was not involved in the study.

But he cautioned: “It’s definitely not a good idea to use heavy amounts of marijuana.”

The researchers found that the risk for psychotic illnesses did appear to increase with dose, suggesting that stopping marijuana use would decrease risk, said coauthor Dr. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol in Britain.

Read it all.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday he’ll probably deliver a speech explaining the role his Mormon faith plays in his political life, but he argued he’s made strong gains among evangelicals despite questions about his religion.

“I have thought about that,” Romney said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I haven’t made a final decision, but it’s probably more likely than not.”

During a campaign appearance earlier in the day, Romney was asked about his views on appointing a “God-fearing Mormon” to the Supreme Court. Romney has been asked about such matters frequently in question-and-answer sessions he holds almost daily.

“I’d go after people who will follow the law and I wouldn’t apply a religious test either,” Romney said.

In the interview, Romney acknowledged the issue crops up often enough that he’s pondering dealing with it in a comprehensive manner.

Read it all.

After a successful series of infertility treatments, Kristen Cohen and her husband, Lee, had two sets of twin boys, now ages 6 and 2. They also had about a dozen embryos that they no longer needed but could not imagine going to waste. “We went through so much to create these embryos,” says Kristen. “This was much more than blood, sweat and tears.” The Cohens had also benefited firsthand from medical research; Lee, who has cystic fibrosis, has been helped by advanced treatments. So in 2006, when Kristen saw an article about the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, she contacted it and began the process of donating their embryos, which could be used to create new lines of embryonic stem cells. After five months of paperwork and counseling for the couple, the Cohen embryos were in the hands of researchers. “We know they might be destroyed without making a single stem-cell line,” Kristen says. “I don’t need to know that my embryo helped save patient X. It’s the greater good.”

Read it all.

HE TAKES COMFORT from a statement from the Scottish Episcopal Church, whose bishops said publicly two years ago that being homosexual is not a bar to ministry. “It was supportive and I was grateful for it. As you can imagine, statements like that are few and far between at the moment in the Anglican Communion. It was a refusal to draw a line in the sand.”

Robinson warns, though, that the price of support could see the Scottish church, as well as the American one, being forced out of the Communion. “If the Episcopal Church in America is to bear some sort of punishment, it would not seem unlikely that all those who have stood with us might be so punished.”

As a Christian, can he forgive his enemies? “You know, I can. And here’s why. They only believe what the church has taught them to believe, and I believed those same things myself for a very long time. That is what a gay person has to contend with. We’ve been taught the same things everyone else has. The church has taught us all to condemn homosexual behaviour. I would argue it has taught that mistakenly, but I can certainly understand why people feel this way, so no, I don’t have any trouble forgiving.”

Read it all.

Watch the whole amazing video story (link accompanies the article).