“He that is everywhere is nowhere.” ”” Thomas Fuller, 17th century historian, scholar, and author, also quoted in this morning’s sermon

Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalled in his book Stress Fractures. “Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.
“I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’
“Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me — and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.” “I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly.'”

–From Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, and quoted in this morning’s sermon

Law enforcement officials are investigating allegations that the veteran N.B.A. referee Tim Donaghy influenced the outcome of professional basketball games on which he or associates of his had wagered, several people familiar with the inquiry said yesterday.

According to a person with direct knowledge of the matter, federal officials are investigating whether Donaghy bet on N.B.A. games during the past two seasons, and whether since December 2006 he made calls that affected any game’s margin of victory while being coerced by members of organized crime.

A federal grand jury in Brooklyn is reviewing the case, which has been going on for several months and is expected to be concluded within a few weeks.

Donaghy, 40, who completed his 13th season in the N.B.A., could not be reached for comment. People involved with the situation said he was aware of the investigation, had resigned from his N.B.A. position about 10 days ago, and would surrender to law enforcement officials if charges were brought against him.

Read it all.

Listen to it all from NPR.

The knee-deep potholes on Cotton Street were filled just hours before Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards arrived this week. Residents had waited years for them to be fixed in a city so overwhelmed by poverty it once moved the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to tears.

At a smoked-ribs barbecue, Edwards invoked the legacy of King, calling it an honor to walk in the same places the civil rights leader did and to bring fresh attention to the poor and disenfranchised.

“But we still have work to do,” Edwards said Monday to the dozens gathered on the first day of his three-day tour through poor communities in the United States.

From the underpaid poultry workers in the Mississippi Delta to the uninsured coal miners in Appalachia, Edwards’s “Road to One America” tour was designed to showcase what he calls the “other America” of boarded-up factories and foreclosed homes. It was also part of an effort to develop a defining theme for his campaign. But he is not the only Democrat to highlight the 37 million Americans living in poverty as a focal point of the 2008 presidential election.

After decades of promoting economic growth as the best cure for poverty, Democrats are trying to woo voters with promises of direct financial aid and to reach out to people who have seen their lives worsen over the last eight years. Democrats are now embracing such solutions to combat entrenched poverty, and in the process taking on Republicans on issues beyond the war in Iraq.

Read the whole article.

From ABC News:

Girls who’ve just barely become women ”” teen idols like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton ”” are also, very often and publicly, barely dressed.

These young stars have tremendous influence over the fashion fantasies of young women and girls.

“It’s just fashion,” said one teen about today’s revealing styles. “Like, we have to fit in.”

Another teen girl said she almost couldn’t avoid dressing immodestly.

“That’s what they see these days,” she said.

Read the whole thing.

John Becknell enters the courtroom and finds his usual spot in the front row, just behind the prosecutor’s table.

Becknell _ a devout Christian known to many as “Brother John” _ pulls out a pen and an inch-thick docket, mostly of drug and alcohol cases. For the next three hours, he takes diligent notes on the judge’s actions, the attendance of police officers, repeat offenders making another appearance, and so on.

The purpose? To make sure drug offenders in eastern Kentucky are getting what they deserve.

Frustrated with widespread drug abuse _ especially of easily accessible prescription painkillers _ a handful of mountain churches are moving away from their traditional role as a refuge for the poor and addicted. Now they’re more interested in law enforcement.

The Community Church of Manchester is leading the way through “Court Watch,” a program in which volunteers attend court hearings to monitor judges overseeing drug-related cases.

In the town of Ave Maria, parents need not worry about which school their children will attend. The town has been built for Roman Catholics and all the schools guarantee a traditional Catholic upbringing.

The daily school run through this newly established enclave, funded by a Catholic billionaire and built on a slice of rural Florida that used to be a tomato farm, takes mums and dads along roads with names such as Anthem Parkway and Annunciation Street.

