As one whose responsibility it is to guard the faith, unity and discipline of the church, let me be clear. The diocesan policy I uphold is not one of my own invention or devising. Rather, it is the teaching of the Church for 2,000 years as derived from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is based on the order of creation as recorded in Genesis and reasserted in the Gospels when Jesus says: “From the beginning of creation ”˜God made them male and female.’ ”˜For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” (Mark 10:6-8).

Obviously, there have always been people who for one reason or another are unable or unwilling to live by this standard. These “exceptions to the rule” are matters of personal conscience between the individual and God. They do not, however, supplant or replace the traditional teaching of the Church, which until recent times was unquestioned as the behavior expected of all Christians.

The Episcopal Church and the other churches of the Anglican Communion have traditionally held together the Liberal, Catholic and Evangelical wings of the church by common worship and a common relationship with a bishop in the historic succession. This theoretically provides us with balance, correction and comprehension for the sake of truth.

What we are seeing in our national church and in other parts of the Anglican world is Liberals moving out on their own without benefit of the moderating and balancing effects of Catholic and Evangelical perspectives.

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[In the 19th century] Britain was the workshop of the world, dominating science, manufacturing and trade.

To many Victorians, unquestioning of the ideology that underpinned much imperialism, British supremacy was a simple matter of racial supremacy – Europeans, and the English in particular, were fated to be the masters.

The truth is that we are masters of the world no more.

The global power shift from the West to the East is no longer just a matter of debate confined to learned journals and newspaper columns – it is a reality that is beginning to have a huge impact on our daily lives.

What would those Victorian masters of old have made of the fact that Chinese security men were on the streets of London this week, ordering our own police about and fighting running battles with British protesters while bewildered athletes carried the Olympic torch on its relay through the capital?

It was a brazen display of how confident China has become of its new place in the world, just as the British Government’s failure to take a firm stand on Chinese abuses of human rights shows how craven we have become.

The dire warnings from the International Monetary Fund this week that the West now faces the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, while the Asian economies are still powering ahead, simply underlines our vulnerability in this new world order.

The desperately weakened American dollar appears to be on the verge of losing its global dominance, in the same way as sterling lost it a lifetime ago.

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I really love stories like this where people slog it out in the trenches in their local community and seek to make a difference–watch it all.

Six Maasai warriors have left their village in Tanzania for the first time in their lives. On Sunday, they will be among 30,000 people running the London Marathon. The Maasai aren’t running for glory, but to raise money to build a drinking water well for their village.

In anticipation of their trip, the conservation charity Greenforce prepared a pamphlet to help the Maasai meet the strange residents of London. Below are two selections typical of the cultural translation:

Even though some may look like they have a frown on their face, they are very friendly people ”” many of them just work in offices in jobs they don’t enjoy and so they do not smile as much as they should do!!

Although English people share a lot, they do not do so to the same extent that the Maasai do. If you see something that someone else has (like a bracelet) and you like it, then the person will find it very unusual if you were to take it and wear it!

A very good story on cultural differences and culture shock–read or listen to it all.

This is a helpful compendium.

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Watch it all (hat tip: PM)

Check out all the pictures if you care to; my favorite is here.

Listen to it all, it includes an interview with the evangelist himself.

There is more here, including this:

Northern Ireland has always had a soft spot for evangelists, and it was no surprise that Franklin Graham, a son of the famous Billy, should have drawn more than 30,000 people to the Odyssey last weekend. He will be able to tell his father how the tumultuous scenes at his Windsor Park mission in 1961 were rekindled in post-Troubles Belfast.

A lot has happened here since Billy Graham thrilled huge audiences with his inspiring Christian message, changing many lives for good.

Yet despite, or because of, 35 years of civil conflict – turning neighbours against each other – there is still an appetite for a message that was born 2,000 years ago.

I really like the chosen title of a Festival of Hope–KSH.

Further research is needed into a US treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that appears to produce marked improvements in some patients, experts say.

