What’s occurring now is a frantic effort to prevent a modern financial disintegration that deepens the economic downturn. It’s said that the $700 billion bailout will rescue banks and other financial institutions by having the Treasury buy their suspect mortgage-backed securities. In reality, the Treasury is also bailing out the Fed, which has already — through various actions — lent financial institutions roughly $1 trillion against myriad securities. The increase in federal deposit insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 aims to discourage panicky bank withdrawals. In Europe, governments have taken similar steps; Ireland and Germany have guaranteed their banks’ deposits.

The cause of the Fed’s timidity in the 1930s remains a matter of dispute. Some scholars suggest a futile defense of the gold standard; others blame the flawed “real bills” doctrine that limited Fed lending to besieged banks. Either way, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a scholar of the Depression, understands the error. The Fed’s lending and the bailout aim to avoid a ruinous credit contraction.

The economy will get worse. The housing glut endures. Cautious consumers have curbed spending. Banks and other financial institutions will suffer more losses. But these are all normal symptoms of recession. Our real vulnerability is a highly complex and global financial system that might resist rescue and revival. The Great Depression resulted from the mix of a weak economy and perverse government policies. If we can avoid a comparable blunder, the great drama of these recent weeks may prove blessedly misleading.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, has agreed that the relationship between Synod and the episcopacy needs to be clarified. He said: “Synodical government served us well in the early days but it’s been a kind of juggernaut. I think it’s got totally out of control.”

Bishop Reade spoke against the Synod becoming parliamentary with two competing sides: “Ideally I think the House of Bishops should be there, and we should be listening to the debate, and we should go away and make the decisions.”

He said the clergy and laity should vote, but that it should simply be used as information for the bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had also spoken in July against using General Synod as a parliament, emphasising that the Church was managed by synod, rather than governed by it.

Read it all.

Check it out.

After an overwhelming vote here over the weekend by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh that created the second schism with the national church since the 2003 election and consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop, both sides were hoping for a simple resolution.

“If the national church would stay out of it, we could work it out,” said the Rev. Jonathan Millard, who favored secession and led the convention on Saturday. “And I think 90 percent of the churches here would agree with me.”

Mr. Millard was referring to that most secular of issues: resolving who owns what among the millions of dollars’ worth of diocesan and parish property.

It is a huge concern for both sides after the vote on Saturday, which realigned the majority of the 74 parishes of the Pittsburgh diocese with a more conservative branch of the church in South America. On Saturday, 119 of 191 lay members voted in favor of leaving the national church, as did 121 of 160 clergy members.

Read it all.

A lovely video report which I used in the sermon yesterday on Paul Newman’s wonderful service to children–watch it all.

Two September shocks will define the presidency of George W. Bush. Stunningly enough, it already seems clear that the second — the financial crisis that has only begun to unfold — may well have far greater and more lasting ramifications than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

That’s because while 9/11 changed the way we view the world, the current financial crisis has changed the way the world views us. And it will also change, in some very fundamental ways, the way the world works….

The current economic debacle is far more likely to be seen by historians as a true global watershed: the end of one period and the beginning of another. The financial chaos has brought down the curtain on a wide range of basic and enduring tenets also closely linked with the Reagan era, those associated with neoliberal economics, the system that the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has called “that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently and serve the public interest well.” Already this crisis has seen not just our enemies but even some of our closest allies wondering whether we are at the beginning of the end of both American-style capitalism and of American supremacy.

Read the whole piece.

PLENTY of people can be blamed for the calamity on Capitol Hill on September 29th. Two-hundred and twenty-eight congressmen decided they were ready to risk another Great Depression. Nancy Pelosi made an idiotic speech damning the Republicans. Sheriff McCain claimed that he was going to ride into town to sort out the mess””and promptly fell off his horse. But there is no doubt where the lion’s share of the blame belongs: with George Bush. The dismal handling of the financial crisis over the past fortnight is not only a comment on Mr Bush’s personal shortcomings as a leader. It is a comment on the failure of his leadership style over the past eight years.

The convenient excuse for Mr Bush’s performance is that he is at the fag-end of his presidency. Public attention has shifted to the presidential candidates, and the members of the House face the electorate in a month. But this rings hollow: there is nothing about the political cycle that dictates that an outgoing president should have an approval rating of 27% and an army of enemies on Capitol Hill. Bill Clinton ended his two terms with ratings of close to 70%.

The crisis underlined Mr Bush’s two biggest personal weaknesses””his leaden tongue and his indecisiveness.