In Ave Maria, which opens its gates to the public today, there are morals to be upheld and souls to be saved, and the biggest secular temptation will probably prove to be the local ice-cream parlour.

Students at the town’s schools and its Catholic university, the first to be built in the US for more than 40 years, will be housed in single-sex halls of residence and encouraged to partake in more wholesome extracurricular activities than the usual late-night binge drinking and dormitory trysts ”“ such as visiting the chapels attached to every block.

The roads will supposedly be clean and safe, the schools graffiti-free and disciplined, and the residents kind and sharing. “It is to be a true community, where neighbours care about neighbours, friendships span generations, and a sense of pride is felt by every resident, student and worker,” the sugary marketing spiel promises.

Visitors are meant to feel God’s presence in the design. The town’s focal point is a spectacular church that will ultimately house the nation’s biggest crucifix, 65 feet (20m) tall, complete with an image of the bleeding Christ in stained glass. Faith, worship and clean living are at the town’s family-friendly core.

Read it all.

The Lives of Others. Elizabeth and I both caught it on the way back from London recently. It is a must see–KSH.

John Wesley had only one condition previously required for those who wished to be admitted to the United Societies (small groups) of Methodism: “A desire to flee from the wrath to come, a desire to be saved from their sins.” Yet, Wesley quickly added that “wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits.” Repentance is one variety of those fruits. Further, Wesley required that those seeking membership respond to a series of probing questions including: “Have you the forgiveness of your sins?

Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion over you?” This is language of justifying grace. If clear lack of repentance and faith was apparent, admission was denied. If members failed to progress in sanctifying grace they were disciplined, and even expelled, from the societies.

In similar fashion, our United Methodist vows of membership place repentance in the first position. Persons to be received into membership in a local United Methodist congregation covenant together with God and the members of the local church to keep the vows, including the first: To renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of the world, and repent of their sin.

In the circumstance that generated Judicial Council Decision 1032, the man who presented himself for membership was a practicing homosexual. The United Methodist Book of Discipline is clear in stating that while “homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth” and “all persons need the ministry and guidance of the church in their struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship that enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self,” yet “the United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Consistent with Wesley’s offering of the means of grace to all, the elder in charge welcomed the man to the worship, sacraments, fellowship, and programs of the church. However, in light of our Methodist heritage and the clear statement of the Discipline, the pastor recognized that examination of readiness for assuming the vows of membership was needed if the church was to be both a redeemed and redeeming fellowship. To offer grace without repentance is to reduce grace to mere acceptance without the power of the Holy Spirit to produce holiness of heart and life.

Read it all.

From the Monitor:

What is the problem in the church today? Simple. Too many converts who are not ‘discipled’ (the word originates from discipline). After staying in the church for long, but without growth, many start to feel that the long stay translates into an automatic qualification to positions of leadership! And bingo: one such fellow will start to refer to himself or herself as a ”pastor’ — without any preparation or authority above them to oversee his or her activities.

The cycle continues. And before we realise what is going on, the expansion becomes massive and runs out of control! Those who are successful are emulated. And in copying, counterfeits are created. The leadership and expansion model, which Jesus gave to his disciples was not a hierarchy of the military chain of command; from top to bottom. In fact it is the exact opposite; it is from bottom to top. Jesus says that whoever wants to be greater than others has to be the servant (Mathew 20:26-27). So in the corporate world, a janitor is greater than the CEO.

In the church, the homeless and jobless guy with a Shs500 coin ought to get the VIP seat. The expansion model of the church was also designed to multiply — the way living cells multiply; starting off with the smallest cell of two or three people (Mathew 18:20).
It ought to be horizontal growth — i.e. we all have complementary roles: a singer, prophet, teacher, pastor or evangelist should all co-exist in one fellowship (read church). Paul puts it this way: we are all different parts of the same body with Christ as the head of the church (I Corinthians 12:12). From this model it is easy to identify the counterfeit churches.

