It looks like Europe’s most proudly secular country is about to become less secular.

The French Republic, belligerently secular since the Revolution, and whose separation of church and state is encoded in a 1905 law, may start according a special role to the Catholic Church; that at least is one interpretation of comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy that a new, “positive secularity” should recognise the central place of religion in the country. “It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion” he said – “[it would be] a failing against culture and against thought”.

His remarks came on Friday as he welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to France, who is visiting to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the supposed appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Lourdes. Opposition figures united in condemnation of the President – to such an extent that on Sunday the Pope had to reassure nervous anti-clericalists that the Church does not seek to usurp the state.

France and Britain could hardly be more different….

Read it all.

Two leading Anglo-Catholic bishops presented differing visions for regaining Anglican unity at “The Hope and Future of Orthodoxy in the Anglican Communion: A Festival of Faith Conference,” held Sept. 13 at St. Luke’s Church, Bladensburg, Md.

The Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, Archbishop of the West Indies, and the Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman, Bishop of Quincy, were the featured speakers at St. Luke’s, an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Diocese of Washington.

The bishops agreed that Anglican unity remains torn, just as the primates said it would be, by the consecration of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire””and by the deeper theological divisions evident in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

Archbishop Gomez stressed the importance of a Communion-wide covenant being drafted by an international panel that he leads. “There is nothing on the horizon that offers reasonable hope of holding the Communion together, other than the covenant,” he said.

Read it all.

The Presiding Bishop’s memo (see below) is a fascinating read. I do not wish to engage the issue of whether Bishop Duncan should or should not be deposed. I am concerned that he or any other Bishop facing deposition should be treated fairly.

The difficulty facing the PB and HoB is clearly, and I think fairly, presented by our Presiding Bishop. “Canon IV.9(2) states that the vote to consent must, first, take place at a ‘regular or special meeting of the House’ and, second, be ‘by a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote.’

Problem: these days it is difficult to get “a majority of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote” to attend an interim meeting of the HoB. And even if that goal were achieved, then a motion to depose would require an almost unanimous vote by the Bishops present.

Pierce’s translation: taking the two requirements together (vote at an actual meeting and a super majority is required), it is difficult to depose a Bishop for abandonment.

Pierce’s observation: I think that was the intention. Note the additional requirements for deposing a priest or a deacon (see Canon IV.10)

What do to do? The PB speaks:

“In these circumstances, I concur with my Chancellor and the Parliamentarian that any ambiguity in the canon should be resolved in favor of making this important provision work effectively and that the discipline of the Church should not be stymied because a majority or nearly a majority of voting bishops are no longer in active episcopal positions in the Church and their attendance at meetings is hampered by age, health, economics, or interest in other legitimate pursuits.”

In secular law any ambiguity is resolved in favor of the defendant or the accused. The general principle is that it is better that 10 guilty persons go free than one innocent person be punished. Here, however, exactly the reverse is being argued. In order for “this important provision [to] work effectively and that the discipline of the Church should not be stymied,” the three in authority have decided to reduce the majority required to the absolute bare minimum, ie a majority of Bishops present and voting. In other words, the bar has been set high, discipline may be stymied, therefore lower the bar.

The PB then states: “I concur with this advice, and that will be the ruling of the Chair. Any member of the House may appeal the ruling of the Chair, which may be overruled by a two-thirds vote pursuant to House Rule XV, p.192.”

If there be any integrity remaining in our House of Bishops, the ruling of the Chair will indeed be successfully appealed.

–The Rev. Nathaniel W. Pierce is an Episcopal pirest and blog reader who lives in Trappe, Maryland

The mood was somber in the packed auditorium at Lehman Brothers international headquarters at Canary Wharf. “It’s over,” said Christian Meissner, the co-head of Lehman’s European and Middle Eastern operations, as he explained that bankruptcy administrators were in charge of the 158-year-old investment bank after desperate talks to work out a deal in New York failed over the weekend.

It certainly is over for Lehman’s 25,000 employees, who have lost a large portion of their fortunes as the firm’s stock has fallen and who are now frantically searching for work.

