Joe Waltuch, the new head of the Nevada Mortgage Lending Division, defended the subprime mortgage industry and downplayed the foreclosure crisis in his first interview.

Although he acknowledged a problem, he said, “You’re missing the positive side of all this.”

Subprime loans – high interest loans given to people with spotty credit histories – represent just 15 percent of the market, he said. Only 1.5 percent of all mortgages, he said, will end up in foreclosure: “Everybody seems to think we need to protect the 1,500 at the expense of the 98,500 good loans.”

“We put a lot of people in homes who wouldn’t otherwise be in homes,” he said.

The comments were counterintuitive, considering recent grim data: Foreclosures nationwide hit a record high in the second quarter, and Nevada is one of four states – along with Florida, California and Arizona – driving the national numbers, according to a survey released last week by the Mortgage Bankers Association

How ridiculous can you get. Read it all.

THE instructor held up an unfurled green condom as she lectured a dozen brides-to-be on details of family planning. But birth control was only one aspect of the class, provided by the government and mandatory for all couples before marriage. The other was about sex, and the message from the state was that women should enjoy themselves as much as men and that men needed to be patient, because women need more time to become aroused.

This is not the picture of Iran that filters out across the world, amid images of women draped in the forbidding black chador, or of clerics in turbans. But it is just as much a part of the complex social and political mix of Iranian society ”” and of the state’s continuing struggle, now three decades old, to shape the identity of its people.

In Iran, pleasure-loving Persian culture and traditions blend and conflict with the teachings of Shiite Islam, as well as more than a dozen other ethnic and tribal heritages. Sex education here is not new, but the message has been updated recently to help young people enjoy each other and, the Islamic state hopes, strengthen their marriages in a time when everyday life in Iran is stressful enough. The emphasis on sexual pleasure, not just health, was recognition that something was not right in the Islamic Republic.

Such flexibility is one way the government shapes, or is shaped by, society’s attitudes and behavior. These days, however, its use is an exception. The current government has become far better known for employing the opposite strategy: insisting that society and individuals bend to its demands and to its chosen definition of what it is to be a citizen of Iran.

In fact, both tools remain part of a larger goal: securing the Islamic Republic by remolding people’s own definitions of themselves. In that way, the strategy resembles the failed effort in the Soviet Union to build a national identity ”” the New Soviet Man ”” that was based on its own criteria. The Communists used youth camps and raw terror; anyone challenging that identity, which in their case was atheistic, was seen as challenging the state.

Read it all.

The opening chapters of Genesis present a poetic vision of creation as a serene process, with the spirit of God majestically hovering “over the face of the waters” and the various stages unfolding in an orderly fashion, celebrated with the choral blessing: “And God saw that it was good.” But this harmonious pageant is counterpointed by a darker sense embedded in the text that creativity is a risky business and creatures have always the capacity to run amok.

I was reminded all of this not so long ago when I watched a programme on television about artificial intelligence. Advances in neuroscience and computing are leading some to predict that, before the century is out, we will evolve machines with mental capabilities vastly superior to our own. The Australian scientist Hugo de Garis calls them “artilects”, artificial intellects, “almost godlike, massively intelligent machines”.

It’s hard to know where sci-fi fantasy ends and realistic hypothesis begins. For some such a triumph of human ingenuity is to be welcomed. In their benign view we will one day benefit from the services of super-brained robots, playing Jeeves to our Wooster. But others offer a bleaker forecast, envisioning a species of cyber-monsters that will turn on their dimmer-witted inventors – creatures that seek to supplant their creators.

We may never understand what it means to be made in “the image of God”, but we may find out what it means to make gods in our own.

Read it all.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, begins this Wednesday night. We call the time from then to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the “ten days of repentance” and they are the supreme moments of holiness of Jewish time. The theme of these days is apology and forgiveness. We confess our sins, ask to be forgiven, and pray that we may be given another year of life to try again and do better next time.