Yes, there are many born-again in Uganda today: from about 10,000 folks in 1986 to an estimated 6.5million converts today. One would expect corruption to be history. But instead, the con artists have increased in number! This means that the tree is not bearing good fruit (Mathew7:16-20).

Read it all.

Interesting to see Uganda is now claiming 9.6 million members.

The American Anglican Council (AAC) applauds the recent statement from the Global South Steering Committee. The statement is “a clear warning to both Presiding Bishop Schori and Archbishop Williams,” said AAC President and CEO the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson.

“The Global South and their 40 million congregants refuse to sit by and watch The Episcopal Church (TEC) defy Communion agreements and legally persecute those U.S. parishes that wish to remain faithful to the Gospel and church teaching,” said Anderson.

The Global South Primates urged TEC to reconsider its rejection of the Dar Es Salaam Communiqué requests and principles and called for TEC’s “heartfelt repentance and genuine change” in order to restore true communion. The statement also called the Anglican Church of Canada to task for their declaration that “same-sex blessing is not core doctrine” and their defiance of Windsor Report recommendations. The statement made clear the Global South’s intention to continue extending pastoral care to U.S. based churches and to make similar provisions for biblically faithful churches in Canada. It also showed the Global South’s resolve to not attend next year’s Lambeth conference unless the Archbishop of Canterbury reconsiders his Lambeth invitations and allows for discipline in the Communion and true reconciliation.

Anderson said the statement “is the best news and the clearest word we have received in a very long while.”

The Global South Steering Committee reiterated the Primates’ request for TEC to immediately suspend litigation against “congregations and individuals which wish to remain Anglican but are unable to do so within TEC.” It also alluded to a future where orthodox Anglican churches in the U.S. have their own ecclesiastical structure separate from the Episcopal Church.

“This is more than a message of hope for weary Christians; this is a call to action from the Global South Primates. Our plan at the AAC is to act alongside the Global South and fellow orthodox Anglican Christians,” Anderson said.

WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers.

As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in the mainstream media. Faith frequently was treated like a circus, even a freak show.

I wanted to report objectively and respectfully about how belief shapes people’s lives. Along the way, I believed, my own faith would grow deeper and sturdier.

But during the eight years I covered religion, something very different happened.

In 1989, a friend took me to Mariners Church, then in Newport Beach, after saying: “You need God. That’s what’s missing in your life.” At the time, I was 28 and my first son was less than a year old. I had managed to nearly ruin my marriage (the second one) and didn’t think I’d do much better as a father. I was profoundly lost.

The mega-church’s pastor, Kenton Beshore, had a knack for making Scripture accessible and relevant. For someone who hadn’t studied the Bible much, these talks fed a hunger in my soul. The secrets to living well had been there all along ”” in “Life’s Instruction Manual,” as some Christians nicknamed the Bible.

Some friends in a Bible study class encouraged me to attend a men’s religious weekend in the San Bernardino Mountains. The three-day retreats are designed to grind down your defenses and leave you emotionally raw ”” an easier state in which to connect with God. After 36 hours of prayer, singing, Bible study, intimate sharing and little sleep, I felt filled with the Holy Spirit.

At the climactic service Sunday, Mike Barris, a pastor-to-be, delivered an old-fashioned altar call. He said we needed to let Jesus into our hearts.

With my eyes closed in prayer, I saw my heart slowly opening in two and then being infused with a warm, glowing light. A tingle spread across my chest. This, I thought, was what it was to be born again….

Read it all.

France is the country that produced the Enlightenment, Descartes’s one-liner, “I think, therefore I am,” and the solemn pontifications of Jean-Paul Sartre and other celebrity philosophers.

But in the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy, thinking has lost its cachet.

In proposing a tax-cut law last week, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde bluntly advised the French people to abandon their “old national habit.”

