The Anglican Church of Kenya has expressed fears of violence during the countrywide mass action called for next week by ODM leaders.

Consequently, the Church appealed to would-be demonstrators to avoid violence and police to shun use of live bullets to avoid loss of lives.

“We are not against the idea of mass action but our fear is that some people may use the event to engage in violence and to loot property,” the ACK Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, told a press conference at the church headquarters in Nairobi.

“The law enforcers should provide security without excessive force. They should not use live bullets on the people and must avoid being partisan,” said Archbishop Nzimbi who read the statement the bishops had prepared after their two-day meeting.

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VICTORIA ENCISO (Congregant, Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Chicago): From the moment you wake up, you kneel like a camel, and I wake up like a camel. You know how a camel wakes up, with both knees? I wake up praying.

VALENTE (to Ms. Enciso): So you wake up in the morning and you immediately get down on your knees and pray?

Ms. ENCISO: And I bless my blanket that I have and the house that I have, because if you don’t then what do you have?

VALENTE: The devotional life of Hispanic Catholics takes some dramatic forms. On a frigid December night people from Good Shepherd walk through the streets of Chicago, a procession in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe. At five o’clock the next morning, their church is packed for the mananitas, an hour of singing praise to the Virgin.

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As leaders in Washington turn their attention to efforts to avert a looming downturn, many economists suggest that it may already be too late to change the course of the economy over the first half of the year, if not longer.

With a wave of negative signs gathering force, economists, policy makers and investors are debating just how much the economy could be damaged in 2008. Huge and complex, the American economy has in recent years been aided by a global web of finance so elaborate that no one seems capable of fully comprehending it. That makes it all but impossible to predict how much the economy can be expected to fall before it stabilizes.

The answer could be a defining factor in the outcome of the fiercely contested presidential election. Not long ago, the race centered on the war in Iraq.

But now, as candidates fan out across the country, visiting places as varied as the factory towns of Michigan and streets lined with unsold condominiums in Las Vegas, voters are increasingly demanding that they focus on the best way to keep the economy from slipping off the tracks.

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I won’t be voting for Barack Obama for president. There are too many vital issues ”” from taxes and spending, to immigration and national security, to traditional values ”” on which we have fundamentally different points of view about the right direction for our country. However, as the presidential campaign trail now makes its turn toward this state, and as South Carolinians make their final decisions on whom to vote for, it’s worth pausing to take notice of something important that the Obama candidacy means for our corner of America.

South Carolinians are rightly proud of our state’s rich heritage and history, dating from the earliest Colonial times and our ancestors’ heroic efforts in the Revolutionary War right up to the present day. I say this because we’re a state that loves history, and one of the nicest parts of my job lies in constantly being exposed to the extraordinary achievements of South Carolinians past and present. In the Obama candidacy, there is a potentially history-making quality that we should reflect on. It is one that is especially relevant on the sensitive topic of race ”” because South Carolina and the South as a whole bear a heavier historical burden than the rest of our country on that front.

As governor, I try to keep that historical burden in mind, because being sensitive to race has both policy and symbolic implications. I strongly believe that policies such as school choice and reforms to allow Medicaid recipients additional health care options will have a disproportionately positive impact on African-Americans in our state. Others disagree, favoring a larger role for government than the private sector, and those legitimate policy disagreements will always be with us in the political arena.

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Mrs Clinton, trying to make a point about presidential leadership and Mr Obama’s constant references to Dr King, the civil rights icon, said: “Dr King’s dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.”

Mrs Clinton has since tried to clarify the comment, but the damage was done. Mr Clyburn, who had previously said that he would stay neutral, told The New York Times that he had been “bothered a great deal” by the remarks and was rethinking his position.

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Update: There is much more here also.

Years ago I met a Methodist minister who had worked in Africa. He told me that one day some of the villagers where he was working came to him to ask if their children could be baptised. He was taken by surprise. Infant baptism was not a main part of his tradition and had not been something he had yet explained to these new adult Christians. He wondered with a laugh whether Catholics had been snooping. “Who has told you about children being baptised?” he asked them. “No one,” they answered. “But being baptised is such a blessing for us, we want our children to have it too.” Parents instinctively want to share their benefits with their children.

