My aim in writing the column was not to soothsay but to alert readers to the seriousness of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program — and to persuade them that the United States should do something to stop it. True, after all that has gone wrong in Iraq, Americans are scarcely eager for another preventive war to stop another rogue regime from owning yet more weapons of mass destruction that don’t currently exist. It’s easy to imagine the international uproar that would ensue in the event of U.S. air strikes. It’s also easy to imagine the havoc that might be wreaked by Iranian-sponsored terrorists in Iraq by way of retaliation. So it’s very tempting to hope for a purely diplomatic solution.

Yet the reality is that the chances of such an outcome are dwindling fast, precisely because other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are ruling out the use of force — and without the threat of force, diplomacy seldom works. Six days ago, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin went to Iran for an amicable meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Putin says he sees “no evidence” that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons. On his return to Moscow, he explicitly repudiated what he called “a policy of threats, various sanctions or power politics.”

The new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, also seems less likely to support American preemption than his predecessor was in the case of Iraq. That leaves China, which remains an enigma on the Iranian question, and France, whose hawkish new president finds himself distracted by the worst kind of domestic crisis: a divorce.

By contrast, Washington’s most reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel, recently demonstrated the ease with which a modern air force can destroy a suspected nuclear facility. Not only was last month’s attack on a site in northeastern Syria carried out without Israeli losses, there was no retaliation on the part of Damascus. Memo from Ehud Olmert to George W. Bush: You can do this, and do it with impunity.

The big question of 2007 therefore remains: Will he do it?

Read it all.

A wise friend of mine says, “The plural of anecdote is not data.” Robert Wuthnow would agree. He brings the eye of the sociologist to the life of the church and gives us insights that sometimes confirm but often confound our anecdotes. In After the Baby Boomers, he examines data about adults between the ages of 21 and 45 and concludes, “If I were a religious leader, I would be troubled by the facts and figures currently describing the lives of young Americans, their involvement in congregations, and their spiritual practices.”

As he conveys large doses of data (along with a few anecdotes), Wuthnow keeps reminding readers not to hastily draw conclusions “from where the action is” but rather to reach their conclusions on the basis of “a full consideration of where the action is not.” He goes on to say that “social reality is . . . complicated,” and “we need a more sophisticated view of society if we are going to understand why American religion is patterned as it is.”

I recently completed 24 rewarding and challenging years of leading what Wuthnow would describe as a youthful congregation. Over the past several years I’ve also been traveling extensively in North America and around the world, trying to understand the sweeping changes in our culture and world and to articulate what they mean for the church. What I’ve seen in hundreds of churches in dozens of denominations often causes me to wonder whether congregations as we know them can survive.

Read it all.

An alliance of religious groups is vowing a relentless push to restore a key provision to assist the international poor in America’s Climate Security Act, the first greenhouse gas cap-and-trade bill with a realistic chance of passage in the Senate.

In a press conference today, top faith leaders from the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Council of Churches, and the Union of Reform Judaism emphasized the need for U.S. funding of adaptation efforts in the world’s poorest countries, which emit relatively little carbon dioxide but may be hardest hit by global warming because of their locale and lack of infrastructure and money.

“As always, poor and working-class people need advocates, and that is what the faith community traditionally does,” Paul Gorman, executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, told U.S. News before the press conference. “We plan to be sending out materials to delegations and making phone calls. The single most striking thing about us and this issue is the degree of unity across the ideological spectrum. We see this as an extension of our traditional concern for the international and domestic poor.”

Read it all.

It was an occasion for tears and celebration as the Knights of Martyrdom proclaimed on video: “Our brother Turki fell during the rays of dawn, covered in blood after he was hit by the bullets of the infidels, following in the path of his brother.” The flowery language could not disguise the brutal truth that a Saudi family had lost two sons fighting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The elder brother, Khaled, had been a deputy commander of a crack jihadist “special forces” unit. After his “glorious” death, Turki took his place.

“He was deeply affected by the martyrdom of his brother,” the Knights said. “He became more ambitious and more passionate about defending the land of Islam and dying as a martyr, like his brother.”

Turki’s fervent wish was granted earlier this year, but another Saudi national who travelled to Iraq had second thoughts. He was a graduate from a respectable family of teachers and professors who was recruited in a Saudi Arabian mosque and sent to Iraq with $1,000 in travel expenses and the telephone number of a smuggler who could get him across the Syrian border.

