Evangelical Protestant churches have joined an effort by Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other Protestant churches to create a common code of conduct for religious conversions to preserve the right of Christians to spread their religion while avoiding conflict among faiths.

The World Council of Churches, which with the Vatican started talks last year on a code, said Wednesday that the process was formally joined by the World Evangelical Alliance at a meeting this month in Toulouse, France.

The aim is to ease tensions with Muslims, Hindus and other religions that fear losing adherents. In some instances, converts and foreign missionaries have been punished with imprisonment or death.

The kidnapping by the Taliban of 23 South Korean Christian church volunteers visiting Afghanistan last month underscored tensions. At least two of the 23 have been killed.

One accusation against the South Koreans is that they wanted to meet with converts from Islam. But their church has denied that they were trying to spread Christianity.

The World Council of Churches, which is based here, said the code of conduct should be an “advocacy tool in discussions with governments considering anti-conversion laws” and should “help to advance the cause of religious freedom.”

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The new policy “is not to punish anybody,” says ELCA spokesman John Brooks. The policy – which gives two years’ “breathing room” to gay clergy – will be re-evaluated in 2009 in conjunction with a sexuality task force report.

Poland was one of 82 former Lutheran clergy who are gay who signed a letter distributed at the convention protesting their lack of an official role in the church.

For the ELCA, as for many mainline denominations, the gay issue is the most potentially divisive issue in centuries.

The 2.3 million member Episcopal Church USA – half ELCA’s size – has played out its noisy schism, complete with property lawsuits and parish breakaways, on a public stage.

The Lutheran approach has been quieter. But as the single largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, some say there could be more potential for seismic change.

Not every Lutheran thinks change is a good idea.

“This will hit the fan in the same way as it did in the Episcopal Church – that’s guaranteed,” says the Rev. Jaynan Clark Egland, a Spokane, Wash., pastor and president of the WordAlone Network, a national organization of conservative Lutherans.

“Unless we make an effort to stop this trend, we will go the way of many other mainline denominations – or maybe now we should call them the sideline denominations,” she says. “We’re all on a slide and we can’t quite figure out why. This doesn’t help.”

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HERE are some heretical thoughts to alarm Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen:

* Jesus was not born of a virgin;

* His father Joseph was a literary construct, as was Judas;

* His family thought he was out of his mind;

* There were probably not 12 disciples;

* There were no miraculous healings, no crown of thorns, no tomb, no angel; and

* Jesus did not rise from the dead.

The publishers of John Shelby Spong’s latest book, Jesus for the Non-Religious, had originally wanted it to be called Freeing Jesus from the Shackles of Religion, and that’s essentially what the iconoclastic retired Episcopal bishop claims to do. He portrays the supernatural elements of Jesus’s life, the very cornerstones of Christian doctrine, as fabrications woven into the biblical narrative decades after Jesus’s death. First-century Jewish interpretations of the Jesus experience had served to distort the very essence of Christianity, he says. And it’s the reason institutional Christianity has no future.

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“This impending war has taught us some important things. Life is short. The world is fragile. All of us are vulnerable, but we are here because this is our calling. Our lives are rooted not only in time, but also in eternity, and the life of learning, humbly offered to God, is its own reward. It is one of the appointed approaches to the divine reality and the divine beauty, which we shall hereafter enjoy in heaven and which we are called to display even now amidst the brokenness all around us.”

That is our calling, too, amidst the brokenness””including the threat of terrorism””all around us. We are to be faithful to God’s calling, to bear witness to the beauty, the light, and the divine reality that we shall forever enjoy in heaven. We are to do this in a culture that seems, at times, like Augustine’s: a crumbling world beset by dangers we cannot predict.

The Christian attitude toward history is neither arrogant self-reliance (“We can make it on our own”) nor indifference (“It doesn’t matter what we do anyway”), but hope””the hope that radiates from a messy manger, a ruddy tree, and an empty tomb. Christians are those who know that time and this world do not terminate upon themselves; they are penultimate realities that can never satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart, the restless heart Augustine wrote so much about. And so we live in this world not self-indulgently nor triumphantly, as though our future were in our own hands, but humbly, compassionately, committedly, and yes, ambiguously, as those who belong ultimately to another City, one with foundations whose builder is God.

That means, as Augustine said, that we are called to live by love. Love is the one thing we can experience in time that will remain in eternity. Faith, hope, love, these three; but love is the greatest. Love is eternal.