Read it all.

It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk, ” he was saying. “I was a guard therre. But since that time, ” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein-” again the hand came out-“will you forgive me?”

And I stood there-and could not. Betsie had died in that place- could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it-I knew that. The message that God forgives has has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses.”

Quoted in this morning’s sermon by yours truly. Astonishing stuff. Read it all.

But by the time Mr. [Daniel] Mudd became Fannie’s chief executive in 2004, his company was under siege. Competitors were snatching lucrative parts of its business. Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans.

So Mr. Mudd made a fateful choice. Disregarding warnings from his managers that lenders were making too many loans that would never be repaid, he steered Fannie into more treacherous corners of the mortgage market, according to executives.

For a time, that decision proved profitable. In the end, it nearly destroyed the company and threatened to drag down the housing market and the economy.

Dozens of interviews, most from people who requested anonymity to avoid legal repercussions, offer an inside account of the critical juncture when Fannie Mae’s new chief executive, under pressure from Wall Street firms, Congress and company shareholders, took additional risks that pushed his company, and, in turn, a large part of the nation’s financial health, to the brink.

Read it all.

A recommendation from a committee of Protestant bioethical experts calling for a ban on sex selection for non-medical reasons was voted in virtually unopposed at the Presbyterians’ biannual general assembly.

The Bioethics Council, a ministerial advisory committee, recommended in June that the ban on using pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to select a baby’s sex purely for social reasons be lifted.

However, the joint Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican Inte-church Bioethics Council declared the idea “undesirable” on social and cultural grounds.

Read it all.

Germany said on Sunday it would guarantee all private German bank accounts ”“ currently worth €568bn ”“ in a dramatic move to prevent panic withdrawals as fears over the worldwide financial crisis spread to Europe’s largest economy.

“We want to tell people that their savings are safe,” Angela Merkel, chancellor, said at an unscheduled press conference on Sunday. The scheme would cover existing accounts and others which savers might open….

German officials said the move was agreed because of fear that the crisis at Hypo Real Estate ”“ a listed mortgage and public sector lender, whose government-backed €35bn ($48bn, £27bn) rescue collapsed at the weekend ”“ would lead to widespread panic on Monday.

Read it all.

The Rev. George Werner of Sewickley, a loyalist and a former top official of the Episcopal Church, said the denominations headquarters in New York was “to be advised” by local Episcopalians.

“Many people, myself included, want to make sure that [national leaders] don’t slam a bishop in here who will tear us to shreds,” he said, an acknowledgement that many Episcopal loyalists are also conservative.

There is agreement that at least 17 parishes will not join the Southern Cone; and the Rev. Simons believes it could go as high as 28. Both sides also agree that many parishes on both sides are likely to lose some members to the other side. The Rev. Werner believes that splits in small churches could cause 20 to 30 of them to fail altogether.

Bishop Duncan did not lead the meeting, celebrate the Eucharist or preach, though mention of his name brought several long ovations.

Read it all.

Most of the time nobody notices the credit flowing through the lungs of the economy, any more than people notice the air they breathe. But everyone knows when credit stops circulating freely through markets to banks, businesses and consumers. For almost a year the markets had worried about banks’ liquidity and solvency. After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers last month, amid confusion about whom the state would save and on what terms, they panicked. The markets for three-, six- and 12-month paper are shut, so banks must borrow even more money overnight than usual.

Banks used to borrow from each other at about 0.08 percentage points above official rates; on September 30th they paid more than four percentage points more. In one auction to get dollar funds overnight from the European Central Bank, banks were prepared to pay interest of 11%, five times the pre-crisis rate. Astonishingly, rates scaled these extremes even as the Federal Reserve promised $620 billion of extra funding.

Bankers have always earned their crust by committing money for long periods and financing that with short-term deposits and borrowing. Today, that model has warped into self-parody: many of the banks’ assets are unsellable even as they have to return to the market each day to ask for lenders to vote on their survival. No wonder they are hoarding cash.

This is why those politicians who set the interests of Main Street against those of Wall Street are so wrong. Sooner or later the money markets affect every business.

Read it all.

“This is a sad day,” said the Rev. James Simons, the only member of the diocese’s Standing Committee, the top administrative body, who voted against seceding. “They took the convention’s theme, ”˜A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand,’ and today caused the Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh to be divided indeed.”

Mr. Simons, who will lead a reconstitution of the diocese with the national church, said at least 16 of the 74 parishes in the Pittsburgh diocese were expected to stay with the national church.