Read it all.

Take a look.

Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybels’ office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?” Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry””church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage””has impacted every evangelical church in the country.

So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake”?…

Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:

Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.

Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake up call” of his adult life.

Read it all.

Almost hidden from view in the middle of a huddle of bishops all laying their hands on him, Gene Robinson emerged as the Bishop of New Hampshire. ”˜’It’s not about me; it’s about so many other people who find themselves at the margins,” he said at the time.

Exactly four years on from the historic day he now stands firmly at the centre of life in the Episcopal Church, but is also the axis around which the Anglican Communion continues to spin out of control. If the whirl of rapture and condemnation that met his consecration may have calmed, slowly but surely the warring factions are sounding the drums.

Reform has indicated that it is preparing to look to overseas bishops for leadership, and the potential election of the communion’s first [partnered] lesbian bishop looms on the horizon. And the battle will be played out in Kent ”” the garden of England ”” at next year’s Lambeth Conference.

As long as everyone shows up that is. The Bishop of Rochester has become the latest bishop to warn that he will boycott the conference and last month the Council of Anglican Primates in Africa called
for it to be postponed.

That won’t happen: the Archbishop said as much in New Orleans, but when it goes ahead and the Americans turn up, there remains one carrot that should tempt the traditionalists along ”” the
Anglican Covenant. All the provinces will have given their responses to the draft document by the
end of the year, and a revised text will be submitted at the conference.

Liberals have responded to this like a wriggling baby strapped in a high-chair, which one would have thought would be enough to convince the traditionalists to stop throwing their toys out of the pram. One prelate who was at last month’s House of Bishops said that the meeting was very tense, with old divisions resurfacing over whether they should be signing up to a draft, and particularly given
that they will not get to see it before it is submitted.

Much of the paper’s language would not be to their liking. It talks about ”˜the positive function of the exercise of discipline,’ and ”˜repentance,’ and ”˜properly authorized schemes of pastoral oversight.’

“The indications now are that many see it as a contract, a means of ensuring a uniform view on human sexuality enforceable by the threat of exclusion from the Communion if one does not conform,” the Most Rev Barry Morgan, the Archbishop of Wales, has said. Crucially, however, the bishops’ paper
also acknowledges that the Covenant’s current proposal for the Primates to offer direction is not just unlikely, but “unlawful” ”” according to the Church of England’s lawyers.

So, in the battle to balance the autonomy of individual provinces and the catholic spirit of the Anglican Church with the need for a more federal style of communion that is armed with powers of discipline, there is no doubt as to which side the scales come down on.

“The original intention of a covenant to affirm the bonds of affection, was good,” said Dr Morgan.

In reality, that is exactly what it will be. To get 38 provinces to sign up to a Covenant that is anything more than a warm, friendly statement of chumminess is as likely as getting the European countries
to agree to a common language for the EU. But, in the meantime, it keeps everyone talking, makes the traditionalists think they’re being listened to and just about keeps the liberals in check with the threat of having to stand on the naughty step if they misbehave again. More importantly, it gives Rowan a little
bit of breathing room, but it’s a chance for him to remind the country why his appointment was initially met with suchenthusiasm.

There have been glimpses of his ability to capture the news agenda: in 2004 he debated religion with Philip Pullman and more recently he has gone on the offensive against atheists such as Richard
Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and led the calls for a reform of abortion law.

But there has been far too little connection with popular culture.

There are signs that the Church is trying and in some areas it is succeeding ””its campaigns to increase the number of church weddings and Back to Church Sunday are two notable examples. And in addressing Halloween it has picked a relevant topic, but sadly it has ended up embarrassingly misguided. The Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Rev David Gillett, has done well in getting supermarkets
to take seriously his concerns about stocking alternatives to horror masks, but to say that it is leading kids to become obsessed with the Occult makes it sound like an alarmist killjoy. And if you’re going to criticise something you need to have something equally as exciting to offer.

But what has the Church come up with? Wholesome “Lite-night” parties, substituting quizzes and sing-songs for horror stories and trick-or-treating, not to forget the bishops handing out apples carrying a sticker inviting people to visit a website and make “Halloween Treat” donations. It doesn’t take a Professor of child psychology to work out what young people are more likely to opt for.

If the Church is to speak to modern culture successfully it needs to find a voice that provides a genuine alternative to the mixture of fun and fear offered outside of its walls.

