If anyone’s interested… Here’s an open discussion thread for those watching the Republican and Democratic debates tonight on ABC.

John Holloway received a diagnosis of AIDS nearly two decades ago, when the disease was a speedy death sentence and treatment a distant dream.

Yet at 59 he is alive, thanks to a cocktail of drugs that changed the course of an epidemic. But with longevity has come a host of unexpected medical conditions, which challenge the prevailing view of AIDS as a manageable, chronic disease.

Mr. Holloway, who lives in a housing complex designed for the frail elderly, suffers from complex health problems usually associated with advanced age: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, kidney failure, a bleeding ulcer, severe depression, rectal cancer and the lingering effects of a broken hip.

Those illnesses, more severe than his 84-year-old father’s, are not what Mr. Holloway expected when lifesaving antiretroviral drugs became the standard of care in the mid-1990s.

The drugs gave Mr. Holloway back his future. But at what cost?

That is the question, heretical to some, that is now being voiced by scientists, doctors and patients encountering a constellation of ailments showing up prematurely or in disproportionate numbers among the first wave of AIDS survivors to reach late middle age.

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My Christmas story ”” the one I’ve been telling and retelling these last 10 days ”” began on Friday, Dec. 21.

It was early in the morning, and I had awoken with the sudden, sinking realization that a present I had bought for one of my sons hadn’t yet arrived. It wasn’t just any present either; it was a PlayStation 3, a $500 item, and a gift, I happened to know from my sources, that he was hoping for.

Like most things I buy online, the PlayStation had come from Amazon.com. So I went to the site and tracked the package ”” something, thankfully, that is a snap to do on Amazon. What I saw made my heart sink: the package had not only been shipped, it had been delivered to my apartment building days earlier and signed for by one of my neighbors. I knocked on my neighbor’s door, and asked if she still had the PlayStation. No, she said; after signing for it, she had put it downstairs in the hallway.

Now I was nearly distraught. In all likelihood, the reason I hadn’t seen the package earlier in the week is because it had been stolen, probably by someone delivering something else to the building. Even if that wasn’t the case, the one thing I knew for sure was that it was gone ”” for which I could hardly blame Amazon.

Nonetheless, I got on the phone with an Amazon customer service representative, and explained what had happened: the PlayStation had been shipped, delivered and signed for. It just didn’t wind up in my hands. Would Amazon send me a replacement? In my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was pleading for mercy.

I shudder to think how this entreaty would have gone over at, say, Apple, where customer service is an oxymoron. But the Amazon customer service guy didn’t blink. After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy. So, of course, was I.

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BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: This week: the Iowa caucuses. The two winners, Illinois senator Barack Obama and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, both talked openly about their faith, and our managing editor Kim Lawton says both men had an active faith-based outreach strategy.

Kim, welcome. Let’s start with Obama. To what extent did religion play a role in his campaign?

KIM LAWTON: It played a huge role and one that I think is not widely acknowledged. He had a very active effort to court people of faith, including some of those evangelical voters. He held a series of faith forums across Iowa. A lot of times he didn’t personally show up. His campaign had these meetings for people of faith, so it was under the radar partly because he wasn’t there, but he brought people together to talk about social justice and moral issues. His campaign, actually on the Web site, had a phone number that the week before the Iowa caucuses every day people could call at 8:30 in the morning and pray for Barack Obama’s campaign there. So it was very intense and very targeted.

ABERNETHY: And Huckabee got a big amount of support from evangelicals. Let me ask you this: when an evangelical Christian goes to a caucus and votes for, stands up for Huckabee, thinks about voting for Huckabee, what does that person see in him?

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GOD’S TRUSTWORTHY WORD: SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD

The twenty-first century crisis in Anglicanism has arisen out of more than two hundred years of growing
hermeneutical suspicion about the eternal trustworthiness of God’s Word Written. This crisis can be resolved
only through a faithful reclaiming by the Church of such trust. Analysis and reflection around this issue will
constitute the program of this coming year’s conference, led by a roster of internationally renowned speakers.