But for the rest of the financial world, the dire consequences of Lehman’s failure are just beginning. World markets fell, and the dollar wavered as investors everywhere sold assets across the board and sought refuge in the safest securities they could find, government bonds. A guessing game has begun about what the effects of Lehman’s historic default will be.

In particular, fear spread Monday on trading desks that one of the large hedge funds with ties to Lehman Brothers might be caught in the position of having assets at the firm that they would not be able to access – thus increasing fears of a run for the doors by panicky clients.

Read it all. The NBC Evening News last night had its first four stories on the financial crisis–that doesn’t happen very often.

In this high season for political books, two evangelical publishers are leading the race to capitalize on fascination with Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Tyndale House Publishers of Carol Stream, Ill., has begun distributing a paperback edition of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Alaska Political Establishment Upside Down, by Alaska freelance writer Kaylene Johnson. Best known as publishers of the bestselling Left Behind series, Tyndale is printing a whopping 250,000 copies of the book, which first came out in April from Epicenter Press.

Next month, Zondervan of Grand Rapids, Mich., will release Joe Hilley’s Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader. According to a statement from Zondervan, the author makes a case for Palin’s leadership by touting her “maverick integrity, electrifying communication style, career agility, and perpetual education.”

Read the whole article.

When you elected us as Trustees of your parish, you entrusted us with certain legal and fiduciary responsibilities to support the ministry of the parish and to manage and maintain parish assets so that those ministries could continue and flourish. We believe we have a legal, moral and spiritual duty to act in the best interest of our congregations ”“ the people who elected us to serve them.

The diocese claims that our responsibility as Trustees is to act in the best interest of the Diocese and or the Anglican Church of Canada. Legal threats have been made against us, as Trustees, if we fail to comply with edicts from the diocese. Clearly there are legal and financial implications if we act or if we do not act. After consultation with legal counsel, we have taken steps as a group, on behalf of all four congregations, to ask the courts in BC to clarify who are the valid Trustees of our four parish corporations and what our duties as Trustees are at this time.

We have decided to act together as a group to maintain our unity since the primary issues in dispute ”“ particularly with respect to the trusts surrounding the church properties and assets of the parishes, as well as the duties of the Trustees ”“ are the same for us all.
We are saddened that we are forced to defend ourselves against the diocese’s hostile actions, but the alternative is to voluntarily vacate the churches and hand over the buildings and assets of the parishes to the diocese. We feel this would be an abandonment of the legal and fiduciary responsibilities you entrusted to us as elected Trustees. However, we will certainly comply with any final determination of the court ordering us to hand over our buildings. While we know that the Church is the people not the buildings, we are concerned that the ministry of our parishes will suffer should we be forced to find alternate accommodation for Sunday worship and ongoing ministry.

Read it all and there is more in the Anglican Journal here.

Dr Sentamu commented:

“This is a step in the right direction on a path that will hopefully lead to a full restoration of justice, democracy and a final end to the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe.

There will be understandable caution amongst the international community who will be concerned that any aid that follows today’s announcement will find its way to the poor of Zimbabwe and not to those who have abused power over the past three decades.

Read it all.

Last week, just as everyone was settling in to weigh the delightful prospect of a new administration and a new Congress — reformers all, to hear them tell it — a cold-water dash of realism smacked us in the face.

This one was administered by the killjoys at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), who announced that the next president, whoever he is, will probably inherit a budget that is at least $500 billion out of balance — a record sum that will limit his ability to do any of the wonderful things being promised daily in the upbeat rhetoric of the campaign.

Barack Obama and John McCain scarcely blinked at the news; I didn’t really expect them to do anything more. The last thing candidates want to admit is that, if they win, they will be unable to deliver the goodies they have promised the voters.

Both of them are telling their audiences that they will outdo the Bush administration in every respect. They will not only bring fundamental change to Washington but deliver the big goals everyone craves — peace and enhanced national respect abroad, energy independence, more jobs, affordable health care, a cleaner environment, improved schools and, of course, lower taxes.