–Jonathan Wynne-Jones is the Religious Correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph; this article appears in the November 2nd, 2007, edition of the Church of England Newspaper on page 24

It is indeed a very serious thing in the life of the Church when a bishop or priest is inhibited from his ministry. Charles Bennison is in my prayers that this situation brings him to repentance, and back to the faith and order of the Church Catholic.

It is ironic that Charles Bennison will be put in trial before the Church for a pastoral failure to report his brother’s sexual misconduct and to protect a young teenage girl and others from his brother where Bishop Bennison denied me a Church trial as I sought to report his theological misconduct and protect my people and others from him.

The Presentment shows the same pattern of conduct of the concealing of evidence that my attorneys discovered occurred in his actions against me.

Whatever happens to Charles Bennison in church proceedings, my litigation will continue unless resolved with a satisfactory settlement.

In Britain abortions are running at 200,000 a year, more than a quarter of the number of live births.

Yet Dawn Primarolo, the Health Minister, told the select committee last week that the Government believed that the 1967 Abortion Act “works as intended and doesn’t require further amendment”.

Works as intended? Remember that there is no “social clause” in the Act.

Decisions are meant to be made on the grounds of the mother’s health or damage to the unborn child. In reality abortion is a back-up to contraception, and mothers may be left seriously depressed and anguished by it, their lives blighted for years.

How extraordinary it is that abortion on this huge scale has become a regular part of the British way of life, for the morality of abortion, one might think, was pretty obvious.

Here is a human being that is killed, either in the womb or after induced birth.

It sounds like murder. Of course, once a moral philosopher gets to work on any bad act, the grounds of its badness prove hard to establish.

Read it all.

THE four-hour journey through the bush from Kano to Jos in northern Nigeria features many of the staples of African life: checkpoints with greedy soldiers, huge potholes, scrawny children in football shirts drying rice on the road. But it is also a journey along a front-line.

Nigeria, evenly split between Christians and Muslims, is a country where people identify themselves by their religion first and as Nigerians second (see chart 1). Around 20,000 have been killed in God’s name since 1990, estimates Shehu Sani, a local chronicler of religious violence. Kano, the centre of the Islamic north, introduced sharia law seven years ago. Many of the Christians who fled ended up in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, where the Christian south begins. The road between the two towns is dotted with competing churches and mosques.

This is one of many religious battlefields in this part of Africa. Evangelical Christians, backed by American collection-plate money, are surging northwards, clashing with Islamic fundamentalists, backed by Saudi petrodollars, surging southwards. And the Christian-Muslim split is only one form of religious competition in northern Nigeria. Events in Iraq have set Sunnis, who make up most of Nigeria’s Muslims, against the better-organised Shias; about 50 people have died in intra-Muslim violence, reckons Mr Sani. On the Christian side, Catholics are in a more peaceful battle with Protestant evangelists, whose signs promising immediate redemption dominate the roadside. By the time you reach Jos and see a poster proclaiming “the ABC of nourishment”, you are surprised to discover it is for chocolate.

Read it all.

Westboro Baptist Church, the Topeka, Kan., congregation recently slapped with a multimillion-dollar judgment by a Baltimore jury for picketing the 2006 funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, has been disavowed by leading Baptists around the country.

Although the 75-member church led by the Rev. Fred Phelps uses the name “Baptist,” it is an independent congregation not affiliated with any known Baptist convention or association.

“It’s a little bit frustrating,” said a ministry official at First Baptist Church of Topeka, who asked that his name not be used.

“People want to know why Baptists allow it,” the First Baptist official said. “Every church is locally autonomous, and anybody can call themselves ‘Baptist’ if they want to.”

Speaking of the Westboro congregation, he said, “Their views don’t reflect anything at all of our church.”

Read it all.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule on Saturday, deploying troops and sacking a top judge in a bid to reassert his flagging authority against political rivals and Islamist militants.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan’s internal security has deteriorated sharply in recent months with a wave of suicide attacks by al Qaeda-inspired militants, including one that killed 139 people.

State-run Pakistan Television said Musharraf had suspended the constitution and declared an emergency, ending weeks of speculation that the general who seized power in a 1999 coup might impose emergency rule or martial law.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Representatives from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve constitutional amendments that are the first step in leaving the national church in a widening rift over homosexuality and interpretation of Scripture.