The Pittsburgh diocese is the second, after the Diocese of San Joaquin in Fresno, Calif., to vote to leave the national church. At least two other dioceses, in Fort Worth and Quincy, Ill., are scheduled to vote on seceding in November.

The movement is driven by theologically conservative leaders who believe the church has turned away from traditional biblical teachings on issues like whether Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation.

Read it all.

From here:

The Rev. John Beverley Butcher (“Creeds are lacking”) is not alone in sensing the creed’s complete exclusion of Jesus’ life and ministry, mentioning only his birth and death and nothing in between. In the flow of the liturgy, Scripture, passing the peace, prayers of the people, the sermon and the Eucharist, Jesus Christ’s ministry and gospel are present. The creed, instituted by Roman decree more than three centuries after the Resurrection, leaves out both entirely. The Council of Nicea’s purpose was to institutionalize Roman power and authority.

We are Episcopalians and have been open to the Holy Spirit to help us in the evolution of our worship from the beginning. In the Nag Hammadi discoveries, we are now fortunate to have the gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalene to read. None of the four original Gospels nor these new findings contain the creed.

Women also have sensed the irony of referring to the Holy Spirit as “he” when it is a feminine word in both Hebrew and Greek and would best be translated as “she.” Patriarchal language is problematic in a church with a woman presiding bishop.

“No question, there’s a larger weight in Chicago,” Lee said after the Cubs were swept from the playoffs for the second year in a row. “I hate to call it pressure, because it’s hard to put more pressure on us than we put on ourselves. But you can feel it in the city. They want it bad. It’s understandable. But it’s all about how you perform on the field.”

The Cubs performed their worst when it mattered most. A year after scoring only six runs in a three-game sweep by Arizona, the Cubs produced the same meager output in another early exit.

They have lost their last nine postseason games, and some of the most unsightly were in this series. In Game 1, starter Ryan Dempster walked seven in four and two-thirds innings. In Game 2, the Cubs made four errors, one by each infielder. In Game 3, they went 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position.

The team that led the National League with 97 wins and 855 runs never gave itself a chance. As similar as the result was to 2007, this flameout was harder to explain.

Read it all–it was an awful meltdown.

Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people’s lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.

Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.

“Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture,” said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.

Read it all.

In the case of households, debt rose from about 50% of GDP in 1980 to a peak of 100% in 2006. In other words, households now owe as much as the entire U.S. economy can produce in a year. Much of the increase in debt was used to invest in real estate. The result was a bubble; at its peak, average U.S. house prices were rising at 20% a year. Then ”” as bubbles always do ”” it burst. The S&P Case-Shiller index of house prices in 20 cities has been falling since February 2007. And the decline is accelerating. In June prices were down 16% compared with a year earlier. In some cities ”” like Phoenix and Miami ”” they have fallen by as much as a third from their peaks. The U.S. real estate market hasn’t faced anything like this since the Depression. And the pain is not over. Credit Suisse predicts that 13% of U.S. homeowners with mortgages could end up losing their homes.

Banks and other financial institutions are in an even worse position: their debts are accumulating even faster. By 2007 the financial sector’s debt was equivalent to 116% of GDP, compared with a mere 21% in 1980. And the assets the banks loaded up on have fallen even further in value than the average home ”” by as much as 55% in the case of BBB-rated mortgage-backed securities.

To date, U.S. banks have admitted to $334 billion in losses and write-downs, and the final total will almost certainly be much higher. To compensate, they have managed to raise $235 billion in new capital. The trouble is that the net loss of $99 billion implies that they will need to shrink their balance sheets by 10 times that figure ”” almost a trillion dollars ”” to maintain a constant ratio between their assets and capital. That suggests a drastic reduction of credit, since a bank’s assets are its loans. Fewer loans mean tighter business conditions on Main Street. Your local car dealer won’t be able to get the credit he needs to maintain his inventory of automobiles. To survive, he’ll have to lay off some of his employees. Expect higher unemployment nationwide.

Anyone who doubts that the U.S. is heading for recession is living in denial. On an annualized basis, real retail sales and industrial production are both declining. Unemployment is already at its highest level in five years. The question is whether we’re headed for a short, relatively mild recession like that of 2001 ”” or a latter-day version of what the world went through in the 1930s: Depression 2.0.

Read it all.

I’ve been frightened for my country only a few times in my life: In 1962, when, even as a boy of 9, I followed the tension of the Cuban missile crisis; in 1963, with the assassination of J.F.K.; on Sept. 11, 2001; and on [this past] Monday, when the House Republicans brought down the bipartisan rescue package.