You will not hear them admit that, before they do any of those things, they will have to pay a gigantic annual interest bill on the rapidly expanding national debt — or else our foreign creditors will stop lending us the money to pay our bills.

No one is going to be elected on the promise that he will satisfy the bankers in Shanghai and the money managers in Moscow.

But that is the reality. Our country has so thoroughly abandoned any pretense of fiscal prudence, accumulating public and private debt at a breakneck pace, that no president can avoid asking: How do I keep our creditors at bay?

Read it all.

Immediately after finishing off the game of his life, Carlos Zambrano got down on one knee and thrust his arms toward the sky.

The emotional right-hander threw the Cubs’ first no-hitter in 36 years Sunday night, a 5-0 win over Houston at Miller Park in which he returned from an 11-day layoff in his own inimitable style.

“I guess I’m back,” Zambrano said with a wide smile.

Big Z is back, all right, and better than ever.

Read it all.

In the pursuit of happily-ever-after, the odds seem to be stacked against us.

Men and women reap huge benefits when they stick around with a good partner — staying happier and healthier, living longer and passing along more genes. But the sticking-around part is a challenge. We don’t get long-term relationship payoffs right away. And until then — between the once-upon-a-time and the happily-ever-after — plenty of temptations can beckon.

Not that it’s wrong to shop around before settling down. But there always will be enticing alternative mates — whether heart-grabbing or merely eye-catching. So researchers wonder: With so many attractive alternatives, how do humans manage to maintain relationships at all?

The brain appears to have some tricks up its neural sleeve. A new line of research is exploring how automatic psychological mechanisms kick into action when the eye starts to wander, helping resist temptation and strengthening the relationship — even without us being aware of it.

Read it all.

Shares on Wall Street today plunged in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ collapse into bankruptcy and fears over the future of AIG, the US insurance giant secures a $20 billion funding bailout.

The Dow Jones industrial average slumped more than 4.42 per cent, losing 504 points to fall to 10,917 – its worst one-day percentage loss since July 2002. Analysts had expected the Dow Jones to lose 400 points on opening.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was down 58.74 points, or 4.69 per cent, to finish unofficially at 1,192.96 – its worst one-day percentage performance since September 2001. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 81.36 points, or 3.60 per cent, to close unofficially at 2,179.91.

Read it all.

Likewise, in the particularly contentious ranks of theologically minded Catholics, or perhaps in the polemic-weary ranks of mainline Protestantism, there are those who have surrendered the label of orthodoxy to conservatives, either because they no longer have the energy to protest or because they have concluded that the whole idea of orthodoxy ”” correct doctrine or right belief ”” is too encrusted with questionable notions to be worth defending.

But the existence of such minorities hardly justifies the automatic assignment of patriotism or orthodoxy to whoever is first and loudest in claiming it.

Instead of simply describing Joe Churchman as an orthodox believer, journalism would do well to follow its established forms and describe Joe Churchman as a man who calls himself an orthodox believer.

When it comes to nomenclature, writing about religion is of course a minefield. Terms like “conservative” and “liberal,” “traditionalist” and “progressive” are almost unavoidable shorthand, though they suffer from their origins in political categories and almost inevitably oversimplify and dichotomize religious realities that are multifaceted.

Read it all.

This morning we inaugurated a system that allows individuals to text message a central number – during the service – with a question relating to the sermon. Our communications team then culls the questions and passes along to the preacher the “best” question(s) allowing them (if all goes well) to answer before the service ends.

Read it all and follow the link to the power point of the sermon.

Over a salad lunch on an outdoor patio, Assistant Bishop David Bena is so positive and chipper it’s hard to connect him with the words of a letter to the editor on the table.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Bena says cheerfully. “I’ve never been called a guerrilla warrior.”

This is life on the front lines of an emotional rift cleaving the Anglican Communion, the 77-million-member Christian federation that encompasses the U.S. Episcopal Church.

Five years ago, Bena was serving as assistant bishop in Albany when Episcopalians took what he considered a misguided step: electing the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Bena was one of three people to stand up and protest at the consecration ceremony where Robinson, who has received death threats, wore a bulletproof vest.

