[Scott] SIMON: How much do you read a year?

[Alan] CHEUSE: Well, I read maybe four or five books a week, but some books take three hours; some books take four days. I love Woody Allen’s little joke about taking speed-reading course. And he said, just taking a speed-reading course and finished “War and Peace.” It pertains to Russia.

[Scott] SIMON: How does all that reading affect your writing, or do you have to careful that it don’t?

{Alan] CHEUSE: I think being careful is the worst thing you can possibly do to yourself as a writer. You need to read as much as you possibly can and live as much as you possibly can and write as much as you possibly can. But, you know, reading is as much a part of life as any part and it’s life itself. And it allows us to live other lives that we might not have lived if we hadn’t picked up those books. So it seems to me to be a good human being you must read as much as you can and certainly, if you want to be a good writer, you’ve got to read all the good stuff that you can get your hands on.

—Writer Alan Cheuse on this past Saturday’s Weekend Edition on NPR

The close outcome followed months of debate. In the end, about a dozen ordained ministers wrote a paper defending their opposition to the change.

“It’s a painful position to take,” said one of those pastors, the Rev. Steven Carter of Christ Memorial Presbyterian Church in Columbia. “I believe that we have to speak the truth, but we have to do it with love.”

Although he welcomes gay and lesbian people at his church, “when it comes to leadership positions and when it comes to the role of marriage, in the biblical picture of the world, that is intended to be between a man and a woman,” Carter said.

“There are times when I wish it wasn’t so clear,” he said.

Under the proposal, marriage in the Presbyterian Book of Order would go from a lifelong commitment made by a “man and a woman” to a “lifelong commitment … between two people.”

Another sentence would be changed from, “Marriage is a civil contract between a woman and a man,” to “Marriage is a covenant between two people and according to the laws of the state also constitutes a civil contract.”

“We have great people at our church. … I don’t see why they shouldn’t have the same rights as my husband and I have,” said Jeananne Stine, a member of Govans Presbyterian who helped write the overture about marriage.

Read it all

Here are Two:

To the Editor:

Statistical analysis may sound scientific, but people don’t behave according to economists’ mathematical formulas. If the death penalty deterred killers, we would be able to find at least one, in a state without the death penalty, who expected to be caught and imprisoned for life but committed murder anyway. No rational person would make that exchange.

Economists will keep debating the numbers, but they should support public policy that sends clear, rational messages. Here’s one: Killing people is wrong ”” whether they’re walking in a dark alley or strapped to a gurney.

Howard Tomb
Brooklyn, Nov. 18, 2007

Ӣ

To the Editor:

Even if we have no clue whether or not the death penalty actually deters, crime prevention is only one of a handful of reasons that a jurisdiction might consider when choosing to mete out the ultimate punishment.

Retribution and the community’s expression of moral outrage are at least as important. Failure to deter doesn’t inevitably drive us to the logical conclusion to execute the death penalty itself.

Jonathan Lubin
New Haven, Nov. 18, 2007
The writer is a student at Yale Law School.

Read it all.

See what you think of it.

What does Presiding Katherine Schori hope to gain from the costly and lengthy litigation in which she is involving the national church and a number of dioceses? It will not stop the Episcopal Church from hemorrhaging members. It will not help Episcopal parishes and churches to retain existing members and to attract new members. It will not prevent clergy, congregations, and dioceses from leaving the Episcopal Church. It will not keep other provinces from assuming jurisdiction over the departing congregations and dioceses. What it will do is strain the resources of the dioceses involved in the lawsuits. It will use monies that might have been put to better use in a shrinking denomination for evangelistic outreach, new church development, and congregational revitalization.

Read it all.

I will only consider posting comments on this submitted by email:

Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com

15 years ago, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to ordain women as priests. The margin of that victory was narrow, but the response to the change has been emphatic; last year the number of women being ordained overtook the number of men becoming priests for the first time. But not many of them are getting to the senior jobs, and they still can’t, of course, be bishops. Shazia Khan reports.

Listen to it all.

Update: Here is a BBC Northern Ireland Sunday Sequence Segment on the same subject also.