Of all virtues, forgiveness is among the most important, and its absence the most destructive. I have known marriages fail, families divided and communities split apart simply because the two sides could not bring themselves to forgive and ask to be forgiven. Why should they? After all, they were in the right and the others in the wrong. That is how self-righteousness wrecks lives.

All the more so on a larger scale, within or between nations. In the run-up to the conflict in Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman manipulated the stories that Serbs and Croats told about themselves, each portraying his group as heroic victims. Milosevic in particular played on the theme of the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

Unforgiveness has a long memory. As Ogden Nash said, nobody forgets where he buried the hatchet.

Read it all.

As we approach the sixth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and General David Petraeus’s report on the “surge” in Iraq,the question being asked in America, even by staunch Republicans who share the President’s goals, is: why has the Bush administration been so incompetent?

Behind that is a larger question about how the American political system as a whole is failing to deliver consistent policy and good governance. In three months spent in the US, I have heard this larger issue raised again and again by people with intimate experience of the ways of Washington.

Read it all.

The political disputes over The Episcopal Church’s place within the Anglican Communion have spilled over into Central Africa, leading to the replacement of the provincial dean, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana.

The Rt. Rev. Albert Chama, Bishop of Northern Zambia, was appointed to replace Bishop Mwamba as dean by the church’s General Synod, which began meeting on Sept. 6 in Mangochi, Malawi.

The government-backed Harare Herald reported Bishop Mwamba was “relieved of his duties” due to his “pro-gay” and pro-American lobbying, and because he misrepresented “the province’s position on the issue of homosexuals.”

Read it all.

At first glance, the expression “the dictatorship of relativism” sounds like a paradox, maybe even an oxymoron. After all, aren’t dictatorships a form of absolutism? And don’t relativists find it difficult, if not impossible, to make judgments about differing moral systems? So how can they “dictate” the behavior and thoughts of others if they can’t make judgments about what people should think and do?

Take the case of the adoption-agency controversy in Great Britain. Last spring, Parliament passed a law requiring Catholic adoption agencies to allow gay couples to adopt children who had been placed under the care of these agencies. Now a true relativist would treat Catholics like exotic Amazonians: Sure, they have this odd view of the family, whereby only a married husband and wife are the legitimate and appropriate couple suited for raising a child, natural or adopted. How weird, but who are we to judge?

Secularists, of course, disagree, and see no problem with “Heather having two mommies.” But what does that have to do with Catholics? After all, anthropologists recognize that different societies are marked by different kinship-relations: They freely, and nonjudgmentally, discuss matriarchal societies in prehistory, polygamy in seventh-century Arabia and nineteenth-century Utah, gay “marriage” in Massachusetts and Holland, and so on, all without judgmentalism or moralism. So why not let Catholics live their odd lifestyle too?

But that’s not happening, and the question is why. Hypocrisy surely has something to do with it. I suspect, though, that the root cause comes from the odd admixture of absolutism and relativism in self-professed relativists….

Read it all.

POPE BENEDICT XVI has called on young people to take steps to save the planet “before it is too late”. Speaking last weekend at the end of an Italian youth gathering at the Marian shrine of Loreto near the Adriatic Sea, the Pope told the young people that one of the “most urgent” responsibilities of their generation was to protect the environment and help reverse ecological destruction.

“Before it is too late, courageous choices must be adopted that are capable of recreating a strong alliance between humans and the Earth,” the Pope said on Sunday to a vast outdoor crowd. The remarks were only an aside in a much broader message to the young people, but they constituted some of the Pope’s strongest comments to date on ecological questions. “There needs to be a decisive ”˜yes’ in defence of creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk creating situations of irreparable degradation,” he said.

The two-day “Agora” was the first major event of a three-year initiative by the Italian episcopal conference (CEI) aimed at reaching out to young Catholics. The Pope’s environmental comments were made in support of another CEI initiative – the second annual “National Day for the Safeguarding of Creation”, which is commemorated each year on 1 September.