–Thomas Friedman, in Rescuing the Rescue

Google has launched an enhanced blog tracking service that helps people mine a growing mountain of online commentary for gems worth reading.

The Google Blog Search tool rolled out this week competes with Techmeme, Polymeme, Wikio and other “memetrackers” that sort and organize blog posts into categories.

“Did you know that millions of bloggers around the world write new posts each week?” Google product manager Michael Cohen wrote in an Internet posting of his own.

“We’re pleased to launch a new homepage for Google Blog Search so that you too can browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere.”

Read it all.

Panic was spreading on two of the scariest days ever in financial markets, and the biggest investors ”” not small investors ”” were panicking the most. Nobody was sure how much damage it would cause before it ended.

This is what a credit crisis looks like. It’s not like a stock market crisis, where the scary plunge of stocks is obvious to all. The credit crisis has played out in places most people can’t see. It’s banks refusing to lend to other banks ”” even though that is one of the most essential functions of the banking system. It’s a loss of confidence in seemingly healthy institutions like Morgan Stanley and Goldman ”” both of which reported profits even as the pressure was mounting. It is panicked hedge funds pulling out cash. It is frightened investors protecting themselves by buying credit-default swaps ”” a financial insurance policy against potential bankruptcy ”” at prices 30 times what they normally would pay.

It was this 36-hour period two weeks ago ”” from the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 17, to the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 18 ”” that spooked policy makers by opening fissures in the worldwide financial system.

Read it all.

However, in a typically Anglican effort to find a compromise, the group responsible for drafting the crucial legislation is now suggesting that traditionalist clergy should be given their own “flying bishops”.

This is being proposed as a potential solution to avert a mass exodus of clergy despite the General Synod rejecting this option.

While traditionalists may not be getting the separate areas for male-clergy only that they wanted, this nevertheless represents a remarkable about-turn.

If the bishops meeting this week decide to back this proposal, many of those who had celebrated only three months ago that the prospect of the Church’s first woman bishop was drawing nearer will feel betrayed.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Provinces, Church of England (CoE), CoE Bishops