To have savaged and discredited al-Qaida in an open fight and to have taken down a fascist Baath Party, which betrayed its pseudosecularism by forging an alliance with al-Qaida, is to have scored an impressive victory on any terms. However, the price of this achievement was often the indulgence of some excessive conduct on the part of the Shiite parties and militias. The next stage must be the reining-in of the Sadrists and the discouragement of Iranian support for such groups. Again, one hardly dares to hope, but there are some promising signs. The Maliki government is not using undue haste or sectarian demagogy in the case of Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tai, Saddam Hussein’s former defense minister, sentenced to death but not yet executed. Many Sunni Kurds and Arabs, either opposed to the death penalty on principle or opposed in this case, seem for now to have prevailed. And “the cabinet,” according to the Nov. 18 New York Times, “has sent legislation to the Parliament softening the de-Baathification law that had prevented former Baathists’ working in government jobs.” I wonder how many people, reading that ordinary sentence about “the cabinet” and “the Parliament,” as reported also in independent Iraqi media, have any idea what it means when compared with the insane proceedings of the totalitarian abattoir state that was Iraq until 2003.

As I began by saying, I am not at all certain that any of this apparently good news is really genuine or will be really lasting. However, I am quite sure both that it could be true and that it would be wonderful if it were to be true.

Read it all.

Harry Potter, James Patterson and Oprah Winfrey’s book club aside, Americans ”” particularly young Americans ”” appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.

That is the message of a new report being released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, based on an analysis of data from about two dozen studies from the federal Education and Labor Departments and the Census Bureau as well as other academic, foundation and business surveys. After its 2004 report, “Reading at Risk,” which found that fewer than half of Americans over 18 read novels, short stories, plays or poetry, the endowment sought to collect more comprehensive data to build a picture of the role of all reading, including nonfiction.

In his preface to the new 99-page report Dana Gioia, chairman of the endowment, described the data as “simple, consistent and alarming.”

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Congregations that disaffiliated from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over the denomination’s liberal direction on Scripture and theology recently realigned with the newly inaugurated New Wineskins-Evangelical Presbyterian Church Presbytery. Amid preparation to exit the PC(USA) and property issues, the breakaway groups acknowledged possible neglect toward congregations that have decided to remain in the denomination.

“First, those of us in the New Wineskins who have left the PC(USA) want to ask your forgiveness if we have been short with you, less than encouraging in our conversations, or down right neglectful of your needs and feelings. It has been a busy time for us,” stated Randy Jenkins, moderator of the New Wineskins EPC Presbytery, in a letter addressed to members of the New Wineskins Association of Churches, a network of Presbyterian churches discontent with the PC(USA).
The network claims nearly 200 Presbyterian churches, representing about 100,000 Presbyterians. Only 46 churches in the network have voted to leave the PC(USA) so far. Others have decided to remain in the PC(USA) while committing to reform the denomination and still others have not yet voted.

Speaking for those who have focused their energies on cutting ties, Jenkins highlighted the distance that might have been felt in recent years with churches that were not splitting.

“We probably haven’t been as encouraging to you, our friends who have not yet left, or who are committed to staying, as we should have been,” he said. “We mean no disrespect, it’s just that our course was set and now we must take a moment and realize that others are just as, or sometimes more, faithful than we were; and that faithfulness may be lived out in staying in the PC(USA) and being a prophetic witness.”

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The Presbyterian Church (USA) has removed Citigroup Inc. from its list of businesses probed for possible ties to violence and oppression in the Palestinian territories, saying it found no “improprieties.”

Read it all.

Airline passengers, who already are required at airport checkpoints to remove their shoes, take off their coats and carry only small bottles of liquids, now have a new task: Pack neatly.

In anticipation of the most popular holiday for travel in the USA, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) today launches a campaign urging travelers to eliminate clutter in carry-on bags. Pack in layers. Keep items neat.

Messy travelers could spend more time in line if their carry-ons are cluttered because such bags are more likely to be pulled aside and searched by hand, TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe says.

The added search could add up to three minutes to time in the security line, Howe says.

“Whether or not the (TSA) campaign is effective, the effort is certainly welcome because, with 27 million-plus people scheduled to fly over Thanksgiving, every effort to speed up the security checkpoint will help,” says David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, the major airline trade group.

Clutter? On a plane? Sorry, couldn’t resist. Read it all.

China’s home-grown inflation may be on the way here, along with its exports.

China’s consumer prices shot up 6.5% in October vs. a year earlier, matching decade-high levels set in August, as food costs vaulted.