Read it all.

If Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett had waited a few years to perform their chart-topping hit so that they could first read Kathleen Norris’ new book Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, they might have described more insightfully the “half-past twelve” tedium they were escaping for a “five-o’clock somewhere” drink. And country music aficionados like me might have understood better why we seek diversions from the daily tasks that seem so mind-numbingly routine.

Ever since Norris first encountered the word acedia in early monastic writings twenty years ago, she has been mulling it over, wiping the dust off this forgotten concept. In the book that grew out of that preoccupation, she examines her life””and her marriage in particular””in order to illustrate acedia’s characteristics, dangers, and cures, contemplating the many facets of this vice with the help of monks, psychologists, philosophers, poets, novelists, and pharmacologists. (Huxley, Kierkegaard, Dante, Bunyan, and Andrew Solomon are some who figure prominently among the nonmonastics. Her reflections on the lives of writers who misconstrue what kind of life must accompany creativity may resonate with artists and authors.) The result is a beautifully woven treatment braided together of these various strands, concluding with a chapter of illuminating quotations on her subject, ranging from the ancients to our contemporaries.

The Greek word acedia simply means “a lack of care.” But as Norris excavates the concept we find that it is deeper and richer. She rightly traces the Christian discussion to the 4th-century ascetic Evagrius Ponticus and his list of eight “thoughts” that characterize the human condition. One of the eight””acedia””was the “noonday demon” (Ps. 91:6) that attacked the monk who kept checking the angle of the sun to see if it was time for the afternoon meal as he languished in the tedium of what seemed like a 50-hour day. John Cassian (5th century) carried forward the list of eight to Gregory the Great (6th century), who transposed acedia (along with tristitia) into “sloth” as he reconfigured the list into the “seven deadly sins.”

Read it all.

The Right Rev. Chilton R. Knudsen, the first woman to serve as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, on Saturday handed a shepherd’s staff ”” the symbol of the office ”” over to her successor at the seating and investiture of Bishop Stephen Taylor Lane.

Lane, 58, of Portland was elected bishop in October at the annual diocesan convention in Bangor. Ordained in 1978, he served in upstate New York in a number of congregations and diocesan staff roles. Lane was the canon for deployment and ministry development in the Diocese of Rochester when he was elected.

“The installation of a bishop is one of the most dramatic services in our worship,” he said earlier this month. “Beginning with a pounding on the door of the cathedral to be let in, then Bishop Knudsen and I exchanging the crosier ”” the symbol of our role as chief shepherd ”” and finally I’ll be seated in the cathedra, or bishop’s chair, located in the cathedral.”

Read it all.

She answers the knock at the door, smiles exquisitely, floats through the afternoon light of her Brentwood home with casual grace.

It’s another full day for Hedda Bolgar, who sees patients four days a week, teaches on the fifth day, drives a Prius, is planning a trip to New Zealand, and needs to get through this interview before 5 p.m., when her personal trainer arrives.

She turned 99 last month.

“I was put on this Earth to accomplish certain things,” says Bolgar, a psychologist and psychoanalyst. “I’m so far behind, I can never die.”

She sounds like an interesting lady–read it all.

The pick of Sarah Palin as Republican vice presidential nominee is both a political event and a cultural one. Politically, it energized the Republican convention, solidified the Christian right’s support for John McCain and introduced a forceful new personality into American politics. Culturally, it triggered discussions of issues ranging from special-needs children to mothers’ roles to teen pregnancy.

I want to focus on the cultural rather than the political here, and turn attention to the potential impact of the Palin pick on the internal life of the conservative Christian community that seems to support her so ardently. I write as a moderate evangelical Christian.

It is an uncomfortable fact that many of the theologically conservative Christians who have endorsed Palin’s nomination would not be willing to endorse her or any other woman for service as pastor of their church. Women cannot serve as pastors in groups such as the Churches of Christ, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, most non-denominational Bible churches, and an influential advocacy group called the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).

Read it all.