Pope Benedict noted that this year’s theme focused on water, which he called a most precious resource. He warned that it would become a “motive for harsh tensions and bitter conflicts” if not shared in a fair and peaceful manner – a reality that is already occurring in many parts of the world.

Read it all.

“Why should we expect young mothers to work and not young fathers?”…[Mayor Michael Bloomberg] asked, a reference to the 1996 welfare reform law that, with the EITC, “led millions of people into the labor market, where they attained the dignity of work and a chance to rise out of poverty.” With that, he said, the welfare caseload in New York City had dropped by a third over the past five years.

“Right now,” he continued, “fathers are missing from our strategy to drive down the poverty rate. The gains that we’ve made over the past 10 years have been fueled by mothers. ”¦ If we are going to achieve another round of substantial gains ”¦ we have to do more to connect fathers to jobs and to their families. We have to increase the rewards for work. ”¦”

Among the changes he suggested is eliminating the EITC “marriage penalty” for families with and without children. “Marriage increase a family’s chances of rising out of poverty ”” why would government discourage it? It shouldn’t. ”¦ The EITC should be a catalyst for fathers to fulfill their obligations as responsible spouses, parents and citizens.”

No hot-button cultural rhetoric there. Dry. Nuts-and-bolts.

To the extent that influential voices are dissuaded from addressing vital issues, such as the consequences of the missing father, because they themselves aren’t poor or have failed marriages, everybody loses. Imagine the treatment had Bloomberg chosen to talk about the real dynamic driving poverty, the creation of babies without bothering to marry.

Read the whole piece.

Yes, God transforms people, and many immoral lives are turned around by the power of the gospel. Sometimes it happens in an instant, but usually only after decades of struggle. The gospel remains the power of God to save. Yet in the church of the Crucified (versus the church of visionaries), we’re going to find a King David””that “man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22) who still dabbled in adultery and murder. We’re also going to see a lot of weeds. And a lot of pious people who display impressive religious behavior and proven effectiveness””what’s more effective than casting out demons or doing mighty works? ””but don’t know Jesus.

Jesus told us not to judge who is in and out of the kingdom, lest we be judged. And he told us not to weed ahead of time, lest we pull out some wheat as well. Instead, he suggests we put aside our grandiose visions of what the church should be and learn to live in the church as the paradoxical thing it is.

That will mean, of course, that we’ll always mystify the scientific pollsters and visionary reformers. They’ll continue to point to survey after survey and conclude that the church looks pretty much like the rest of the world, and they’ll continue to wail and beat their breasts. That’s because they do not have eyes to see the treasure lying hidden in the cracked and decayed earthen vessel called the church.

I am with Mark on the brokenness and earthiness of the church, but this is too Protestant. There needs to be also a sense of the church as a sign of contradiction as the Roman Catholics understand and too many of us do not. Read it all–KSH.

For five days and nights last summer, the Rev. Edwin Mieses saw the kingdom of God on the playgrounds of this hilltop mining town. The occasion was the array of basketball games, clown shows and worship services that go by the title “Rock the Block.”

Mr. Mieses concocted the event with another local pastor as a way for that minister’s mostly white congregation and Mr. Mieses’s largely Hispanic flock to carry the Gospel together as Pentecostal Christians. And as Mr. Mieses heard the childish glee in response to his puppetry, as he watched a local drug dealer lurch tearfully toward the altar to accept Jesus, he believed he was doing what the Almighty had asked of him.

“To see the body of Christ working as one gives you a glimpse of what will be when the Lord returns,” Mr. Mieses recalled in an interview. “It’s what we’re called to do. It’s why we do this work. To bring forth a positive message with no racial lines, no color lines.”

By the time “Rock the Block” returned this summer, however, Mr. Mieses’s priorities had changed and his spiritual mandate had expanded in an unexpectedly political direction.