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I have searched the memory bank of my life for an example that will display what it is like to place one’s life on such a stage, within such a context; and I think of a story that has come to me of Phoebe Brown-Cave whom I knew during the years I lived in Uganda. Phoebe was a very plain but brilliant woman who read classical languages at university. She went to Uganda as a CMS missionary and taught all her life in a school in Lango. But she did more than that. For some 30 years each day she met with the elders working on a translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into the language of the Lango people. She also counseled people in distress, tended the sick, and sorted out disputes. Phoebe knew everyone and everyone knew her. When the time of her retirement approached, she told the people she would return to England to die. The elders came to her to say, “you can’t go. You belong to us. We want your bones!”

Well, Phoebe did go, and her departure went like this. It was the custom of the missionaries when one of their number came or went to go to the Entebbe airport to greet arrivals and say good by to those leaving. On this occasion, however, one could not get near the airport. There was no space because just about every living soul in Lango had come to the airport by foot, or bike, or taxi, or bus to say good by. Phoebe left carried by the singing of a great multitude. But she did return eventually and there she rests.

My question is this. Does not Phoebe’s life display what it is to place oneself within the vast providence of God? Is her life not a sign of God’s fidelity to his promise and of his power to evoke such a stance in the world? Can we not say of Phoebe, “Therefore, from one woman, and she as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the sea shore?” And can we not say the same thing of ourselves? And can we not say in response, “Thanks be to God?” AMEN.

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Local Episcopalians have no immediate plans to investigate a former Cathedral of All Saints dean who has admitted sexually abusing four boys while working as a rector in central New York.

The Rev. Marshall Vang, the dean of the cathedral, said Wednesday he was not aware of any local complaints against the Rev. J. Edward Putnam, who led the Albany Episcopal Diocese’s mother church between 1993 and 1997. He also served as a chaplain for the state Assembly.

Putnam, 66, recently admitted in a written statement that he engaged in “inappropriate conduct with minors” as rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Skaneateles, Onondaga County, between 1986 and 1993, according to the Post-Standard newspaper of Syracuse.

“I think if anything had developed, we would have learned about it long before this,” Vang said.

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U.S. National Guard Capt. Jeffrey Cox watched soldiers lose sight of God in the violence and daily grind of the war in Iraq.

He’s hoping they can find their faith again in an Episcopal monastery along the Charles River.

Prodded by Cox, the Society of Saint John the Evangelist is offering a “healing retreat” weekend in October to help soldiers returning from war adapt to life back home and reconnect with their faith.

The retreat aims to give soldiers space to reflect, worship and share their experiences.

“I’m not saying a weekend is going to solve any problems, but what it can do is it can give people a respite,” he said. “Not only are they able to talk about their heart and their mind, but they’re able to talk about their soul.”

Cox, who is studying to be an Episcopal priest, was a social worker for troops in Iraq and is now a contractor for the U.S. army’s Wounded Warrior program, which assists severely injured or disabled soldiers. War can wear out faith, he observed.

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The venerable Oradell church was seeking a leader who could bring some life experience to the pulpit.

Enter the Rev. J. Barrington Bates, 51, an art history major who had done stints as choral singer, a pilgrimage leader at ancient Celtic sites and even once had a cameo role in the “Third Watch” television series.

Bates also worked as a computer programmer ”“ a career that made him reconsider his direction in life.

“I made a lot of money and I hated it,” he said. “I ended up taking one of those career tests and found out I was best suited to be in ministry or an opera singer.”

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Those who are older than the trading floor average will have seen this before. But what makes this credit cycle more complicated and perhaps more hazardous is the very thing that the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others argued had made financial systems safer: the securitisation of credit. Securitisation brings benefits. But in these circumstances it will make the down cycle more severe and will transmit systemic risks along untraditional paths that may prove less sensitive to interest rate cuts than in the past.

Before securitisation, whenever the credit cycle turned down a bank’s loan officer could conclude, through his long relationship with the credit or a portfolio of them, that the market was under-pricing that credit. He could use the bank’s balance sheet to hold on to out-of-favour credits until the market stabilised. Banks have since earned fees for securitising credits and selling them on. Now, when credit prices fall and daily risk management systems scream that that risk should be sold, the fund manager with only a passing knowledge of the underlying credit and without a large balance sheet cannot hold on to it.