Of course, not everyone sees baptising the young as a benefit. Some would prefer to wait, believing that the choice of religion is something that people should decide for themselves, not have imposed on them when they are young. Others go further and identify it with indoctrination. Children should not be programmed in this way. But is baptism an imposition? Is baptising programming? What is being done when a person is baptised?

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As a point of clarification, there is no confusion on the part of the Bishop of San Joaquin or the clergy, people, leadership, and convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin of their status. The claims of the Episcopal Church to have oversight or jurisdiction are not correct. The fact is that neither the Diocese nor Bishop John-David Schofield are part of The Episcopal Church. The Bishop is a member of the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone as of December 8th, 2007. The Diocese is a part of the Southern Cone. Neither the Presiding Bishop or the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church have any further jurisdiction. Bishop Schofield is no longer a member of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church.

A statement from The Most Reverend Gregory Venables, dated January 11,2008:

“As of December the 8th, 2007 Bishop John-David Schofield is not under the authority or jurisdiction of The Episcopal Church or the Presiding Bishop.He is, therefore, not answerable to their national canon law but is a member of the House of Bishops of the Southern Cone and under our authority.

Un fuerte abrazo.

–The Most Rev. Greg Venables, Archbishop of the Southern Cone

It comes as no surprise that the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church has initiated canonical actions against the Rt. Rev. John-David Schofield to remove him from office. However, the matter is complicated by the fact that Bishop Schofield and the Diocese of San Joaquin, by constitutional action of their Convention, are no longer a part of The Episcopal Church. They now function under the authority of the Province of the Southern Cone. Disciplinary actions cannot be taken by this Province against a Bishop who is a member of another Province of the Anglican Communion.

The House of Bishops of TEC can indeed prevent Bishop Schofield from functioning as a Bishop in congregations of The Episcopal Church. However, they cannot invalidate his consecration as a Bishop in the Church of God, nor prevent him from functioning as such in congregations that welcome and affirm his ministry as their Bishop.

The Bishop of San Joaquin has my friendship, my support, and my prayers during this time of turmoil in the life of our church.

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
January 12, 2008

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on January 11 inhibited Diocese of San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield.

In the text of the inhibition, Jefferts Schori wrote: “I hereby inhibit the said Bishop Schofield and order that from and after 5:00 p.m. PST, Friday, January 11, 2008, he cease from exercising the gifts of ordination in the ordained ministry of this Church; and pursuant to Canon IV.15, I order him from and after that time to cease all ‘episcopal, ministerial, and canonical acts, except as relate to the administration of the temporal affairs of the Diocese of San Joaquin,’ until this Inhibition is terminated pursuant to Canon IV.9(2) or superseded by decision of the House of Bishops.”

Jefferts Schori acted after the Title IV Review Committee certified that Schofield had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church.

On January 9, Upper South Carolina Bishop Dorsey Henderson, committee chair, wrote to Jefferts Schori, telling her that the nine-member committee had met that day and that a majority agreed that the documentation provided to them “demonstrated that Bishop Schofield has abandoned the communion of this Church by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church.”

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“So what the American church has done by the election and then ordination of Gene Robinson is really actually turn its back on the voice, the moral voice of the Lambeth Conference. That’s the problem basically. There is no way out of the problem now.”

Still, Carey feels that if the Americans were to come out wholeheartedly for the Windsor Covenant, dialogue and reconciliation would be possible.

“If the Episcopal Church says, ‘No, dammit, we are not going to go that way’, then there is no dialogue,” he said. “They are actually saying they are walking away from the family, they are closing the door. But if they are prepared to say, ‘We will fall in behind the convenant,’ then we can find a resolution.

“But there is no sign that the American House of Bishops realizes how serious it is,” he said.

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The case in Fairfax County Circuit Court is over whether the conservative congregations, which left the national church over disputes related to the interpretation of Scripture and the acceptance of homosexuality, can keep the land and buildings. After voting to leave in 2006 and 2007, the congregations filed court papers saying they had — under a Civil War-era Virginia law — legally “divided” from the national church and thus were keeping the property.

But the Episcopal Church and the Virginia Diocese, its local branch, argue that there has been no legal “division” — rather that a minority of dissidents opted to leave, and therefore have no rights to the land or buildings. Church lawyers also say it would be unconstitutional for the state to determine when a hierarchical church — such as the Episcopal Church — has had a fundamental division, that such a judgment is a religious matter. Meddling would be a violation of church-state separation, diocesan lawyers say.