For the U.S. and other countries, China’s inflation bears watching. That’s because China has played a big role in easing global inflation by manufacturing low-cost goods.

China’s booming demand for raw materials has driven up prices for energy, metals and other commodities. The upside has been that Chinese finished goods prices declined. But, that may be ending.

Read it all.

[i]It wasn’t until clicking the links on a posting at Stand Firm earlier today that we discovered that the Diocese of Michigan has posted an editorial about TitusOneNine’s post of a picture from the Diocese of Michigan’s convention.

Here’s what the Diocese of Michigan wrote:[/i]

There was a spate of criticism””unfounded, I found””from a corner of the conservative blogosphere about a snapshot of our diocesan convention that showed the placard of the eight MDGs behind the altar during the Eucharist. If you must investigate further, you’ll might find the discussion HERE. If the blog thread is removed, better judgment may have slipped in upon them before this commentary did.

The bloggers misinterpreted our intention””as gently suggested online by a priest in our diocese””thinking we had replaced the crucifix with the MDGs. The rambling comment section devolves to less-than-insightful rants on Karl Marx and the United Nations. But the kernel of concern is worth reflecting upon.

The millennium development goals are not canon; they are invitations into deeper relationships, deeper understanding. In order to embrace the mdgs””or rather be embraced by them””we must prepare ourselves not to march triumphantly but to walk humbly. We must truly empty ourselves of those things that lead us to feel haughty. Like a Pharisee. With a blog.

[i]Even though the author, presumably Diocesan Communications Director Herb Gunn, criticizes TitusOneNine in that piece, I don’t believe he contacted us or left a comment about his concerns, so this is the first we’d heard from the Diocese of Michigan. (It is possible of course that Mr. Gunn contacted Kendall without my knowing.) As I made clear in the post in question, as one who tries to help Kendall cover the diocesan convention news, I (elfgirl) was responsible for the post, not Kendall. So let me offer a few comments in response.

First, Mr. Gunn confuses “bloggers” and “commenters.” He accuses the “bloggers” (that in this case would be me, elfgirl) of saying or intending something we never said or intended. In fact we explicitly stated our intentions several times on the thread itself, and provided many supporting links to further the discussion along the lines of what we had intended.

Secondly, I never claimed the MDG banner was a deliberate replacement for the cross. I made no comment about the intent of the Diocese of Michigan. I merely noted that I found the photo “irresistible” as a striking visual image. In fact, I acknowledged previous comments that the juxtaposition and symbolism was probably unintentional.

We (I) always acknowledged the fact that the actual intent was probably not to have the MDG banner as a reredos, but that the unintended juxtaposition, and the Diocese of Michigan’s prominent photo on their convention coverage page, symbolized a larger issue. Unfortunately Mr. Gunn didn’t take the time to respond to any of the substantive concerns (about the mission priorities of TEC, not the Diocese of Michigan’s convention, per se) raised in the comment thread. Instead he pretty much dismisses the whole entry and caps off his editorial with an insult. The talking past one another continues.[/i]

–elfgirl

Read it all.

Sitting in sight of her father and grandfather, both Lutheran ministers, Jen Rude on Saturday became the first ordained lesbian pastor since the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America urged bishops to not penalize congregations who violate the celibacy requirement for gay clergy.

Several of the more than 100 congregants present wept as the 27-year-old stood before them, a beaming smile drawn across her face.

Under church policy, homosexual ministers are required to make a vow of celibacy before they can be ordained. But heterosexual ministers are not, and Rude, who is not in a relationship, refused to make that vow because she considers the policy discriminatory.

“We all realized that sexual orientation has nothing to do with how well a person can minister a congregation,” said Kathy Young, a member of the Resurrection Lutheran Church in Lakeview, where the ordination was held.

Young was absolute about the decision to violate church policy by ordaining Rude: “This is who we are and this is what we do.”

Read it all.

Hi all. As we noted in the comments on one of the threads below, we were having trouble accessing the Living Church’s website earlier today. We’ve since learned via e-mail that those problems were due to a site upgrade. We’ve just now been able to get into the new site and it looks terrific.

Here’s the news page link:
http://www.livingchurch.org/site/news/

Here’s a section for online exclusive features:
http://www.livingchurch.org/site/news/exclusives/

We’re still having trouble accessing the TLC home page: http://www.livingchurch.org/, which is taking us to the TLC’s hosting company instead. It may just take awhile for the site upgrade to “propagate” throughout the web, or we might need to clear out our browser cache.