As Hazleton has become a national center for opposition to illegal immigrants, as members of Mr. Mieses’s congregation have experienced suspicion merely for being Hispanic, he has begun attending rancorous public meetings and sharing bulletins from his pulpit. In addition to staples like youth ministry and Bible study, his church has begun holding citizenship and English classes for adults.

Read it all.

About two weeks ago, two celebrity pastoral couples suffered public crackups within days of each other. Randy and Paula White, pastors of Without Walls International Church in Tampa — reckoned in 2005 the second-largest church in America and the fastest-growing — announced they are going their separate ways. By all accounts, it is an amicable split, and Randy White will continue as pastor of Without Walls while Paula follows her star as a preacher, author and “life coach.”

About the same time, singer and evangelist Juanita Bynum had a rather more nasty breakup with her estranged husband, Thomas Weeks, pastor of Global Destiny Ministries in the Atlanta area. According to police, Weeks had to be restrained from choking and stomping on Bynum in a hotel parking lot. She went to the hospital, and he has been charged with assault and battery.

No doubt, divorce is painful and tragic. I would even say in a few cases, it is necessary for the health of those involved. But when a pastor’s marriage goes on the rocks, should it be no big deal? If either of the Whites marry again, it would be their third marriage. Does this matter? Should members of Without Walls mind that their pastor hasn’t set a very good example?

Some might say pastors are human, too, and that it is unfair to hold them to a different standard. Others might say that is the price of leadership — that leaders should be held to a higher standard.

Read it all.

The Broadway musical has won several awards and was later tuned into an American movie called The Birdcage, which starred Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. La Cage features a gay couple in which one partner runs a French nightclub and the other performs there as a drag queen. The couple has been together for 20 years but make changes when their son bring home his fiancee and her conservative parents.

Janine Papin, Trinity Prep’s fine-arts department chairwoman, said earlier that she wanted do the show to “push the limits.” She said the play is about family and tolerance, not about homosexuality.

Fred Trabold, a 32-year-old attorney who graduated from Trinity in 1993, agreed with the bishop’s decision.

“The issue is whether the Trinity Preparatory School, which is an Episcopalian school, should honor the bishop of the Episcopalian church,” Trabold said. “It’s not a matter of homophobia. I saw the movie The Birdcage and it was hilarious.”

[Bishop John] Howe had no further comment Friday night two hours before curtain.

“I really have said all I want to about it,” he said.

Ah, er, might one point out that it is the Episcopal Church? Episcopalian is a noun. Anyway, read it all.

Leaders on both sides know it may take a U.S. Supreme Court decision to tie up the many loose ends in this legal fight – affecting millions of dollars worth of pensions, endowments and church properties nationwide.

Similar conflicts are shaking the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other old-line Protestant bodies.

There will be unity in the future, said [Parker] Williamson, but it will not look like the unity of the past.

“There isn’t going to be a central, merged denominational office somewhere,” he said. “The new church unity will be in new networks of people with common beliefs. It’s going to look more like the World Wide Web, not the old industrial model.”

Read it all.

Over the course of four decades, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and St. Stephen’s Episcopal School officials were told repeatedly that the Rev. James L. Tucker had molested minors in the past but they took no action against the former St. Stephen’s chaplain, according to a timeline released last week by the diocese.

According to the timeline, an investigation this year found at least nine people ”” including one from Houston not publicly acknowledged until now ”” who claim to be victims.

Also, for the first time since the diocese announced the allegations in May, the former head of St. Stephen’s, Allen Becker, who had received allegations from students in the 1960s, has issued a public apology, saying he “should have responded differently.”

Tucker, who retired in 1994, will face charges in a church trial unless he admits guilt and agrees to resign from the ministry, diocesan official said.

Read it all.