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We believe in Inclusion, the first and foremost virtue as long as we do not include those who believe that the calling to be a Christian involves embracing a chaste lifestyle or that when we fall, we are to confess our sins, and seek absolution; outmoded and stigmatizing habits not to be countenanced in our Brave New World. We believe in including all religions in equality and suspend judgment about any elements in other religions which may be perhaps unfortunate, poor dears!

We intend to celebrate every cause that comes along as long as we don’t use the word “sin” or imply that anyone sins except for those who are branded by their refusal to accept our latitudinarian lifestyles. We intend to doubt every article of the Creeds and to accept every article of the belief-systems of other religious groups.

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Virginia’s attorney general is defending the right of 11 conservative Anglican parishes to use the state’s Civil War-era “division statute” to leave the Episcopal Church while retaining millions of dollars in assets and property.

Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s motion to intervene is a significant setback to the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia, which have said secular courts have no place in resolving the property dispute ”” the largest in the church’s history.

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The Bishops came together again from 7-12 January, 2008 for our annual retreat at the Ibru Anglican Retreat Centre at Agbarha-Otor. We were particularly pleased to have our brother Bishops from our outreaches to CANA (in the USA), and the Province of Congo with us. It afforded us the opportunity for further reflection on OUR LITURGICAL HERITAGE. We had as our chief resource person Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies (Anglican Communion) and we spent quality time rediscovering the Biblical foundations of our liturgy. We came to the conclusion that we do indeed have a rich and strongly biblical heritage which must be rediscovered, cherished, and guarded by all true Anglicans. Our Liturgy is a dramatization of The Bible and should therefore be held sacred without casual departures at the discretion of individuals. Our liturgy promotes fellowship, teaching, mission, and relevant spirituality. All of us ”“ Bishops, Clergy and Laity have a great role to play in this regard. We must take time to prepare prayerfully so that the liturgy does not become a cold and lifeless aspect of our worship life, but a vibrant, inspiring and liberating encounter with our self-revealing God. Our liturgy enables us to respond to God’s self-disclosure. As Anglicans, we are encouraged to live godly lives in the Church and in society. Our members in public office should go with a sense of mission as those who have been inspired by this encounter with the living God.

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The House of Bishops received the briefing by our Primate, The Most Revd Peter J. Akinola, CON, on the forthcoming Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem with great enthusiasm, commending his unrelenting efforts and tenacity of purpose in the Anglican cause. We are firmly resolved to seek inspiration from the biblical roots of our faith.

We reaffirm our endorsement of all the steps taken by our Primate to broker a peaceful resolution of the Lambeth Conference 2008 impasse which unfortunately has met with subtle inflexibility. Believing the time has come for us to explore other options, we stand with all like-minded Primates, Bishops and leaders of our communion who are organizing a Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in a pilgrimage setting in the Holy Land (Jerusalem), in June 2008 with the stated goal of informing and inspiring the invited leaders to shape this future, and to reform the church and transform persons, ommunities and societies through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Anglican Liturgy is a dramatization of The Bible and should therefore be held sacred without casual departures at the discretion of individuals. Our liturgy promotes fellowship, teaching, mission, and relevant spirituality. We should therefore rediscover the treasures of our liturgical heritage and make it lively.

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As stated in the Attorney General’s motion to intervene, “As a matter of federal constitutional law, the Episcopal Church is simply wrong. The Constitution does not require that local church property disputes be resolved by deferring to national and regional church leaders.”

“The Attorney General’s brief validates the position of our parishes and directly refutes arguments that were made by the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia following the November trial,” said Jim Oakes, vice chairman ADV. “Virginia has a long and rich history of deferring to congregational control of property. The Division Statute itself clearly states that majority rule should be the deciding factor in determining the ownership of church property when a group of congregations has divided from its former denomination. In his brief, the Attorney General ratified the authority of the Division Statute and noted that the interpretation of the Statute by ADV lawyers is ”˜both textually and historically accurate.’”

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A Mississippi millionaire must pay $750,000 to the man whose wife he stole away, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Sandra Valentine had been married to plumber Johnny Valentine for four years when she began working for Holly Springs, Miss., businessman Jerry Fitch Sr.