Andrew J. Bacevich thinks our political system is busted. In “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,” he argues that the country’s founding principle ”” freedom ”” has become confused with appetite, turning America’s traditional quest for liberty into an obsession with consumption, the never-ending search for more. To accommodate this hunger, pandering politicians have created an informal empire of supply, maintaining it through constant brush-fire wars. Yet the foreign-policy apparatus meant to manage that empire has grown hideously bloated and has led the nation into one disaster after another. The latest is Iraq: in Bacevich’s mind, the crystallization of all that’s gone wrong with the American system.

In the dog days of the George W. Bush era, as the fighting drags on in Afghanistan and Iraq and global food, energy and economic crises mount, this argument has huge intuitive appeal, and indeed Bacevich’s book has climbed the best-seller lists. The nation does seem to be in serious trouble. Figuring out how it got that way is important, and a root-and-branch rethink may be necessary to set things right.

That’s just what Bacevich aims to provide. Hailing from what might be called the ultratraditionalist school of American foreign policy, Bacevich, who teaches history and international relations at Boston University, sees himself as a modern Jeremiah, railing at a fat and self-indulgent country that’s lost its way. By his reckoning, things started going sideways at the end of World War II, when the United States first emerged as “the strongest, the richest and . . . the freest nation in all the world.” As American power expanded abroad, liberty grew at home. But the country’s expectations soon exceeded its ability to satisfy them. At that point, Americans faced a choice: “curb their appetites and learn to live within their means, or deploy . . . United States power in hopes of obliging others to accommodate” them. You can guess which one Bacevich thinks Americans went for.

As its citizens were growing soft, the United States government was mutating as well. Responding to the shocks of the Communist revolution in China, the Soviets’ atom bomb and the onset of the Korean War, Washington created a vast new permanent security apparatus, consisting of the Pentagon, the F.B.I., the C.I.A. (along with the smaller intelligence agencies) and the National Security Council. These bodies, and a compliant Congress, enabled a huge expansion in executive power.

Read it all.

For evidence of how intensely the presidential candidates are battling over women, consider their investment in Oprah Winfrey. After the news programs, “Oprah” is the chief recipient of campaign advertisements this year, with Senator John McCain buying more commercial spots on the program in the last month than Senator Barack Obama ”” even though Ms. Winfrey herself is backing Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, is teaming stars from soap operas and “Sex and the City” with congresswomen in contested states. Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, is sending tailored mailings on taxes to women who drive minivans, watch “The Biggest Loser” or “Lost” and know their way to the nearest big-box store.

And both campaigns are trying to highlight the issues they think will draw more support from women, with Mr. Obama emphasizing pay equity and abortion rights and Mr. McCain playing up his “maverick” image and raising questions of respect.

The fierce, and complicated, competition for the female vote has been escalated by Mr. McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. Even before the Palin selection, Mr. Obama was moving to shore up support from women, especially those who had supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Now Obama campaign officials are stepping up their efforts, and both campaigns are recalibrating pitches to women to navigate cultural forces and policy positions that can give them an advantage.

Read the whole article.

Pope Benedict XVI urged more than 150,000 followers at mass Sunday in the French shrine town of Lourdes to hold firm in their faith, telling them “love is stronger than evil.”

The 81-year-old pontiff celebrated an open-air mass to mark the 150th anniversary of what Roman Catholics believe were the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a French peasant girl.

Under clear skies, the pontiff spoke from a white podium set up on a sprawling field near the grotto where the Madonna is said to have appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

The pope urged the faithful to adhere to the teachings of Mary that “tell us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins.”

“The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us,” he said.

Read it all.

The Future of Jesus is not the book I expected it to be. There are only glancing references to the issues of sexuality and sanctity of life that so bitterly divide conscientious people. And Jensen puts aside the ugly doctrinal disputes that, in recent years, have distracted so many in the Anglican Church hierarchy (including him).

It is well known that Jensen’s views on these matters are deeply conservative. But he recognises that labouring them would not advance what he calls his chief aim: “to inspire widespread, adult reading of the New Testament Gospels”. The Gospels attest that the two prime concerns of Jesus of Nazareth were personal faith in God (repentance) and social justice on earth, in that order of importance.