A Pastoral Letter from Bishop Love
September 7, 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

At our Diocesan Convention in June, I spoke of what I have come to see as a “spirit of poverty and fear” that has come over much of the Diocese, negatively impacting our ability to serve God and His people. Far too many parishes are in a survival or maintenance mode, due to limited finances and fear. As I stated at the Convention and will say again, that is not what God wants for us. Satan knows all too well our human vulnerability when it comes to money and material possessions, and he is using it against us, to bring chaos into our individual lives and to limit our effectiveness in serving God and growing the Kingdom.
What many regard as a financial issue is really a spiritual issue. With rare exception, such as a major medical emergency or loss of job, the majority of the financial struggles in our individual lives and our parishes is self-created, not because the expenses aren’t real, but because we have listened to the ways of the world and failed to trust God with our money, which in fact, is really His money on loan to us. Martin Luther once said, the last part of a person to be converted is their wallet. Unfortunately, as I look at how few people tithe, and how money is often used as a weapon, I believe there is more truth in that statement than most of us would like to think.
The world would have us believe that if you have enough money, if you live in this particular neighborhood, if you drive that particular car, if you wear these particular clothes, if you have this particular job, if, if, if”¦then you will have peace and happiness and fulfillment. The reality is, without God as the center of our life, we will never have peace. Far too many people have believed the lies of the world, and now find themselves hopelessly in debt, trying to work two or more jobs, totally exhausted, with no time for themselves or their family, and even more tragically, no time for God. Approximately 50 percent of all marriages are ending in divorce, with financial issues being a major contributing factor. More and more children are growing up in single parent families or homes where both parents are working all hours of the day and night with little to no parental supervision. Our jails are overflowing with young men and women who came from such backgrounds.
I could go on and on with an ever growing list of societal woes that are either directly or indirectly related to society’s quest for material wealth and possessions. The bottom line is, for far too many people, life is tragically out of balance. The quest for the “almighty” dollar and all that can be bought with it, rather than blessing us, is destroying us.

For our own spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional health and well being, and that of our families, it is essential that we bring balance back into our lives. To help us achieve that goal, I have invited the folks from Crown Ministries to come to the Diocese. An informational meeting about the Crown Ministry Program that I would like to see shared throughout the Diocese, will be held as follows: Sept. 10th ”“ Potsdam; Sept. 11th ”“ Unadilla; Sept. 12 ”“ Johnstown; Oct. 1st ”“ Elizabethtown; Oct. 2nd – Coxsackie; and Oct. 3rd ”“ The Cathedral of All Saints, Albany. Each meeting will begin at 7 p.m..
As your Bishop and Brother in Christ, I am asking that every active priest and deacon in the Diocese as well as the key lay leadership from every parish in the Diocese, attend one of these meetings to learn more about the program and how it works. It is my sincere hope and prayer that every parish in the Diocese of Albany will offer the Crown Ministry Ten Week Program beginning this January. Based on everything I have seen and the people I have talked to, the Crown Ministry Program is an excellent, sound, biblically based program that has a great deal to offer. They have helped countless people throughout the world reprioritize their financial affairs, learn to budget more effectively, get out of debt and come see money and material possessions as the blessing God intends them to be, rather than the curse they can become, when our priorities become confused and misguided. God has given us money to help us ”“ not to control us.
To the naysayer out there ”“ Will Crown Ministries solve all our problems? Probably not, but it is a good start. Is it perfect? No, but it has much to offer if we give it a chance. I invite you to join me, as we move forward in an attempt to bring a greater sense of balance into our financial lives.
For those who have come to trust God with their money and material possession, they have been set free of the huge financial albatross that drags so many people down, wreaking havoc and misery in their lives. True financial freedom can only occur when God is in control of our finances. Crown Ministries can help us learn how to more effectively invite Christ into our financial lives, in order that we might become better stewards of that which He has entrusted to us. I look forward to seeing you in the coming days and weeks. God Bless You!

Faithfully Yours in Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev.) Bill Love is Bishop of Albany

Pope Benedict rejected the concept that abortion could be considered a human right on Friday and urged European leaders to do everything possible to raise birth rates and make their countries more child-friendly.