Read it all.

Representatives of Pittsburgh’s Episcopal Diocese ignored a warning to their bishop from the church’s national leader on Friday and took a step toward a possible affiliation with an Anglican church outside the United States.

Lay representatives voted 118-58, with one abstention, in favor of a resolution to leave the New York-based Episcopal Church, said Peter Frank, a diocesan spokesman. Representatives of the clergy at their 142nd Diocesan Convention at the Frank J. Pasquerilla Conference Center in Johnstown voted 109-24 in favor.

Another measure must pass the next convention in November 2008 to make the action binding, Frank said.

Read it all.

In yet another ecclesiastical earthquake to rock the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has voted to leave that denomination and realign with a theologically conservative Anglican province in another, yet to be chosen, nation.

At their annual convention in Johnstown, laity voted, 118-58, and clergy voted, 109-24, to join another Anglican province, and to allow like-minded parishes outside the 11-county territory to become part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The vote came two days after Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church warned that such action could cause the denomination to remove Bishop Robert Duncan from office as bishop of Pittsburgh.

“We have a tough road ahead. We will be faithful and charitable and do everything we can to help those congregations who are uneasy about this, or who may be very opposed to this, to be part of our fellowship,” Bishop Duncan said after the vote. During his speech prior to the vote, he proposed finding ways for two local Anglican dioceses, one of which would be the minority still aligned with the Episcopal Church, to share important assets such as Trinity Cathedral and Sheldon Calvary Camp.

Read it all.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

The Presiding Bishop
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Dear Katharine,

I have read with great sadness your letter to Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh. And, since you have chosen to make your letter to him public, I will make this one public, as well.

I have stood shoulder to shoulder with Bob in the efforts of the Network to reverse the course of The Episcopal Church with regard to recent decisions regarding human sexuality. I part company with him in his decision to abandon the commitment we made when we formed the Network, to work “within the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.”

But, Katharine, I cannot support your thinly veiled threat to resort to litigation if the Diocese of Pittsburgh rescinds its accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.

Dioceses voluntarily join (accede to) The Episcopal Church. And they can voluntarily determine to separate from (withdraw their accession from) The Episcopal Church.

During the Civil War, the Dioceses within the Confederate States withdrew from The Episcopal Church without penalty. They were reunited when that terrible war ended. Perhaps there will be a reunion of presently seceding Dioceses at some point in our future, as well.

But just now, to threaten litigation, especially in the face of the unanimous exhortation from the Primates in Dar es Salaam (an exhortation you agreed to) to end such litigation, is deeply troubling.

I beg you to stand down.

This can only harm our relationships as fellow members of the Body of Christ and our witness to the outside world.

Warmest regards in our Lord,

The Right Rev. John W. Howe
Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida
1017 East Robinson St.
Orlando, FL 32801

Read it all.

After passionate appeals from both sides of the debate, clergy members and lay people voted 227 to 82 to “realign” the conservative diocese.

If Friday’s vote is approved again in a year, the diocese will begin steps to remove itself from the American church and join with another province in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

After the vote, Bishop Robert W. Duncan of Pittsburgh, who is also moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, an alliance of conservative dioceses and parishes, defended the decision.

“What we’re trying to do is state clearly in the United States for the authority of Scripture,” Bishop Duncan said after the vote, taken during the diocese’s annual convention in this city about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Read it all.

The leader of the Episcopal Church of the United States said Friday that church dissidents unhappy with the ordination of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire should refocus their energy on more pressing world problems.

“Obviously a handful of our church leaders are still upset and would like to see the church never ordain and never baptize a gay or lesbian person,” said Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in Burlington to attend the annual convention of the state’s 175-year-old Episcopal diocese.

“We need to refocus on more life-and-death issues like starvation, education, medical care.”

Read it all.

Watch it all.

Read it all.

As a diocese we have come to a fork in the road. Some will take one course forward. Others will elect the other course. All of us will choose the road we do because of our Faith, because of how we understand the Gospel. But our understandings are quite different. Indeed, it has become clear that our understandings are not only different, but mutually exclusive, even destructive to one another. .