Over the past 20 years, governments built regulatory systems to avoid credit problems at one bank becoming systemic. These systems succeeded, but only by shifting risks elsewhere. A measure of this failure is that the instances of emergency rate cuts have become no less frequent. Think of 1987, 1989-92, 1995, 1998 and 2001-03. Today, the principal avenues of systemic risk are via investment losses, not bank runs.

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The Labor Department’s most recent inflation data showed that U.S. food prices rose by 4.2 percent for the 12 months ending in July, but a deeper look at the numbers reveals that the price of milk, eggs and other essentials in the American diet are actually rising by double digits.

Already stung by a two-year rise in gasoline prices, American consumers now face sharply higher prices for foods they can’t do without. This little-known fact may go a long way to explaining why, despite healthy job statistics, Americans remain glum about the economy.

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“Sacred compulsion joined with a visceral revulsion against injustice to give him not just passion but unshakeable commitment.”

–Stephen Tomkins, William Wilberforce: A Biography (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2007), p.221

As of 2005, the median income for all U.S. households was ________ and the median income for family households was _______. Fill in the blanks. Guess before you look please.

David Lereah: The lender community got caught with their financial pants down, and now they’re afraid to make the loans. A lot of households that do have the financial wherewithal to purchase the homes are now unable to do so.

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Wow.

A New Jersey church group is suing the state over whether the organization should be required to allow a lesbian couple to hold a civil-union ceremony at a beachfront pavilion owned by the group.

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, a Methodist group, says its rights are being violated by a state investigation into its decision to reject the couple’s application. The group said it rejected the application because the church does not recognize same-sex unions.

Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster of Ocean Grove filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights, saying the rejection was a violation of the state’s law against discrimination. In the lawsuit, filed yesterday, the organization said that if the group were to allow civil-union ceremonies for same-sex couples to take place, it would constitute approval of such unions.

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The Anglican Church in Rwanda and Africa will not be bullied into keeping quiet about the non biblical behaviors of the American and European churches, a senior bishop has said.

Bishop John Rucahana – Anglican head of the Shyira Diocese said the current disagreements in the Anglican Church were caused by the ordination of the homosexual bishops by the American Episcopal Church. Rucahana said this was against the teachings of the holly bible.

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Catholic schools in Australia are at a crossroads, according to a policy document released last week by the bishops of New South Wales and the ACT, a document which is focused mainly on retaining Catholic identity and improving the standard of religious evangelisation in Catholic schools.

But perhaps there are forces at work that the bishops would rather not talk about. Ever since the 19th century the Australian bishops have fiercely guarded the autonomy of their parish schools, but these days, more and more socially disadvantaged Catholics are being forced out into public schools because they can’t afford the fees; while more and more middle-class, non-Catholics, are enrolling.

Well the Secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Education, Archbishop Michael Miller of Canada, has just been in Australia to speak at a conference on the future of Catholic education. He says that if Catholic children are being forced out of Catholic schools because they can’t afford the fees, then there’s something wrong with the funding arrangements. In fact he thinks Catholic schools should be fully funded by the government, with no school fees.

I asked Archbishop Michael Miller what made for a successful Catholic school.

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A study in the Harvard Business Review shows happy workers are more creative and productive than unhappy ones. But Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway isn’t so sure. She discusses whether happiness at work is important after all with Renee Montagne.

Listen to it all from NPR.

Dozens of outraged airplane passengers are threatening to sue Continental Airlines , claiming they were left stranded on a plane and grounded for hours in hellish conditions.

Because of bad weather, Continental’s July 19 Flight 1669 from Caracas, Venezuela, to Newark, N.J., was diverted to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where it landed at 1:50 p.m. Passengers said after sitting on the grounded plane for hours, they began protesting by banging on overhead compartments, clapping their hands and even signing a petition asking to be let off.

“We were not provided with food,” said passenger Caroline Murray. “There were passengers who were ill. There was one woman who was diabetic. There was a pregnant woman with small children. It was shocking to me.”

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Marriage does make most people happier, according to a new study.

Even if around half of all marriages end in divorce, actually tying the knot is better than living in a de facto partnership or remaining single, according to Swiss economist Professor Bruno Frey.

“To be married really contributes to happiness,” Prof Frey told AAP.

“The reason I see that is that people expect a stronger sense of commitment which they like and just to have a partner is obviously considered to be something else.”

Professor Frey, of the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, is the co-researcher of a study into the relationship between happiness and marriage which surveyed 15,000 people over 17 years.