The 80-year-old German Pontiff told diplomats and representatives of international organizations that Europe could not deny its Christian roots because Christianity had played a decisive role in forging its history and culture.

“It was in Europe that the notion of human rights was first formulated. The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself,” he said in an address at the former imperial Hofburg Palace.

“This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right — it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society.”

Read it all.

Update: The full text of the Pope’s speech is here and it includes the following:

It was in Europe that the notion of human rights was first formulated. The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right ”“ it is the very opposite. It is “a deep wound in society”, as the late Cardinal Franz König never tired of repeating.

In stating this, we are not expressing a specifically ecclesial concern. Rather, we are acting as advocates for a profoundly human need, speaking out on behalf of those unborn children who have no voice. I do not close my eyes to the difficulties and the conflicts which many women are experiencing, and I realize that the credibility of what we say also depends on what the Church herself is doing to help women in trouble.

I appeal, then, to political leaders not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness, nor to abolish in practice your legal system’s acknowledgment that abortion is wrong. I say this out of a concern for humanity. But that is only one side of this disturbing problem. The other is the need to do everything possible to make European countries once again open to welcoming children. Encourage young married couple to establish new families and to become mothers and fathers! You will not only assist them, but you will benefit society as a whole. We also decisively support you in your political efforts to favour conditions enabling young couples to raise children. Yet all this will be pointless, unless we can succeed in creating once again in our countries a climate of joy and confidence in life, a climate in which children are not seen as a burden, but rather as a gift for all.

Another great concern of mine is the debate on what has been termed “actively assisted death”. It is to be feared that at some point the gravely ill or elderly will be subjected to tacit or even explicit pressure to request death or to administer it to themselves. The proper response to end-of-life suffering is loving care and accompaniment on the journey towards death ”“ especially with the help of palliative care ”“ and not “actively assisted death”. But if humane accompaniment on the journey towards death is to prevail, urgent structural reforms are needed in every area of the social and healthcare system, as well as organized structures of palliative care. Concrete steps would also have to be taken: in the psychological and pastoral accompaniment of the seriously ill and dying, their family members, and physicians and healthcare personnel. In this field the hospice movement has done wonders. The totality of these tasks, however, cannot be delegated to it alone. Many other people need to be prepared or encouraged in their willingness to spare neither time nor expense in loving care for the gravely ill and dying.

Bishops Bill Atwood, John Guernsey, and Bill Murdoch are personal friends of many years and we are looking forward to working with them in the coming months as part of the Common Cause Partnership. These new initiatives are a dramatic demonstration that we are not alone as we seek to bear witness to the transforming love of Jesus Christ that is rooted in the ‘faith once and for all delivered to the saints.’

These missionary and pastoral initiatives by our friends in the Global South also make clear that they will not abandon us to those who seek to silence our voices by pernicious lawsuits and canonical threats. It is my hope that one result of these creative partnerships will be a renewed emphasis on mission and reaching the unchurched with the Gospel.

Read it all.

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may praise thee and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to thee for ever.

–Psalm 30: 11,12 (RSV)

I have always loved the KJV translation of this verse:

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

Canon Brooks piece is here and Todd Granger’s response is there. Sadly Canon Brooks took no notice of, nor bothered to interact with, the important arguments of Martyn Davie.

Church of the Holy Comforter

Dear Friends,

This past Monday I was sorry to learn that your rector, The Reverend Chuck Reeder, has tendered his resignation effective October 1 and that simultaneously the members of your vestry have also resigned effective October 1. These actions follow soon after a meeting I had with your rector, wardens, and treasurer on August 8 during which I was informed that The Church of the Holy Comforter is currently facing significant financial challenges. These difficulties, I am told, stem from the fact that 42% of pledge income to the parish is currently being withheld by members of the parish who are unhappy with The Episcopal Church””members who, as it was explained to me, have no intention of contributing to ministry of The Church of the Holy Comforter so long as it remains a member of The Episcopal Church.