Jensen sticks to these basics and in the process delivers a measured and incisive indictment of neo-liberal Western society.

It soon becomes evident that Jensen is not an anti-intellectual primitive or a rigid biblical literalist. He understands that faith and reason are “indispensible allies”. He appreciates the vital importance of free speech and religious tolerance. He lauds multiculturalism (“the new and different Australia is a wonderful place”). He denounces anti-Semitism (“utterly reprehensible, tragic and unhistorical”). He supports fully the separation of church and state, while recognising the crucial distinction between freedom of religion (a basic right) and freedom from religion (a postmodern idea).

Read it all (hat tip: David Ould).

The number of teenage murders in London will reach a record level this year as police struggle to cope with the surge in youth and gang violence.

The toll reached 26 with the death of Oliver Kingonzila, 19, at the weekend ”“ the same as the total for the whole of 2007, with three months of 2008 remaining.

Scotland Yard said yesterday that youth violence was its “biggest challenge”, while senior detectives privately conceded that further deaths were almost inevitable.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, described the youth murders last year as “completely unacceptable”. But tough enforcement measures, a high detection rate and millions of pounds being spent on antiknife crime initiatives have not stopped the rate of killing rising sharply from 17 in 2006, 16 each in 2005 and 2004, and 15 in 2003.

Read it all.

The United States is mired in a “once-in-a century” financial crisis which is now more than likely to spark a recession, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said Sunday.

The talismanic ex-central banker said that the crisis was the worst he had seen in his career, still had a long way to go and would continue to effect home prices in the United States.

“First of all, let’s recognize that this is a once-in-a-half-century, probably once-in-a-century type of event,” Greenspan said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Asked whether the crisis, which has seen the US government step in to bail out mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, was the worst of his career, Greenspan replied “Oh, by far.”

“There’s no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I’ve seen, and it still is not resolved and it still has a way to go,” Greenspan said.

“And indeed, it will continue to be a corrosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabilizes.

“That will induce a series of events around the globe which will stabilize the system.”

Read it all.

Check them all out.

Wall Street readied for a potential Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy after Bank of America Corp. and Barclays Plc pulled out of talks to buy it and the government indicated it wouldn’t provide funds to prevent a collapse.

Banks and brokers today held a session for netting derivatives transactions with Lehman, or canceling trades that offset each other, in case the New York-based firm files for bankruptcy before midnight.

“The purpose of this session is to reduce risk associated with a potential Lehman” bankruptcy, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said in a statement today. The ISDA includes 218 banks, brokerages, insurance companies and other financial institutions from the U.S. and abroad.

The step indicates Wall Street lacks confidence that three days of talks to find a buyer for Lehman, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will be successful. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who has led the talks with New York Fed President Timothy Geithner, was adamant two days ago against using taxpayer funds to help a purchaser take Lehman over.

U.S. regulators are betting that the financial system will be able to withstand the failure of a large institution without severe disruptions to an already weak economy.

Read the whole piece.

Perhaps the most absorbing element of this election season is the spectacle of abortion activists and media analysts grappling with both Gov. Sarah Palin’s decision to spare the life of her Down syndrome child and her teenage daughter’s decision to continue her pregnancy and marry the father of her unborn child.

As a group of talking heads on television expressed their amazement at the state of the Palin household, I thought of William May, my moral theology professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and his penchant for poking holes in the tortured logic of abortion advocates. May could nail the source of abortion supporters’ present discomfort in a nanosecond: Palin’s family choices directly challenge arguments that justify abortion as the “lesser evil.”

Since the ’60s, reproductive rights activists have presented abortion as perhaps the best solution for the scourge of teenage pregnancy, inner-city poverty, gender inequality, and the suffering experienced by disabled infants and their families. But May didn’t buy those arguments: “If abortion is the ”˜lesser evil,’” he used to tell our class, “then the alternative ”” keeping the baby ”” constitutes the ”˜greater evil.’ But how can that position be proved?”