“France is a country that thinks,” she told the National Assembly. “There is hardly an ideology that we haven’t turned into a theory. We have in our libraries enough to talk about for centuries to come. This is why I would like to tell you: Enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves.”

Citing Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” she said the French should work harder, earn more and be rewarded with lower taxes if they get rich.

Read it all.

Today Americans still readily embrace both religious faith and patriotism, a striking paradox in a land where Church and State are deliberately separated. We have much to learn from the people of the United States. Their search for a better life and their optimism are linked with their religious faith. From their first day at school, American children learn to salute the flag and declare their Americanness. They say: “God bless America,” and then happily add: “I’m a Baptist, or a Jew, a Catholic or a Muslim.” To them, it seems, being a good Catholic, a good Jew, a good Baptist or a good Muslim fits in perfectly with being a good American. Americans always look with hopeful eyes to the future. Problems can be solved, people can be saved and God will continue to bless his people. Since the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, Americans have seen themselves as a chosen people, called to share in God’s work in history.

The contrast with Europe is striking. In the first place, Europeans have misgivings about patriotism because of the extreme nationalism that blighted Europe throughout the past century. The European Union is a conscious attempt to transcend national loyalties and to foster a new “European” identity based on common values. But Europe’s slow and painful birth has involved an attempt to brush under the carpet the continent’s Christian heritage. Whether it is motivated by overt hostility to religion or by a desire to find a lowest common denominator, such denial of the obvious is unhealthy and dishonest.

Europe’s mood is pessimistic. This is surprising, as the institutions that were created postwar to keep the peace in Europe ”“ the EU itself, Nato, and the European Convention on Human Rights under the Council of Europe ”“ have been remarkably successful in this perennially troubled continent. Part of the problem may be that the role of religion is not usually acknowledged. The American example suggests that seeing Christianity as part of the European vision, rather than ignoring it, could only enhance the construction of a common European civilisation.

Read it all.

FAW: In big nursing homes the annual staff turnover rate ranges averages around 76 percent. But in the last three years the St. John’s homes have lost only three people, in part, says Green House guide Nancy Fee, who mentors, trains and supports the staff, because caregivers here are responsible for running the homes.

NANCY FEE (Green House Guide): We have empowered them to make decisions within their household. And so they take the responsibility of planning their menus, ordering their food, deciding what, what do the elders want.

FAW: Caregivers prepare the meals which are served whenever the elders want to eat. No pre-assigned routines, no kitchen shutting down at set times. For 85-year old Phyllis Southard that means getting the food she likes.

PHYLLIS SOUTHARD(Green House Resident): My specialty has been eggs with a little bit of cheese on it ”” a slice of cheese. And that’s good.

Read it all.

In the middle of the biggest glut of condominiums in more than 30 years, Miami developers keep on building.

The oversupply will force prices down as much as 30 percent, the worst decline since the 1970s, and help push Florida’s economy into recession as early as October, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at West Chester, Pennsylvania-based Moody’s Economy.com, who owns a home in Vero Beach, Florida.

“Florida is the epicenter for all the problems that exist in the housing industry,” said Lewis Goodkin, president of Goodkin Consulting Corp. and a property adviser in Miami for the past 30 years, who also foresees a recession. “The problems we have now are unprecedented and a lot of people will get burnt.”

Thirty-seven new high-rise condos and 20,000 new units are being built in Miami’s 1,040-acre downtown, where sales fell almost 50 percent in May, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The new units will join the 22,924 existing condos in Miami-Dade County that were for sale in April, according to Jack McCabe, chief executive officer of McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Florida. That’s the most unsold units since McCabe began tracking sales in 2002.

“Have you been to Miami lately?” Florida Governor Charlie Crist said at a homebuilders’ conference last week in Orlando. “It’s like we have a new state bird: the building crane.”

Read it all.

For anyone who missed this earlier as all the news, articles and comments on the blog went whizzing by.