This is not a place we would wish to stay, even if we could. Forces beyond our control have been inching us toward ”“ sometimes hurtling us toward — this fork for a very long time. The Episcopal Church [at least the majorities of the bodies that claim to speak for it] has declared itself “separate and independent” [B032, 75th General Convention], has refused on constitutional and canonical grounds to provide sufficient differentiation to our diocese under our request for Alternative Primatial Oversight and the Communion’s plan for a Primatial Vicar, has declared the “firewall” erected by our 2003/2004 amendment to Article I of our diocesan constitution to be “null and void.” and has made it clear in the consent process for former Pittsburgh priest Mark Lawrence that conservative dioceses like Pittsburgh will never again be allowed to simply elect a bishop of their own choosing. [While unofficial reports this week indicate consent has finally been obtained for Fr. Mark ”“ one year and two first-ballot elections later ”“ the point I am making is more than proved by what has been demanded and required.] This is why we are at the fork in the road, and why a choice by all of us can no longer be avoided. These realities are the context in which this 142nd Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh assembles. This is the context of this address. So rather than the accustomed “year-in-review/year-in-prospect” address I believe it best to focus on the defining decisions before us, leaving the budget, the videos, the mission minutes and the numerous printed and spoken reports to summarize the richness and the commitments of our wider life as a diocese.

THE TIME HAS COME

Divided in Essentials (without prospect of short-term resolution)

Since the General Convention’s decision to confirm the election of a same-sex partnered bishop for the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003, we in the Diocese of Pittsburgh have discussed, debated and attempted to convince each other about whether this action, and the Scriptural re-imaging behind it, was church-rending or not. We have faced into these issues in six successive Special and Annual Conventions, and in many other settings. What is more, majority leadership in the diocese has sought to involve the global Anglican Communion in forcing a retreat by the national Episcopal Church, just as minority leadership in the diocese has resorted to civil litigation to attempt to coerce the diocesan majority into submitting to the Faith and Order innovations of the wider Episcopal Church. The formation of the Anglican Communion Network, the overwhelming vote for Alternative Primatial Oversight and for ending participation in Province Three were met by vestry resolutions of disassociation from the Network, loyalty oaths to the new Presiding Bishop, and unofficial representatives at Province Three. Four years into this, we are more polarized, not less, and there is no prospect of resolution, only of a mediated separation as an alternative to the public scandal of ever-spiraling litigation or canonical proceedings.

Against this backdrop, this year’s pre-Convention hearings, numerous parish and district meetings, gatherings of clergy and lay leaders in both camps, staggering legal expenses, private attempts to open channels to a mediated parting ”“ all reveal a growing acceptance in the diocese that our differences are presently irreconcilable, and that for most realignment of the diocese with another Province of the Communion (and even the acknowledged possibility of failure in the attempt) would be preferable to carrying on the fruitless effort at continued federation with the Episcopal Church. It is clear to most on both sides, that continuing efforts to convince, at best, and coerce, at worst, will only deepen the failure of all. A charitable and gracious provision for the minority to stay within the realigned fellowship of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh or to be given freedom to separate from us and align more directly with the wider Episcopal Church has also emerged as a course for which there is, I believe, a strengthening consensus.

Read it all.

Last month, the Reform movement, the largest synagogue denomination in America, began shipping its long-awaited new prayer book, “Mishkan T’filah” to congregations. More than two decades in the making, “Mishkan T’filah” (literally, “A Dwelling for Prayer”) is billed by its editors as the first prayer book “of the people.” And the people have definitely had a say in its production, having tested out various incarnations at synagogues across the country and at several national conventions. If “Mishkan T’filah” is accepted as the standard prayer text in the movement’s 900 congregations, it could affect how more than a quarter of American Jews pray.

“Mishkan T’filah” replaces “Gates of Prayer,” released in 1975, which in a nod to the movement’s ethos of personal choice contained 10 different worship services from which individuals could choose. The new book offers only one. Its principal innovation is its design, a two-page layout in which each prayer is accompanied by a translation from the Hebrew, a transliteration, a commentary and a “spiritual reading”–all aimed at appealing to multiple orientations within the context of a single service.

Read it all.

Two senior Anglican bishops are facing legal actions from their own church in the US.

In Pennsylvania, the liberal diocesan bishop Charles Bennison has been suspended by the Primate, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, while accusations that he concealed a relative’s abuse of a teenage girl are investigated.

And in Pittsburgh, the conservative diocesan bishop Bob Duncan has been warned that he could face disciplinary procedures under Canon Law over proposals that his diocese seccede from the wider pro-gay Episcopal Church.