California researchers believe they have found a way of improving brain cell communication by injecting a drug called etanercept into the neck.

The Institute for Neurological Research team has described changes taking place in Alzheimer’s patients within minutes.

British experts have expressed caution, but say further research is merited.

More than 400,000 people in the UK have Alzheimer’s disease.

Current medication can slow the disease, but charities say there is a desperate need for research to develop more effective treatments.

Read it all.

Update: There is a lot more in the Belfast Telegraph here.

The race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to be the Democrat nominee for the US presidential election seems to have gone negative, with each team attempting to exploit the opposing candidate’s alleged flaws and weaknesses. The furore over Senator Clinton’s “exaggeration” of her war experiences in Bosnia has rivalled fierce criticism of Senator Obama, for failing to leave his Chicago church over the pastor, Jeremiah Wright’s, controversial sermons.

African-American churchgoers have largely rallied to defend Obama’s handling of the affair, but as Matthew Wells reports from New York, many black leaders remain firmly inside the Clinton camp.

Listen to it all.

General Electric underlined the depth of the global financial crisis on Friday, announcing its worst quarter in five years and slashing full-year forecasts.

The news, described as “shocking” by a senior GE executive, combined with data showing that US consumer confidence was at a 26-year low to send shares lower. The S&P 500 fell 2 per cent in New York to 1,332.83.

Shares in GE, which derives more than half its revenues overseas and is seen as a bellwether of the global economy, led the way, falling 12.8 per cent ”“ its biggest loss since the 1987 stock market crash.

The results are a blow to Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and chief executive, and could increase pressure for action at the group’s underperforming financial and healthcare divisions.

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Video of the fundraiser, which was closed to the press, surfaced as Obama was campaigning in Indiana, trying to highlight issues of concern to working-class voters, such as job losses and rising mortgage foreclosures.

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Obama, an Illinois senator, said.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he said.

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Home foreclosures in the Charleston area rose dramatically during the first three months of this year, mirroring national trends and reinforcing worries about the shaky U.S. economy.

Lenders filed foreclosure proceedings on 874 residential properties in the tri-county area in the first quarter, according to statistics compiled by The Post and Courier.

While comparable data from a year ago is unavailable for Dorchester County, the number of foreclosures in Charleston and Berkeley counties jumped to 638 this year from 425 in the same period last year, a 50.1 percent increase.

Dorchester County, which reports the number of properties set for county auctions, rather than foreclosure filings, saw a 53.8 percent increase from the same period last year.

Read it all from this morning’s front page.

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

–Psalm 30:11, 12 (KJV)

AAC: Was any progress toward reconciliation made at this House of Bishops’ meeting?

+Lawrence: We spent a day and a half on what was called a reconciliation retreat. What makes it difficult to answer that question is that, based at our table discussion, the table I was at, I thought we began to talk about the difficulties that are connected with that whole area of reconciliation. So in that sense, on a table level, I would say, yes, we made some progress. But once we got to the legislative portion of the meeting”¦reconciliation is always costly and the question is, who it’s going to cost and who wants to sacrifice in order to reconcile. Once we got to the legislative portion of the meeting and the deposition for Bishop Schofield and Bishop Cox, I wouldn’t describe the mood of the house as conciliatory to those who, for issues of faith, don’t feel like they can conform to order of the church.

What we have in The Episcopal Church (TEC) today is that many people feel like the faith of the church has been compromised or violated and in order to deal with what they feel is a profound compromise or denial of the faith of the church historically and biblically, they feel like they have to do things contrary to the order of the church. At that point, many in the House of Bishops and in various other formats of the church desire to impose the order of the church upon them. That is, if Bishop Schofield believes the faith of the church has been denied, he has to go beyond the order of the church as in the canons and constitution of TEC, and those who are in the forefront who are quite comfortable with the new faith of the church, so to speak, feel like they have to impose the order upon him or upon Bishop Cox.