Trinity Wall Street is convening a group of bishops from Anglican Communion provinces in Africa and their companions in the Episcopal Church “for a consultation to strengthen relationships, develop mission partnerships, and to discover new opportunities to bear witness to the Gospel,” according to a Trinity news release.

Hosted by Iglesia Episcopal Reformada de España, “Walking to Emmaus: Discovering New Mission Perspectives in Changing Times” will be held in El Escorial, Spain July 21 through July 26.

The consultation will be rooted in prayer and breaking bread together; using different liturgies from the provinces of the Anglican Communion to enrich the experience of the participants, the release said.

“Mission flourishes best through collaboration,” said the Rev. Canon James G. Callaway, Jr., deputy for faith formation and development at Trinity Church. “This gathering provides an opportunity for people of shared faith and mutual responsibility to come together to further develop partnerships that address important needs in the world.”

The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, the rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel, noted that Trinity Church is an “active partner in the global south, especially strengthening the church in Africa by facilitating the ability of its leaders to take control of factors that influence their lives.”

Read it all. There is a little more about this meeting here. Now, inquiring minds wish to know a lot more about this gathering: who planned it, what is the agenda, who made the invitations and how, who is actually coming, etc.–KSH.

Some things you should know about Father Major:

He was once pulled off a plane in Minneapolis as a suspected terrorist and questioned for three hours. Turns out an air marshal got suspicious when he peeked at Father Major’s laptop and saw he was writing about Afghanistan and God. Imagine how friendly all the other passengers were to him when they were finally able to get back on the plane. They, too, were detained, he explained, because “I could have had an accomplice.”

Despite the British accent, he was born and raised in New Zealand. He can do a passable accent from there but says it hurts after awhile.

He is a rugby player.

He once lived in a 15th century palazzo — with a ballroom — in Florence, but gave it up to move to Iowa. It was love, not corn, that propelled him: His wife was teaching at Iowa State and her bi-continental commute was getting to be too much. “It makes me one of the great romantic heroes,” he noted.

Read it all.

Read it all. This is sad but also very predictable. What is particularly lamentable is how blatantly American-centric this piece is, with so little attention to what has been occurring and why.

For example, there is no mention of most of the central argument of the Primates Tanzania Communique.

One would have thought that might have mattered since the communique said in part:

21. However, secondly, we believe that there remains a lack of clarity about the stance of The Episcopal Church, especially its position on the authorisation of Rites of Blessing for persons living in same-sex unions. There appears to us to be an inconsistency between the position of General Convention and local pastoral provision. We recognise that the General Convention made no explicit resolution about such Rites and in fact declined to pursue resolutions which, if passed, could have led to the development and authorisation of them. However, we understand that local pastoral provision is made in some places for such blessings. It is the ambiguous stance of The Episcopal Church which causes concern among us.
22. The standard of teaching stated in Resolution 1.10 of the Lambeth Conference 1998 asserted that the Conference “cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions”. The primates stated in their pastoral letter of May 2003,
“The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke for us all when he said that it is through liturgy that we express what we believe, and that there is no theological consensus about same sex unions. Therefore, we as a body cannot support the authorisation of such rites.”.
23. Further, some of us believe that Resolution B033 of the 75th General Convention8 does not in fact give the assurances requested in the Windsor Report.
24. The response of The Episcopal Church to the requests made at Dromantine has not persuaded this meeting that we are yet in a position to recognise that The Episcopal Church has mended its broken relationships.

What the communique went on to say was that “interventions” would need to continue unless certain conditions were met, and given the House of Bishops’ aggressive rejection of the pastoral scheme proposal and failure to provide any adequate alternative that will actually deal with the real need involved that did not happen. There are also same sex blessings in various dioceses which continue to occur with official knowledge and in a number of cases sanction, in spite of now nearly incessantly pleas from other Anglicans throughout the globe that they cease.