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“Aside from running outside naked, I don’t know what to do to reach the people who might want to find [and buy] this house.”

—Gretchen Rolfe, a Mission Viejo psychologist, whose monthly mortgage payment jumped about 25% last spring, in today’s LA Times

Shannon Rea’s job as a part-time bartender in Brooklyn gives her a close-up look at the risky behavior of people in their 20s.

Some end a night of drinking with hookups. Some take rides from the slightly inebriated. Others try to drive when they shouldn’t. (She sobers them up, takes their keys and finds them rides.)

“I think the early 20s are the new teenage years,” says Rea, 26, a college student studying to be a history teacher. “There are no parents telling them, ‘You can’t do this.’ It’s pretty much a free-for-all.”

The 20s always have been prime time for risky behavior, from binge drinking and unprotected sex to dabbling in drugs and driving too fast. But new brain research suggests young adults may have less control over these impulses: Neurological areas that regulate impulse and emotions are not fully developed until about the mid-20s, findings show.

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The Rev. John H. Poole of St. Philip’s says, though, he’s not focusing on potential gain that could result from a schism in the Episcopal Church. His emphasis is on evangelization and attracting more people, especially young families, who are unchurched or are interested in a conservative, Bible-based, liturgical community, Poole said.

“I feel there are people searching for the truth,” he said. “We certainly are welcoming of any Episcopalian that might want to come looking for a lifeboat….

Poole, who became a priest a year ago, had been a deacon in the Episcopal Church for a quarter of a century before leaving the denomination.

“I was looking for a more stable, historical faith,” he said.

The former ironworker from upstate New York said he found what he was looking for when he met Bishop Walter H. Grundorf – also a former Episcopalian – of the Anglican Province of America.

“It renewed my faith,” he said of the religious community with congregations scattered throughout the country.

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Officials with the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York say J. Edward Putnam, 66, recently admitted in a written statement to the bishop that he engaged in “inappropriate conduct with minors” while at St. James Episcopal Church in Skaneateles (skan-ee-AT’-lus).

An investigation begun in May resulted in his being suspended last month from acting as a priest for 20 years. Diocese officials say Putnam, who was ordained in 1970, admitted to sexually abusing the boys from early 1985 to mid-1993.

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Turmoil in the subprime mortgage market spread again yesterday ”” this time to a type of short-term security held by money market mutual funds. These funds have become the investment of choice for many people seeking a safe haven.

Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency, warned yesterday that it might downgrade several issuers of commercial paper, a short-term I.O.U. by companies that promise to repay loans typically within a few weeks to a year.

In these cases, S.& P. said, the commercial paper was backed by residential mortgages….

Investors have flocked to money market funds as they try to avoid volatile stocks and the seized-up bond market. Last week, more than $36 billion moved into money market funds, the largest shift since December 2005. In all, some $2.6 trillion is in money market funds, according to AMG Data Services.

Such funds are sold to investors as the equivalent of cash, and their $1-a-share net asset value is considered inviolate. But if the funds experienced big losses, the value of the assets could be vulnerable.

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Chester Darling has been fighting desegregation plans for decades. The Massachusetts attorney hailed this year’s Supreme Court ruling and says he knows what he would like to do about school systems that still use race to decide who attends a particular school.

“I would go after every single one of them,” Darling announces. “It’s wrong. You just don’t sort kids by color and deny benefits to them because of the color of their skin.”

Desegregation is still a touchy issue around Boston, the scene of violent protests over school busing in the 1970s. Supporters of desegregation plans now worry the pendulum has swung back to those bad old days.

“We’re taking a step back toward resegregation,” says Jeff Young, superintendent of schools in Newton, Mass. “I don’t know how you can think much besides that.”

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Here are some of the elements:

–Meetings will begin and end on time, with consent and discussion agendas planned to maximize time for effective discussion and decision-making.
–A detailed agenda and all documents pertaining to agenda items will be mailed to members sufficiently in advance of the meeting date to allow for thorough study. –It is the responsibility of each member to familiarize themselves with the materials prior to the meeting.
–I will come to the meeting on time and stay the entire time. If I am unable to attend, or must leave before the end of the meeting, I will notify the leader in advance.
–I will use “I” messages when I address the meeting: “I believe;” “I think;” “I want;” etc.
–I will listen respectfully to what others have to say without interrupting. I will not engage in side conversations when another speaker has the floor.

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