Dr. Jerry Root — with a focus on C. S. Lewis
Bishop Robert Duncan ”“ with a focus on developments in the Anglican Communion
Canon Robert Crouse ”“ with a focus on sacramentalism in the Church Fathers and the English Reformers
Bishop (God willing) Mark Lawrence ”“ with a focus on the life and leadership of Charles Henry Brent
Canon Ashley Null ”“ with a focus on Thomas Cranmer for Today
Dr. Paul Moser ”“ with a focus on Jesus as God’s Trustworthy Word
Canon Michael Green ”“ with a focus on “marching orders” for Anglicanism in a New Reformation

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The problem is Canterbury and the trust is running out. While Rowan sends out seemingly positive messages of conversation and dialogue he is in actuality inert and dangerously passive. As one leading organiser of GAFCON pointed out to me this afternoon, the Windsor Report clearly stated that those who caused the tears in the Communion to take place (the consecrators of Gene Robinson) should not be permitted representative functions in the instruments of unity. Yet that is exactly what an invite to Lambeth 2008 is – it is a representative voting role for a Bishop. Even Tom Wright agrees that that’s what the Windsor Report asked for, so in which case why is Rowan issuing invites to people that the Windsor Report says shouldn’t be coming?

This is the issue – Rowan, like it or not, is not doing his job. Furthermore, leading members of his team are telling TEC that it’s perfectly OK for them to carry on regardless with same-sex blessings and other ACO officials are resident clergy at churches where controversial gay communions take place. These key staff members are not censured nor is there a public retraction. Why should the orthodox leaders believe that Rowan will act positively when he lets his staff say exactly the opposite?

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Iowa pastors who support Republican Mike Huckabee for president have received letters warning them that getting involved in politics could endanger the tax-exempt status of their churches.

Several pastors who have publicly backed Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister who has support from many evangelicals, said they have received the letters, which have no return address. They have arrived in the weeks leading to Thursday’s precinct caucuses.

Two letters were sent to the Rev. Brad Sherman, of Solid Rock Christian Church in Coralville. The first arrived a couple weeks ago and warned that he could be prosecuted for his support of Huckabee.

“I just laughed. No one lands in jail for this,” Sherman said. “Somebody is trying to intimidate Christians from getting involved.”

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The national motto “In God We Trust” will move from the edge of new dollar coins honoring U.S. presidents to the front or back of the currency.

A provision in the $555 billion domestic spending bill for 2008, which President Bush signed into law on Dec. 26, calls for the change to take place “as soon as is practicable.” Greg Hernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. Mint, said the change will occur in 2009.

The Mint began producing presidential one-dollar coins in 2007, honoring George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the first four presidents. The words “In God We Trust” were placed along the edge of the coins, as instructed by Congress, Hernandez said.

“It wasn’t the Mint’s decision to move the motto (to the edge); it was according to law,” he said.

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The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether a common lethal injection method is unconstitutional. The case, which has prompted a temporary halt in executions, comes at a crucial time for capital punishment nationwide.
The dispute from Kentucky tests standards for when a method of execution is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Although the basic constitutionality of capital punishment is not at issue, the case has galvanized larger questions about the death penalty.

Executions in 2007 dropped to a 13-year low of 42, largely because states began putting executions on hold soon after the justices announced they would hear the Kentucky case. Thirty-five of the 36 states that permit capital punishment carry out executions with a lethal drug combination.

In 2007, 110 defendants were sentenced to die, the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. At the end of 2007, New Jersey became the first state to pass a law abolishing the death penalty in more than 40 years

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Though it was founded a mere 12 months ago, the traditions and beliefs of Trinity Anglican Church of Port Charlotte are steeped in religious history.

Margo Lang, whose late husband served as rector at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, joined forces with Ed and Joy Robedee to found the new church on Jan. 14, 2007, after the membership of St. Paul’s had dwindled, and the church disbanded.

The retired Rt. Rev. Stanley Lazarczyk, bishop ordinary, agreed to lead the fledgling church, which meets at the Cultural Center of Charlotte County on Sundays and holy days.

Lazarczyk made it clear that Anglican Catholic Church is not to be confused with the Episcopal Church

“There’s a number of reasons,” he said. “Number one is the ordination of women. We believe it is against Holy Scripture. The Bible to us is the most important book. Everything that is contained in it is necessary for salvation and we don’t deviate from it. The second reason is the change of the 1928 prayer and the 1940 hymnal.”

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I’ve been through election nights that brought a political earthquake to the country. I’ve never been through an election night that brought two.

Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this. An African-American man wins a closely fought campaign in a pivotal state. He beats two strong opponents, including the mighty Clinton machine. He does it in a system that favors rural voters. He does it by getting young voters to come out to the caucuses.