So the Episcopal Church still has not done what it has been asked to do by the Anglican leadership, and what is occurring is entirely in accord with the Tanzania communique. None of this is mentioned by the official TEC house organ, and the sound of one hand clapping continues–alas–KSH.

The recent, splendid Living Church article by my friend Kenneth Aldrich ”“ “Confessions of an Episcopal Fundamentalist” ”“ has provided timely food for thought and prayer,if not indeed something very close to manna from heaven, for Episcopalians committed to the “fundamentals” of orthodox Christianity, and in particular for those on that Anglican front-line which is what the Diocese of South Carolina seems to have become!

In my own preaching and teaching at the Cathedral in Charleston I have used Father Aldrich’s article, as well as the recent widely controversial edict of Pope Benedict XVI (nothing new there and therefore nothing for us to get bent out of shape about!), to undergird my conviction that the way forward for us in this Diocese and at this Cathedral should be to focus on two ecclesiological bottom-lines.

The first, always, is the trustworthiness of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as God’s Word Written, in terms of which the identity and integrity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is constituted by the Spirit of Christ Himself. The second, for Anglicans, must be the apostolic witness and continuity of this Church Catholic, embodied and passed along by bishops who commit themselves to be faithful guardians of “the faith once delivered to the saints” as contained in the Bible and expressed in the Creeds of the Church’s conciliar tradition. To put it in the words of one of the first Reformation-era Anglican bishops, John Jewell: “We have planted no new religion but only have preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the apostles of Christ and other holy fathers of the primitive church.”

Our current priority must be praying and working towards getting Mark Lawrence re-elected and consecrated as such a bishop, with (God willing) his service of consecration and “seating” in this Cathedral next January.

In the meantime, as we witness the tragic, if gradual, break up of the Episcopal Church as we have known it, we can console ourselves that, on the one hand, Jesus promised that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against His Church but, on the other hand, He said nothing about the putative claims of modern denominations as such or their “autonomy” (nationally or provincially) ”“ which are, after all, nothing but modern institutional fictions.

Anglican Christianity is surely in the process of re-aligning itself around relationships of apostolic faithfulness, integrity, and collegiality among and between bishops and dioceses committed not to humanly institutionalized structures (which in the long course of church history wax and wane) but to the divinely constituted One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ.

As one of my own mentors in cathedral ministry, a British Dean put it: “Hold fast to Christ, and for the rest remain uncommitted.” May it ever be so for the Diocese, Bishop, and Cathedral of South Carolina ”“ and indeed, as a matter of fervent prayer on behalf of all of us, for the See of Canterbury itself and its occupant, that the re-alignment of Anglicanism should not lose that historic rootedness through so many centuries of church history.

Read it all; there has been a lot of press coverage of this story during the current week and many links can be found here.

THE Anglican communion should learn lessons from Harry Potter, a senior religious figure urged yesterday.

The Bishop of St Davids, Carl Cooper, said the Christian virtues of humility, respect and love portrayed in the stories about the teenage wizard should be replicated within the church.

But the religious world last night remained divided about the influence of the hugely popular series of books and films, with one Welsh evangelist describing them as a “doorway to the occult”.

The seventh and final book in the Potter saga ”“ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ”“ will be released tomorrow, with anticipation around the world reaching fever pitch among the character’s army of followers. To make the most of demand, Asda will be selling it for £5 a copy, the retailer said last night.

Read it all.

UPDATE:

WARNING! There are spoilers in the comments!
I think most folks have been careful to note any spoilers in advance. But for those who’ve not yet read the book who are trying to remain unaware of the ending, read the latter comments below only at your own risk! –elfgirl

We have a problem of theology in our time and culture. I am not talking about the headline issues of human sexuality. I am talking about God.

It is fascinating that recent best-seller lists of books contain titles such as The God Delusion and God Is Not Great. I read another book recently of the same mindset titled Letter to a Christian Nation that argued that God is a hoax and religion is a detriment to healthy society.