Within a year, Sandra and Fitch, who was also married, began an affair. When Sandra got pregnant, Johnny, who suspected she was cheating, ordered a paternity test, which showed he was not the father.

Johnny filed for divorce and then sued Fitch, claiming “alienation of affection,” or, in other words, stealing his wife’s love.

Johnny won more than $750,000 in state court, and the verdict was upheld by the state Supreme Court. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, ending Fitch’s appeal.

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“TRUST an unknown future with a known God,” urges the sign in front of the Sangre de Cristo Christian Church on the outskirts of Crestone, Colo., which is close to a four-hour drive south of Denver off Highway 17. The town might seem to be in the middle of nowhere, but if you’re seeking a taste of the divine, you’ve probably come to the right place.

At 8,000 feet on the edge of the desert plains of the San Luis Valley beneath the Sangre de Cristo Range, this town and its environs have about 1,500 residents and two dozen different religious centers, including a cluster of Buddhist monasteries, a Catholic monastery, a Taoist retreat, a Hindu ashram, a Shumei center and several American Indian sanctuaries. This forested hillside haven, nestled on an enormous aquifer below the 14,000-foot Crestone Peaks, has long been considered sacred.

“The Navajo and Hopi think of this as holy ground,” said John Milton, a naturalist who runs shamanic Indian workshops on the serene 210-acre Sacred Land Trust along North Crestone Creek. “Elders from the community still come here to worship.”

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John Denker said, “People are people. My partner and I have been together for 17 years. We just want to be treated without prejudice.”

Father Robert Morrison of St. James Episcopal Church said, “Life should be a celebration, not constantly looking over one’s shoulder. People need a degree of security so they aren’t constantly worrying.”

“It sad it has to be differentiated between gay and straight – people are people,” agreed Denker.

Kahn explained he and Denker thought of having a civil union in San Francisco but the license is not transferable in other states.

To this Morrison commented, “It should be transferable. You should be able to move, exit and enter a community.”

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A January 26 gathering of continuing Episcopalians in the Diocese of San Joaquin and national church leaders, “Moving Forward, Welcoming All,” will focus on reconciliation, inclusion, and celebration, event organizers said.

“We are just so encouraged; we’re looking forward to welcoming more people,” said Cindy Smith, president of Remain Episcopal, a group which opposed the December vote to realign the Central California Valley diocese with the Argentina-based Province of the Southern Cone, which has about 22,000 members and encompasses the South American nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

Former Bishop John-David Schofield had urged the realignment, approved by 42 of the diocese’s 47 congregations. Clergy approved the split 70-12 and laity voted 103-10 for realignment.

But in recent weeks, momentum and enthusiasm have spiked as additional people and some congregations “have thought about what has happened, what it means to not be part of the Episcopal Church anymore” and sought out continuing communities of faith, said Smith.

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After descending the stone stairs to the dim grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity, President Bush lit a candle Thursday and stood in silent, somber reflection at the place where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

Emerging a short while later into the sunlit courtyard outside, he described the experience as “a moving moment for me. … For those of us who practice the Christian faith, there’s really no more holy site than the place where our Savior was born.”

For Bush, a born-again Christian who visited Israel as Texas governor but did not enter the Palestinian territories, his first pilgrimage to the birthplace of Christ and other sites on the path of Jesus’ ministry adds a personal, devotional dimension to the daunting political mission of brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The visits also underscore the religious tenets that have helped define Bush’s presidency, from his faith-based initiatives to the certitude with which his administration has approached the challenges of Sept. 11 and Iraq. Bush often has maintained that the advancement of freedom is a religious calling, and he did so again Thursday in Bethlehem.

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The demo was not going well.

Again.

It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple’s top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple’s boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn’t just buggy, it flat-out didn’t work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, “We don’t have a product yet.”

The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs’ trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. “It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,” says someone who was in the meeting.

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Click on the video at the bottom–very cool.

Coca-Cola’s main Russian bottling distributor has removed religious images from its drinks refrigerators after a group of Russian Orthodox believers accused it of blasphemy, a spokeswoman for the firm said on Thursday.

Local people in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 400 km (250 miles) from Moscow, complained to the prosecutor’s office last month about pictures of an orthodox cross and onion-shaped church domes on the outdoor refrigerators.