This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance….
….[Mike Huckabee has appeal because he] understands much better than Mitt Romney that we have a crisis of authority in this country. People have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to respond to problems. While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

…Huckabee [also] understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

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I was left wondering how this guide could have dismissed such an amazing work of art so swiftly. But worse than this – though she’d summarised the church’s traditional teaching about the epiphany gifts accurately enough – she’d completely missed his painting’s central moment of epiphany. This is revealed in the relationship between kneeling magi and newly born baby. Since as arms strain to meet, and eyes and hearts connect, what is uncovered is the truth that tired humanity can rediscover its truest identity through relationships. In short, people matter more than presents.
But the chapel guide wasn’t alone in missing the obvious. Since in contemporary culture it’s the seasonal gifts that take centre-stage rather than the relationships they’re meant to celebrate. It’s not just the money we lavish on “bath salts and inexpensive scent … the hideous tie, so kindly meant”, as John Betjeman’s famous caricature puts it. Or the sinister commercialism behind this. It’s the debilitating culture of debt to which so many haplessly surrender themselves

But if this smacks of a rant against the capitalism and secularism at the heart of Christmas, let’s be clear: it was the church who set us on a path that sees the gifts so often extolled at the expense of the relationships to which they point.

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His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has followed with deep sorrow and concern the violence which has broken out in your country, and he has asked me to address this letter to you, in your capacity as the President of the Kenya Episcopal Conference, in order to express his unity and solidarity with your Brother Bishops and all your countrymen, and to assure you of his prayers that this great tragedy will soon come to an end.

The Pope is close in spirit to all the victims of this violence: the many persons who have lost their lives, often atrociously, the grieving members of their families, the wounded, those who are dispossessed or had to abandon their homes, and all those who are threatened and living in fear. Entrusting those who have died to the Lord’s mercy, he invites you to reach out generously to all those in distress and need.

It is His Holiness’s heartfelt hope that this beloved Nation, whose experience of social tranquility and development represents an element of stability in the entire troubled region, will banish as quickly as possible the threat of ethnic conflict which continues to result in so many crimes in certain parts of Africa.

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“If there were ever a shot across the bow to this administration to get off its laissez-faire boat and start helping the economy, this is it,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The health of the nation’s job market is critical in determining whether the economy will survive the stresses from housing and harder-to-get credit. The positive forces of job and wage growth have helped to cushion individuals from all the negative forces in the economy. The big worry is that people will clamp down on their spending and businesses will put a lid on investment and hiring, throwing the economy into a tailspin.

For all of 2007, wages increased 3.7 percent, down from a 4.3 percent gain in 2006. High energy prices, though, probably made some workers feel like their paychecks aren’t stretching as far as they would like.

To fend off the possibility of a recession, the Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate three times last year. Policymakers are expected to lower rates again when they meet at the end of the month. Some analysts are predicting a bold half-point reduction in light of the weak employment report.

The big question, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital: “Has the economy hit a big pothole or careened into the ditch?”

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Jesus is perhaps contemplating. Or he is posing, in a stilted way, for a portrait, maybe this one. Or he is daydreaming. But one thing the portrait could never make you believe is that Jesus is weeping, or even capable of such a thing.

But Jesus wept. Maybe that frightens us, or threatens us, or embarrasses us. Before I preach, I try to work through my deeper emotions in solitude, in my study. If there is weeping to do, I do it there. That way, I reason, my preaching can be masterful, controlled, persuasive but not manipulative, and not ambushed or sabotaged by stray or unruly emotions. I am critical of the bad art and bad theology in that portrait of Jesus, but I carry it anyhow, a version of it, like an icon inside me: the serene and savvy man, facing danger, crisis, loss without even flinching. If my emotional range and display is an indication of the Jesus I follow, Jesus doesn’t weep. He’s too cool and too tough for that.

But Jesus wept. That one line, John 11:35, is the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus weeps at the tomb of Lazarus, his friend, the one he loves. And, in truth, never has so much theology been so cleanly distilled as here. Never have such riches been rendered with such economy. The fullness of the Incarnation, Christ’s coming among us””to be with us, to be one with us””is gathered up and pressed into a single subject and verb.

—Mark Buchanan

AAC: Why do you think there is disillusionment with Canterbury and the Anglican System?