Both actions have stunned Episcopalians, who have been left in no doubt that their leader, a formidable woman who was formerly a marine biologist, is determined to take whatever steps necessary, both to stamp out abuse and also to maintain unity.

Read it all.

As twilight falls over this Tennessee town, Mayor Tony Reames drives up a dusty dirt road to the community’s towering water tank and begins his nightly ritual in front of a rusty metal valve.

With a twist of the wrist, he releases the tank’s meager water supply, and suddenly this sleepy town is alive with activity. Washing machines whir, kitchen sinks fill and showers run.

About three hours later, Reames will return and reverse the process, cutting off water to the town’s 145 residents.

The severe drought tightening like a vise across the Southeast has threatened the water supply of cities large and small, sending politicians scrambling for solutions. But Orme, about 40 miles west of Chattanooga and 150 miles northwest of Atlanta, is a town where the worst-case scenario has already come to pass: The water has run out.

Read it all.

In a communiqué, Dr Williams, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, and Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger said that Christians and Jews should respond jointly to the Muslim letter.

“The ”˜Common Word’, though addressed to Christian Churches, also makes clear its respect for Hebrew scripture in citing directly from the Book of Deuteronomy, and in acknowledging the inspiration that this provided for their understanding of the Qur’anic teaching on the unity and love of God and of neighbour,” they said in the communiqué.

The communiqué also called for the furthering of “universal religious solidarity” by regarding places of worship, Christian, Jewish or those of other faiths, as “sacrosanct and therefore inviolate”.

The three religious leaders said they were “very concerned about the well-being of the ever-increasing number of refugees from Iraq, and the plight of religious minorities, in particular Christian communities in Iraq, and elsewhere in the region”.

Read it all.

Last week I heard the Singaporean Foreign Minister, a very impressive man named George Yeo, give a twenty-minute address about the rise of Asia and Asia-EU relations in which he did not mention the United States once. Not once.

The occasion was a conference of deans of public policy schools from around the world held at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Government here. To be fair to Minister Yeo, he may have been under the impression that the assembled deans were only from Asia and Europe; hence the focus of his remarks. But regardless, it is a very unusual experience for an American to be sitting listening to the foreign minister of another country, and a very small country at that, talk at some length about major global trends as if the United States didn’t exist.

Unusual, and salutary. After all, many other countries endure that treatment from us.

Read it all.

At some point in the future, soldiers will pack up their rucks, equipment will be loaded into huge shipping containers, C-130s will rise wheels-up off the tarmac, and Navy transport ships will cross the high seas to return home once again. At some point ”” the timing of which I don’t have the slightest guess at ”” the war in Iraq will end. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately ”” I’ve been thinking about the last American soldier to die in Iraq.

Tonight, at 3 a.m., a hunter’s moon shines down into the misty ravines of Vermont’s Green Mountains. I’m standing out on the back deck of a friend’s house, listening to the quiet of the woods. At the Fairbanks Museum in nearby St. Johnsbury, the lights have been turned off for hours and all is dark inside the glass display cases, filled with Civil War memorabilia. The checkerboard of Jefferson Davis. Smoothbore rifles. Canteens. Reading glasses. Letters written home.

Four or five miles outside of town, past a long stretch of water where the moon is crossing over, a blue and white house sits in a small clearing not far from where I stand now. Chimney smoke rises from a fire burned down to embers. A couple spoon each other in sleep, exhausted from lovemaking. One of them is beginning to snore. I want them to wake up and make love again, even if they need the sleep and tomorrow’s workday holds more work than they might imagine.

Read it all.

Episcopalians nationwide are watching as leaders and delegates of the Episcopal Church’s Pittsburgh Diocese converge on Johnstown today to consider separating from their national affiliation.

“It is like my parents are getting divorced,” said Cindy Leap, parishioner at St. Mark’s Episcopalian Church in Johnstown. “I have to pick whether to go with my mommy or daddy.”

A constant struggle over beliefs is deeply affecting local and national congregations, said the Rev. Mark Zimmerman of St. Francis in-the-Fields Episcopal Church near Somerset.

“This is not about the Episcopal Church. There is nobody who is not going to be touched by this,” he said.

“Every major denomination in America is wrestling with this issue. Even though it takes us out of our comfort zone, we have to wrestle with it.

“God is calling us to take a stand.”

Read it all.