During that same meeting, I explained to your parish leadership that our Diocesan Canons have a provision by which my office will work with the leadership of any parish that is so “imperiled” to thoroughly assess the situation and to develop a viable plan for the future of the congregation. Over the past several weeks, my office, working with your Senior Warden, John Bosio, began taking steps to put that process in place. Subsequently your rector and vestry decided to resign. Even so, you should know that this process of assessing the life of the parish and developing a plan for recovery will continue to move forward under the direction of my office. For those of you that have concerns about the buildings and property, they belong as always to the Episcopal Church, and I am committed to seeing that the Episcopal Church continues to exercise its ministry in that location in the days and years to come. Moreover, your parish leadership has graciously expressed their intent to work with my office to that end without engaging in any disputes over the ownership of property. For their thoughtfulness and good will, I am indeed grateful.

You should know too, that although they have already tendered their resignations, your wardens and vestry have stated their desire and commitment to cooperate with my office to provide for a smooth transition as we identify the steps that will be necessary to provide The Church of the Holy Comforter with new pastoral leadership and guidance in the days ahead.

Over the next week, I will be in conversation with your rector and wardens to identify the specific steps and the timetable for the upcoming transition. Just as soon as that work has been done, you can expect to hear directly from me. To that end, I have scheduled a parish meeting for Thursday, September 6, at 7:30 p.m. at The Church of the Holy Comforter to update you on the situation and to outline the next steps that will be taken to reorganize and redevelop The Church of the Holy Comforter.

Although I am indeed saddened to know that some members of your congregation have expressed a desire to leave The Episcopal Church, I trust that they do so in good faith and out of a heartfelt desire to respond faithfully to the call of God in their lives. I want you to know that I continue to hold those individuals in my prayers and to ask God’s blessing on them in the same way I hold all of you in my prayers during these difficult days.

Just as The Church of the Holy Comforter has had a wonderful and vibrant history of ministry in the Broomfield area and in The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado in the past, I am confident that it will continue to do so in the days ahead. I am committed to working with you to that end, and, as always, I am confident in the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit working within us and among us to bear the fruit of God’s purpose in our lives. For now, God’s peace and blessing be with you. I will look forward to speaking with you soon.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

–(The Rt. Rev) Robert O’Neill is Bishop of Colorado

Read it all and follow the link for more also.

This may be of interest also.

People view Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as the least religious of the major presidential candidates, according to a poll released Thursday. Mitt Romney was seen as most religious, but his Mormonism may hurt him with voters.

Seven in 10 in the nonpartisan Pew Research Center poll said they believe it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs, including broad majorities of both parties. Most also see each major presidential hopeful as at least somewhat religious ”” important because people who view a candidate that way are likelier to have a favorable opinion of them.

Of those expressing an opinion on the candidates’ beliefs, 46 percent said they consider Romney, a Republican contender, to be very religious, far more than any other candidate. Yet a quarter of all Republicans ”” including 36 percent of white evangelical Protestants ”” said they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said the former Massachusetts governor has “the same hopes and aspirations for his country” as voters, adding, “Any sort of abstract aversion toward him because of his denomination will likely fade.”

Read it all.

An AP write up is here.

In an email communication The Venerable Akintunde A. Popoola, Director of Communications for the Church of Nigeria has stated that Bishop Orama has denied making the statements attributed to him in a September 2, 2007, UPI report. Additionally, the journalist who issued the statement has given a verbal apology for the misrepresentation and has promised to print a retraction.

Update: A Living Church report is here.

Another update: UPI has made a statement also.

A sharp jump in suicide rates among young Americans has left researchers puzzled as to the cause and wondering what lessons to draw from it. Some researchers are even suggesting that regulatory warnings about the safety of antidepressant drugs might have triggered the problem, leading doctors and their patients to shun potentially life-saving medications.