++Venables: It’s not personalised but it is definitely to do with the Anglican system and the whole procedural set up. So much has been done such as Lambeth 1:10, several very clear communiques, the Windsor report and even some crucial and concrete decisions taken, yet nothing seems to have really changed and it’s hard not to read this negatively. It’s as if every time you have to start from scratch and people have just got tired. The latest disillusionment is that there won’t be another primates’ meeting, which is a tragedy because it was there that everything was developed. In the real world you don’t dismiss the medical team before the operation is completed.

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The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald famously lamented that “there are no second acts in American lives,” having persuaded himself that any failure along the way consigns us to be losers for life.

Despite his early success and lifelong genius, Fitzgerald managed to fulfill his own prophesy. As his beautiful wife descended into madness, he became a bitter and violent alcoholic, dying prematurely of a heart attack at the age of 44.

The novelist’s failure might be dismissed as the product of a morbid artistic temperament. But at this moment many professional economists echo his pessimism, teaching that humankind is condemned to inhabit a “zero sum” universe, in which life’s winners succeed only at the expense of the losers.

Don’t believe it. The weight of evidence from the beginning of recorded history demonstrates that the novelist and his disciples of gloom are dead wrong. Failure is not permanent, but predictable and passing.

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The head of the Anglican Church in the Middle East, Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt, has also urged caution about the date and venue of the Jerusalem meeting. In correspondence with the meeting’s chief organizer, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Anis cited internal Anglican political considerations in opposing a June gathering.

He also questioned meeting in Jerusalem, saying it was unlikely Palestinian Anglicans would support the meeting “for various reasons.”

Arab Anglican leaders are concerned the conference, known as GAFCON, could wreck the Anglican Church’s carefully balanced position within Palestinian society and the Anglican Communion.

The Palestinian church is strongly opposed to gay or female clergy and follows the conservative tradition within Anglicanism. However, it receives financial support from American dioceses that are at the forefront of the gay rights movement. Highlighting the diocese’s conservative position in the midst of the Anglican Communion’s civil war over homosexuality could have immediate financial consequences, church leaders note.

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major campaign to strictly limit abortion – if not effectively prohibit the procedure – could polarize Missouri’s electorate this year in this historically critical battleground state.

At issue is a measure that anti-abortion groups want to put on the November ballot.

If passed, it would stand as possibly the most restrictive abortion law in the country, requiring abortion providers to investigate each patient’s background and lifestyle in order to certify that the woman was not coerced into the procedure.

Under the initiative, doctors would not be allowed to perform a nonemergency abortion unless they believed “the imminent death or serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman” would occur.

Critics say the proposal would expose doctors to lawsuits from women who later regretted their decisions to terminate pregnancies.

To put the measure on the November ballot, the group will need the signatures of about 90,000 Missouri residents – which even critics say is attainable.

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One of those church leaders is the Rev. David Lui, pastor of the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Lui serves a congregation in transition. Located on a quiet section of 29th Avenue, Sunday worship services typically have plenty of empty pews, as many of its aging parishioners slowly fade from the scene.

Lui, who leads a small and welcoming congregation, knows that his church must reinvent itself to serve the changing population of his parish. A native of Hong Kong, Lui can preach the Gospel easily in Cantonese or English. In addition to bilingual worship services, Incarnation church operates a variety of neighborhood programs that include ESL classes, church day care services and collecting socks for the homeless.

The serene and sedate services at Incarnation church contrast sharply with the crowds of faithful served by other places of worship that often offer simultaneous religious rites administered on multiple floors in multiple languages. In an age and in a city where organized religion lacks its former prominence, and folk-rock music supplements contemporary liturgy at the evangelical churches of other denominations, Lui and other Asian Episcopal pastors must search for new ways to grow their flocks.

“I do not think [the San Joaquin split] will have a negative impact on the commitment of Asian American Episcopalians to the Episcopal Church,” Vergara said. “Many educated Episcopalians, especially the young people, are able to integrate their understanding of Scripture with the changing culture. In the American contemporary context, our knowledge of human beings continues.

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When Reverend Anandsekar Manuel, the pastor of the historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Woodside, walked inside his church hours after a fire gutted the interior of the building, he described his reaction as devastated and shattered.

An overnight fire ripped through the church located at 61st Street and 39th Avenue on Wednesday, December 26, and dozens of firefighters worked for nearly two hours to get the fire under control as horrified neighbors looked on.