The answer is that it’s impossible to prove that abortion constitutes the “lesser evil.” Catholic moral theologians like May have labored for years to explain both the logical inconsistencies and the moral dangers of the “lesser evil” argument. Now, the Palin family is providing an assist.

Read it all.

It is even plausible to argue that there is feminist-friendly news buried in the recent headlines. One reason why younger women did not coalesce behind Mrs Clinton in the same way as their mothers must surely be that they have simply become accustomed to living in a world of opportunities. On Super Tuesday, for example, Mr Obama did very well with women under 30, while Mrs Clinton won easily among women over 60. Convinced that they will see a woman in the White House during their lifetimes, they did not feel the same “fierce urgency of now” (to borrow a phrase from Mr Obama) as 70-somethings like Ms Steinem.

In her idiosyncratic way, Mrs Palin also represents the fulfilment of the feminist dream. She demonstrates that gender is no longer a barrier to success in one of the most conservative corners of the land, the Alaska Republican Party. She also proves that you can be a career woman without needing to subscribe to any fixed feminist ideology. Camille Paglia hails her as the biggest step forward for feminism since Madonna. One can argue, as we have, that it was astoundingly reckless of Mr McCain to have picked her on the basis of having once met her for 15 minutes. But if feminism means, at its core, that women should be able to compete equally in the workplace while deciding for themselves how they organise their family life, then Mrs Palin deserves to be treated as a pioneer, not dismissed as a crackpot.

Read the whole article.

Together, Iraqi and Coalition Forces have faced determined, adaptable, and barbaric enemies. You and our Iraqi partners have taken the fight to them, and you have taken away their sanctuaries and safe havens. You have helped secure the Iraqi people and have enabled, and capitalized on, their rejection of extremism. You have also supported the Iraqi Security Forces as they have grown in number and capability and as they have increasingly shouldered more of the responsibility for security in their country.

You have not just secured the Iraqi people, you have served them, as well. By helping establish local governance, supporting reconstruction efforts, assisting with revitalization of local businesses, fostering local reconciliation, and conducting a host of other non-kinetic activities, you have contributed significantly to the communities in which you have operated. Indeed, you have been builders and diplomats as well as guardians and warriors.

The progress achieved has been hard-earned. There have been many tough days along the way, and we have suffered tragic losses. Indeed, nothing in Iraq has been anything but hard. But you have been more than equal to every task.

Read it all.

Q: Your father (Billy Graham) held crusades three times in South Carolina: in Columbia (1950), Greenville (1966), and Columbia again (1987). What does it mean to you to be in the Palmetto State?

A: I was with my father in Greenville in 1966 and in Columbia in 1987. I have had the opportunity to preach in churches and military installations in South Carolina over the years and to preach a festival in Spartanburg in 2001. This is my first festival in Charleston. I am looking forward to being in Charleston to share the wonderful news of God’s love for each of us. My prayer is that many will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and follow him as their Lord.

Q: Your festivals are designed to be a culmination of months of planning and programming by local churches and volunteers. What do you hope host communities will gain from the experience, and retain after the festival is done?

A: The power of the Holy Spirit in the souls of men and women ”” that they will be drawn to the Savior. Those who come to know Christ will be channeled into the local churches. Also, hundreds of people have been trained in personal evangelism. Long after the festival is over, these people will be taking that training into the churches. We hope and pray that the churches will benefit over the years.

Q: You write in your autobiography about the challenges of growing up as the son of the world’s most famous evangelist. But today, you are in your own right a prominent and influential leader in the Christian community. Nonetheless, comparisons are inevitable. Does it bother you to be constantly compared to your father?

A: I love my father very much and am very proud of him. To be compared with someone you love and are proud of is not a burden to bear. It is a gift. I am honored to be his son. I am not my father. I can never be him or replace him. He is a very unique, gifted individual that God has used in a mighty way, not only in the United States but around the world. My father never sought to be famous or to be a world evangelist. He just sees himself as a preacher of the gospel, and that is how I see myself ”” just a preacher of the gospel. It’s not my gospel; it’s God’s gospel.

Read it all.