The new findings on suicide rates among 10- to 24-year-olds, reported yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are a startling reversal. From 1990 to 2003, the rate fell by more than 28 percent, from 9.48 to 6.78 suicides per 100,000 young people. From 2003 to 2004, the rate jumped back up to 7.32 per 100,000, an increase of 8 percent, the largest single-year rise in 15 years. Whether this is a short-lived increase or the start of a long-term upward trend is not yet clear.

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Like many children of the ’60s, Arne and Marie Bergstrom rebelled against the expectations of their middle-class families. In 1970, halfway through their undergraduate studies at the evangelical Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., they dropped out, got married, sold all their possessions and went to do God’s work. Their journey took them to Papua New Guinea, Sudan and the Philippines (where they adopted two girls; they had two sons as well). When they settled back in the U.S., Arne’s beat was disaster relief: He went to Rwanda, Kosovo and Turkey (after a massive earthquake), to refugee camps at the Iran-Afghanistan border. Marie became an award-winning fifth-grade teacher.

A couple of months ago, our church in Wheaton, Ill., had to bid the Bergstroms goodbye. They were moving again, close to Seattle, where Arne took a position at World Vision, the Christian relief and development agency. If you had seen them standing in front of the congregation, you could hardly have failed to recognize them as aging hippies–Marie’s long straight hair, Arne’s grizzled beard–and they are both runners, thin as rails.

The Bergstroms’ story is an inspiring tale of faith in action, but it is also a goad to rethink what we mean when we talk about “the ’60s” (which, of course, can’t really be contained within a 10-year span). Canonical accounts, from both the left and the right, have systematically ignored, played down and distorted the religious dimensions of that tumultuous time.

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The decision of British regulators to consider allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for use in medical experiments is “a monstrous act against human dignity,” said the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia said this today in response to the Wednesday ruling of Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryo Authority that it would in principle allow the creation of human-animal embryos.

“The British government has given in to the requests of a group of scientists absolutely against morality,” Bishop Sgreccia told the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera. “It is necessary that the scientific community mobilizes itself as soon as possible.”

In a statement, the British agency announced that it will now consider two specific research proposals to create such embryos — which scientists call chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail. The agency expects a decision for both cases in November.

The agency added, “This is not a total green light for … hybrid research, but recognition that this area of research can, with caution and careful scrutiny, be permitted.”

Bishop Sgreccia said that Britain’s decision marks a turning point: “That frontier, of the crossroads of distinct species, has been overstepped today with the go-ahead of the British government. Up until today this had been banned in the field of biotechnology, and not only by religious associations.”

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A Southern Baptist Convention leader weighed into ongoing debate about GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s churchmanship, claiming he attends a Presbyterian church in the Washington area “on a regular basis.”

The church’s pastor confirmed he has seen Thompson there but suggested “regular” attendance is an overstatement. And a pro-Thompson blogger said many of the now-official candidate’s religious supporters would be surprised if the Church of Christ-baptized Thompson is indeed now a Presbyterian.

Questions about Thompson’s religious affiliation have dogged the former senator and star of “Law & Order” since Focus on the Family founder James Dobson remarked in March he was under the impression that Thompson is not a Christian.

The Thompson campaign shot back by saying Thompson was baptized into the Church of Christ as a boy in the 1950s. A bio on Thompson’s exploratory Web site said he attended First Street Church of Christ while growing up in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., where he learned “the importance of family, hard work, faith and education.”

A political science professor at a Church of Christ-affiliated university responded with a tongue-in-cheek “I Saw Fred Thompson at a Church of Christ” Challenge on a blog, observing the former senator “may not be filling out an attendance card at a Church of Christ on Sundays.”

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Kiva made helping some else fun. 82,000 people have thought the same as they have directly been a part of funding loans over $9 million.

It has made giving fun in a way that it hasn’t been in years. They went so far above and beyond anything else I’ve experienced. They were intentional about saying thank you, they showed me specific details about where the money was going, they invited me to get to know who else was on the team funding the project, they documented how it was being paid back and the change that took place.

Whats even more, it was sustainable.

Read it all and take the time to watch the linked video.