“This precious church building, which withstood all these years, watching it go up in flames was the most horrible, painful thing,” said Manuel, who has lived across the street from the church and has been its pastor since 1994.

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After the fourth death in a week, Keith Troy decided enough was enough.

Midway through Sunday services on Nov. 25, he looked out at his congregation and made an announcement.

Would all the men please rise.

Would the deacons and associate ministers please assemble in the aisles with paper and pencil.

Would every man write down his name and a phone number where he could be reached.

Too many church men were dying of preventable illnesses related to poor health, Troy told the stunned congregation at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, a predominantly black church of about 4,500 members, including about 900 men.

So their pastor of 24 years issued a simple order: every man in the congregation will see a doctor in the next three months. If they can’t afford it, the church will help pay. If transportation is a problem, someone from the church will drive them.

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Dear Graham, JPM and Malcom+
Regarding your comments above, Archbishop Peter Akinola will like you and others so inclined to know that he has not been in conversation written or otherwise with Dr Poon concerning GAFCON.
I however believe Dr. Poon knows how to reach the Archbishop if he wants to.

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As Iowa Republicans prepared to caucus yesterday, polls showed Mike Huckabee, the Southern Baptist minister-turned-politician, leading in some polls and placing a close second to Mitt Romney in others. The core of Mr. Huckabee’s support, of course, comes from evangelical voters. Couching his policy positions in the language of faith and morality, Mr. Huckabee portrays himself as the dream candidate of the religious right. In October, he boasted to a gathering of conservative Christian activists: “I don’t come to you, I come from you.” The “language of Zion,” he said, was “his mother tongue and not a recently acquired second language.” Echoing the Gospels, he told the Des Moines Register editorial board that the essence of what made him tick was: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” He admitted that his faith shapes his policy, but “if [voters] understand in what way, I think that they will say ‘good, that’s the kind of policy we would like.’ ”

But one wonders whether his newfound supporters would really say that if they took a close look at his policies. With increasing frequency, Mr. Huckabee invokes his faith when advocating greater government involvement in just about every aspect of American life. In doing so, Mr. Huckabee has actually answered the prayers of the religious left.

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The international community flunked its first genocide prevention test in Rwanda. It failed again in Darfur. Now comes another chance at redemption — in Kenya, where, mercifully, there is still time and opportunity to keep one of the few peaceful, stable and prospering countries in Africa from jumpingover the precipice of ethnic warfare. It will require a swift and concerted effort to help the Kenyan people and institutions eager to save their own nation. It can still be done, but only if we learn the lessons of ethnic cleansings past: The longer the killing goes on, the harder it will be to stop the cycle of atrocities and revenge.

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Job growth shrank significantly in December, the government reported on Friday, setting off renewed fears of a recession and all but assuring that interest rates will be lowered this month. The news sent stocks down sharply in morning trading.

The economy added 18,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls, the Labor Department said, the smallest monthly gain in more than four years. The unemployment rate rose to 5 percent after hovering near 4.7 percent since the summer.

“This is a far weaker report than we expected,” Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economics Policy Institute, wrote in an e-mail message. “The uptick in the unemployment rate alone, which won’t be revised away, is flashing recession.”

Investors appeared to concur. By 11:15 a.m., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 194.28 points, or 1.5 percent, at 12,862.44. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost more than 1.8 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite was off by 2.9 percent.

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The history of the Episcopal Church in the American West is tied intimately to the history of Asian Americans, particularly Chinese Americans. In the late 19th century, a Chinese Christian named Ah Foo began to preach the Gospel to railroad workers in the Diocese of Nevada. According to the Sheng Kung Post (the newsletter of the Episcopal Chinese Convocation), Ah Foo built a small chapel for 80 congregants in 1874 in Carson City.

In 1905, the first evangelical foundation for the Chinese in San Francisco was established. The True Sunshine Mission, which celebrated its centennial in Chinatown last year, ordained Father Daniel Wu, the first Chinese priest of the Episcopal Diocese of California.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake forced Wu and the church to move to Oakland. After San Francisco’s reconstruction, half of True Sunshine’s congregation remained in Oakland to form the Church of Our Savior. The congregants who returned to San Francisco established the church under the official name of True Sunshine Church. Wu continued as the vicar of both churches.

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It helps if you are specific about what you think and what the coverage is like where you live.

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