At the time, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. said it would not drop the marketing campaign and there had been no negative reaction in other Russian cities where similar images were used on the sides of the refrigerators.

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In Matthew 6, Jesus warns his disciples against trying to serve two masters, God and mammon. An overly strict interpretation of that injunction would seem to leave economics outside the realm of Christian theological inquiry.

But the most fundamental of all economic endeavors, pursuit of a livelihood, is rather essential to human existence, a prerequisite of spiritual development. Jesus was decrying the worship of mammon, not its necessity for human sustenance. The study of how best to create wealth and use it efficiently for human advancement is seldom deemed a sin.

This truth was acknowledged in 1999 when the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI) in Princeton, N.J., launched a study project called “God and Globalization.” The 20 participants from a variety of disciplines recognized that the burgeoning integration and interdependence of national and regional economies resulting from reduced barriers to trade and finance has had profound social and political implications. It has raised millions of human beings out of poverty. The theologians among the CTI scholars are largely friendly toward the role free-market capitalism has played in this remarkable transformation. That’s a welcome relief from the style of theology that too often distrusts the normal impulses of human beings to improve their material well-being.

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THE METHODIST Church in Britain is launching a new credit card, but it will not be used to make purchases.

The ”˜Buy Less Live More’ credit card is being distributed to act as a reminder to people to think twice before making a purchase. The card is designed to be placed in a wallet or purse in front of other credit cards as part of a campaign to get people to curb their spending.

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The US is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said yesterday.

The warning over the future of the triple-A rating – granted to US government debt since it was first assessed in 1917 – reflects growing concerns over the country’s ability to retain its financial and economic supremacy.

It could also put further pressure on candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties to sharpen their focus on healthcare and pensions in the run-up to November’s presidential election.

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Believers who choose to have their ashes scattered after being cremated are entitled to a Christian funeral, the Vatican said yesterday.

The ruling follows the refusal of a parish priest in the Italian Alps to hold a funeral for a local man who had asked to have his remains spread in the mountains. Father Carmelo Pellicone, of the parish of St Etienne in Aosta, told the man’s widow that a religious funeral was impossible because it was against the dogma of the resurrection of the body.

He said that scattering ashes in the countryside or at sea was a “pantheistic communion with nature in death, which is not part of our religion” ”“ a belief held by many priests. Bishop Luciano Pacomio, head of doctrine at the Italian Bishops Conference, said, however, that this reflected an out-of-date mentality.

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Kenya’s bishops have called for an investigation into claims of malpractice in the country’s recent disputed elections in a strongly worded statement that was apparently strengthened under pressure from the religious community.

The original document, sent on 2 January, expressed “deep sorrow and concern at the outbreak of violence and the breakdown of law and order”, and appealed to Kenyans to pray and “to refrain from violence and from the senseless killing of our brothers and sisters”.

Hours later the Catholic Information Service Africa (CISA) sent out a revised version that contained five more paragraphs and was prefaced with an apology for having sent out “a mutilated copy” of the bishops’ letter. “One full page was missing! Our only excuse is that this is an emergency service. Our journalists, who went home for Christmas and voting, are still stranded in their home areas.”

In the added paragraphs the bishops call for restraint among the security forces, dialogue and “independent mediation if need be” between the election winner, President Mwai Kibaki (a Catholic) and his opponent, Raila Odinga. The bishops also call for an investigation into claims of electoral malpractice, which, they said, could merit the establishment of an independent commission “to audit and review the tallying of the Parliamentary and Presidential polls”.

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Clergy on the ground acknowledge that parallel communities exist, but they insist that problems arise from social as much as religious factors, and that many bridges have been built since the riots in places such as Burnley and Bradford in 2001.

The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Revd John Goddard, insisted on Monday: “There are no ”˜no-go’ areas in Burnley, or in East Lancashire as a whole. There are areas of separation where there is what we would describe as parallel lives. This can lead to misunderstandings, not least fostered by groups such as the BNP. But there are superb good stories to be told, not least the work of the churches across all boundaries . . . a real attitude of presence and engagement.

“We remain in all areas. We serve the whole community through our schools. One of the things we recognise is that you have to learn to be church in rather a different way when you are a minority faith.”

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