Interestingly, I discovered that I agreed with many statements that the author made because religion in general, and Christianity specifically, can be used to launch fear, mistrust and destruction. Clearly, though, the God I worship is real and does not operate from fear and violence.

I noticed several things in reading this book. One is that the author valued something that Anglicans also deeply value: human reason. Our faith tradition encourages questions and the seeking of truth so as to deepen faith. We do not see faith as an attribute that avoids the intellect.

Read it all.

The obituaries for Lady Bird Johnson last week focused mainly on her advocacy for highway beautification, largely failing to note that nearly all of the 200 laws related to the environment during the Johnson administration had her stamp on them, including the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund and many additions to the national parks system. She worked to protect the redwoods and block the damming of the Grand Canyon.

The environmental movement was just being born ”” Rachel Carson had published “Silent Spring” the year before Johnson took office ”” but it found in Lady Bird its most effective advocate. She hoped to leave the country more beautiful than she found it, and there is no doubt that she did so ”” beginning with her efforts at cleaning up the slums of the nation’s capital to the creation of the National Wildflower Research Center here in Austin.

From the start, however, the centerpiece of Mrs. Johnson’s legacy was crippled by compromises with the billboard lobby. You wouldn’t know it from last week’s coverage, but Lyndon Johnson realized when he signed the bill that it was a failure. “We have placed a wall of civilization between us and between the beauty of our land and of our countryside,” he reflected. “This bill … does not represent what the national interest requires. But it is a first step, and there will be other steps.”

There were no other steps.

Read it all.

In a speech on Tuesday, Barack Obama told his audience that the 2008 presidential election would answer the question: “What kind of America will our daughters grow up in?” What, one might wonder, does he want to protect our daughters from? An oversexualized culture? Predators on the Internet? Alas, no. Mr. Obama was addressing a Planned Parenthood convention and worried that if the wrong person got into the White House, our daughters might grow up in a country without . . . partial-birth abortions.

Polls conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life show that Americans believe the Democrats to be less friendly to faith than they had been even a few years ago. Yet a donkey with a halo over his head graces the cover of Time magazine this week and the story inside chronicles “How the Democrats Got Religion.” From faith working groups to faith breakfasts, Mr. Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are all participating in what strategist Mike McCurry tells Time is “a Great Awakening in the Democratic Party.”

And as far as Leslie Brown is concerned, the Democrats are making progress. Ms. Brown, the coordinator of the Faith in Action initiative at the Democratic National Committee, says she is working for a “big tent party,” with plenty of room for people of faith. She tells me, for instance, that “evangelicals often get painted in broad strokes, as a monolith,” but they’re not. Efforts to get these potential swing voters include speeches by DNC chair Howard Dean at various religious institutions and the addition of both national and local religious leaders to the organization’s advisers.

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, is probably less than excited by such initiatives. She recently said in a speech, “I don’t want a progressive evangelical movement any more than I want the conservative one we have right now.”

Read it all.

The subject of patronage is so complex that it is hard to discover who is responsible for what. The bishops and archbishops control 49 per cent of livings, and the Crown about eight per cent. About one third of patrons are private individuals, ecclesiastical societies, or bodies such as Oxford or Cambridge colleges. The reorganisation of benefices in recent years means that, in about one third of parishes, the patronage rotates by turns between two or three patrons.

The office of Lord Chancellor was threatened with abolition in 2003, but, in the end, merely diminished. In the consultation, Lord Falconer asked for views about the disposal of the 450 livings: whether the patronage should be exercised by (a) another government minister, such as the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs; (b) the Prime Minister’s office, with the other Crown livings; (c) the Church. There were 239 responses, of which only seven per cent favoured the transfer of control to another minister. The majority of the respondents were split evenly between those who wanted all the Crown livings to be dealt with by Downing Street (44 per cent) and those who favoured a transfer to the Church (43 per cent).

Read it all.