Be sure to update your bookmarks for the new site. (The news page link is new, for instance). It looks terrific! Congrats and thanks to the TLC team.

As more sections of the Anglican Church of Canada move toward blessing gay marriages, a group of conservative Anglicans has started pulling out of the Canadian organization and putting themselves under the authority of the main Anglican branch in South America.

The first move happened on Friday when retired Bishop Donald Harvey left the Anglican Church of Canada and became a full-time bishop of the more conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of the Americas.

On Thursday, he will now outline plans to enable conservative Anglican congregations in Canada to join the Southern Cone under his episcopal oversight.

“Because of the unabated theological decay in the Anglican Church of Canada, many long-time Anglicans have already left their church and left Anglicanism,” Harvey said in a statement.

“We want to provide a fully Anglican option — a safety net — for others who feel their church has abandoned them and who are contemplating taking the same action.”

Read it all.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez brought his revolutionary zeal to the cartel that controls 40 percent of the world’s oil, urging fellow members at a weekend summit to fight against “imperialism” and “exploitation.”

Chavez used the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to advance a struggle for the soul of the cartel. Countering him was the conference host, Saudi King Abdullah, who said the organization’s goal was simply to produce prosperity.

Their contrasting visions elbowed aside the usual OPEC talk about production quotas and currency fluctuations. In the short term at least, Abdullah’s vision is likely to prevail, said Ihsan Bu-Hulaiga, who runs a private business consulting firm in Riyadh and advises the Saudi government.

“OPEC has to do with oil; it cannot solve the world’s problems with a political agenda,” he said. “It would be putting its bread and butter at risk.”

Read it all.

“She’s playing hardball, and that’s not going down very well, in this country or in the communion,” said the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, a leading church traditionalist from South Carolina who runs a popular Episcopal blog. “She’s apparently opted for a power strategy and a public legal strategy, and that’s a great disappointment.”

But Jefferts Schori explains her strategy in different terms.

In her Nov. 9 meeting with about 100 leaders of the El Camino Real Diocese, she said she believed strongly in reaching out and listening to Episcopalians frustrated by what they see as the church’s too-liberal direction.

“I think there are many in our church who feel beleaguered, and often they don’t hear from other parts of the church that they, too, are beloved,” the bishop said during the conversation with diocesan leaders in the sanctuary of St. Stephen’s in the Field Church. “If we can ratchet it down a little, we may find a way to live together even if we don’t agree.”

Moving easily up and down the church’s center aisle as she spoke, Jefferts Schori said she understood that individual Episcopalians might choose to leave the church, as others have before them. “I think we have to honor the idea that faithfulness may lead us in different directions,” she said.

Read it all.

Update: Get religion has some comments on this article here.

For home-schooled students, Patrick Henry College in Loudon County, Va., is like Harvard University.

Many high-achieving, home-schooled students have passed through Patrick Henry’s campus, which is meant to provide a network of connections for the rest of their lives ”” like Harvard or Stanford does for others. The conservative Christian college is known for attracting top students and arming them with religious training and an Ivy League-quality education.

Hanna Rosin, a journalist who has covered religion and politics for The Washington Post and written for The New Republic, GQ and The New York Times got to know Patrick Henry’s students ”” even housing some of them who were on internships. Her new book, God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America, follows the lives of students as they cope with college life.

Scott Simon spoke with Rosin and Daniel Noa, a Patrick Henry alum, about how home schooling and Patrick Henry shapes students.

Listen to it all.

The Episcopal Church in Liberia has elected a new Bishop to succeed its current resident Bishop, Rev. Edward Neufville.

Rev. Jonathan Hart was elected over the weekend at a special convention of the church on the campus of the Cuttington University College in Suacoco, Bong County.

According to reports gathered by this paper from the elections commission, Father Hart won the post with 297votes and was closely followed by Rev. Dr. James Selle, who came second with a total of 161 votes, after the election went into a run-off.

Initially before the run-off elections, there were three candidates that contested the first round of the elections. Rev. Dr. Herman Browne was the third candidate but after the first round of voting, he failed to sail through to the second round because he obtained the least vote. Dr. Browne got a total of 71 votes in the first round while Rev. Hart and Rev Browne came first and second respectively with 211 votes and 181 votes.

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