The difficulty we have, then, is the very way we went about imposing the order of the church. That is, after the House of Bishops’ meeting, after the voting on the canonical depositions of Bishop Cox and Bishop Schofield, it seemed to be revealed that those depositions were done in a way that was contrary to the order of the church…

AAC: What is your next step?

+Lawrence: I know that Bishop Howe has recently called for a re-examination of this. The Standing committee and Bishop of South Carolina, myself, have issued a letter of protest that the canons were not followed. I don’t know where we will end up with all of that.

Read it carefully and read it all, noting that there is more to come later.

Wonderful stuff, moved me to tears when I listen to it this morning, better if you listen but if you can’t read it all.

Colleges concerned about the addictive potential of gambling face an uphill battle against its glamorized image. Think ESPN’s all-out coverage of poker tournaments or the parade of movies: Now it’s “21,” about six students beating the house in Vegas; 10 years ago, the popular film “Rounders” featured Matt Damon as a law student and high-stakes poker player.

Whether it’s in dorm rooms or at a “casino night” fundraiser, gambling pervades college campuses. And more schools are starting to take notice of the problems it can spawn.

In Missouri, for example, a coalition of 12 schools is working hard to reach out to students about gambling. They’re starting to address betting through orientations and health surveys. They’re training financial-aid officers to ask about gambling debts if a student requests an emergency loan. And earlier this month, they promoted an educational website (Keeping the Score) with giveaways during National Problem Gambling Awareness Week.

Silence is still too often the response to the surge of gambling on campus, prevention advocates say, but they see hopeful signs of change in nascent efforts like these around the country.

Read it all.

[Bishop Tom] Wright has deep family roots in the Durham area, which from the 14th to the mid-19th century was ruled by the prince-bishops; in medieval times they had the right to mint their own coins and raise armies. Today’s incumbent may not have wanted to fight this last battle, but there are plenty for which he is ready. One, in particular, will have evangelicals itching to draw swords. “The massive denial of reality by the cheap and cheerful universalism of western liberalism has a lot to answer for,” he thunders in his new book. “The nihilism to which secularism has given birth leaves many with no reason for living.” The bishop would like to see nothing less than an end to the Enlightenment split between religion and politics.

“There is a Christian view of politics,” he says after lunch at a fish restaurant by the coast, “and whether or not the government knows it, it has a God-given duty to bring wise order and to facilitate human flourishing.” The Church does not just have a right to comment on whether ministers are failing in their divine task, he argues. “To try to shut us up, to say, ‘You keep off the patch'” is “totalitarian”. So, no apologies for his Easter Sunday sermon on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, in which he criticised the government for “pushing through, hard and fast, legislation that comes from a militantly atheist and secularist lobby” whose aims are a “1984-style world” where “we create our own utopia by our own efforts, particularly our science and technology”.

“Using what is in effect live human tissue for experimental purposes is not a frontier we think people ought to cross,” he says, “and we’re going to go on saying that. The more of these moral frontiers a government crosses, the more it owes to citizens to make a space for conscience, not just in voting but in how scientists and doctors carry this work out. To think that the Church should not be involved in politics is to say: ‘Here are some areas of crucial concern for human flourishing, but the Church is not allowed to address these matters of public debate.’ I think that’s ridiculous.”

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The verses [of the hymn ‘Jerusalem’], which were written by William Blake more than two centuries ago, cannot be sung by choirs or congregations at Southwark Cathedral because the words do not praise God and are too nationalistic, according to senior clergy.

Last week the Dean of Southwark, the Very Rev Colin Slee, advised guests at a private memorial service that the hymn would not be sung because it was “not in the glory of God”.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Southwark disclosed that the Dean had not allowed the verses to be sung during services for some time.

“The Dean, on common with all other cathedral deans, has the authority to decide what material is used in liturgy in the cathedral,” he said.

Read it all and there is more food for thought on this here.

Listen to it all from one of my favorite voices on the English religious scene.

This meant a lot to me as exercise is a serious part of the diet program I have been on since August 2006.

Watch it all.