Sermon ”“ Diocese of Pittsburgh Convention October 4, 2008

This year is different. For as long as I can remember diocesan convention has been held the first week in November: As it comes it always reminds me to remember my wedding anniversary, also in the first week of November. November 3rd to be exact or is it November 2nd ? And every year Gale asks me where are we going to dinner for our anniversary? And I say, “To a hotel ballroom for a scrumptious meal! And you can even have your choice of beef tips over noodles, stuffed chicken breast or vegetable lasagna!
I have attended every diocesan and special convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh since 1982, save one, that is, in 1985 when Gale and I and our family resided in Fairfax VA. This is my 26th diocesan convention either as a lay member or as a presbyter of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. If anyone is a son of this diocese, it is me. I came to Christ here as an Episcopalian, I was raised up for ministry here as an Episcopalian and I have ministered as a layman in three parishes and also as an ordained pastor in three parishes, and I interviewed to be rector in two others in the diocese though not called (now there’s two parishes that knew what they were doing!), I have preached in at least 20 different parishes in our diocese and have visited over sixty. I have served on more committees, task forces, Cursillo teams and diocesan search committees than I can remember, I been on Diocesan Council and served on the Standing Committee —now as the President. In short, I spent my whole Christian life here in this diocese as an Episcopalian. There is no other diocese that has claimed me and no other diocese I have ever desired to be part of. I am thoroughly a Pittsburgh Anglican — I bleed Stiller Black and Gold.
For the previous twenty-five conventions I sat out there and faced this way during Convention sermons and addresses. Now in this my twenty-sixth instead of standing with you I now stand before you and so I ask your prayers that I might be adequate to the task that I have called to do.
This morning I would like to reflect on our gospel lesson from Matthew chapter 14 that Karen just read. I want to hone in on verse 27 “Jesus immediately said to them [his disciples] Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid”.
Three short sentences, no sentence more than three words — Take courage! —It is I. — Don’t be afraid.
First sentence: “Take courage”. It took courage for Peter to get of the boat and walk on the water, to attempt something he had never done before, something beyond his human experience, something outside of his comfort zone –something beyond his rational, cognitive being — something that takes total faith and trust. The safe place is in the boat. The safe place will always be in the boat. Getting out of the boat is risky and being a risk taker requires courage. A well known Anglican evangelist once said there are three kind of “takers” in this world, caretakers, undertakers and risk takers. If nothing else Peter was a risk taker. Throughout the scriptures risk-taking for the sake of Christ was one of Peter’s most admirable qualities and God wants us to be risk takers for him too.
What does it mean to have courage. The word itself comes from the French word for heart “coeur”. Literally to have courage means to have heart or to take heart. The dictionary defines courage this way: it is the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, without fear; bravery. Some synonyms are fearlessness, acting with daring and an intrepid boldness, pluck, spirit, “guts”. What we are about to do in this convention will take courage. It will take courage from all of us, both clergy and laity and both re-aligners and re-organizers. It is a courageous act to acknowledge the truth — to acknowledge that our differences cannot be reconciled without one side or the other capitulating to the other. That will not happen ”“nor should it. Among other things, many in the majority and many in the minority have diametrically different beliefs about the nature of sin, about the meaning and scope of salvation and about the authority and interpretation of Scripture. To be true to our beliefs, it would be far better to bless each other in separating, each going our own way than to continue the internecine warfare of winner-take-all. It will take courage to let each other go and to bless each other in the going. We have an opportunity today to make this convention a testimony to love and forbearance among brothers and sisters in Christ. To be a blessing to each other. Do we have the courage to do it? Will we do it? Can we forgo parliamentary shenanigans that in the end will cause more pain and more distrust and bless nobody? Can we get on with it decently and in order?
One of the watchwords from our bishop, first spoken in the fall of 2003, has been — Courage breeds Courage. These words, when first uttered, instantly transversed the whole of the Anglican Communion. They inspired many, including me. But I don’t believe they were meant simply for one side or the other in the divide we find ourselves, but for all of us in this Diocese. Does the courage of Nano Chalfont Walker inspire me to be courageous: it does. Does the courage of Mary Hays encourage Bruce Robison to be courageous, I believe it does. Does the courage of Doug Wicker inspire Doug Toth and vice versa ”“ I believe it does. We may be opponents today but can we be worthy opponents. That is, can we be opponents that honor God and honor each other even as we disagree and as we separate. Can we be amicable as opposed to hostile, even in the midst of strongly held views. That takes heart. That takes courage.
In November 2005 over 3,000 Anglican Christians gathered in Pittsburgh including hundreds from our diocese at the “Hope and A Future Conference”, last month about 300 Anglican Christians from our diocese gathered in Mount Lebanon at the “A Hopeful Future” meeting. Each side is looking to its own future and looking to its future with hope and with confidence. Now is the time for both sides to put the strife of the past behind us and bless each other’s efforts to make their hope a reality.
With courage Peter was able to get out of the boat and walk on the water. When he became afraid ”“ he sank. Will we operate today courageously or fearfully? Will we bless or curse? Will we walk or will we sink? It’s our choice to make.
Second short sentence, “It is I” Jesus reminds Peter of who it is that is calling to him. Only one person calls and only one person saves. ””Jesus Christ. The scriptures say Salvation is found in no one else[than Jesus], for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.” Without Christ we flounder. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us in chapter 12 verse 2, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith As long as Peter kept his eyes fixed on Jesus he was able to walk on the water but when he began to focus on the storm about him, he sank. Our text says But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Shortly after hearing the news of Bishop Duncan’s deposition, I received an email from the Rt. Rev. Stanley Ntagali of Bishop Masindi-Kitara diocese, who had preached in my parish early last month, he wrote, Dear Rev. David: My wife Beatrice and I would like to assure you and the entire Diocese of Pittsburgh that we are praying for you at this very difficult moment in the history of your Diocese. We know how much you love your dear Bishop Bob Duncan and have enjoyed his ministry over the years. We are praying for Bishop Bob and Nara too. We pray that God will give you his peace and you will have courage to withstand the storm. Was that a timely prayer! A coincidence? I don’t think so””Just like Peter, the appeal is for courage to withstand the storm.
Peter cries out “Lord, save me!” Only one person calls and only one person saves. First Jesus calls out to Peter “It is I” and then as he is sinking Jesus saves Peter. Our text says verse in 31, “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. Bible teacher and Episcopal priest Chuck Irish once said, “If you don’t think you are helpless and in need of a Savior perhaps you are still helpless and in need of a Savior. God loves us so much that he was willing to offer his only Son so that we might not only be saved but that we might be transformed, made new, made whole, delivered and set free from a life of sin and death —transferred from the Kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light. That’s the good news, brothers and sisters. The gospel isn’t an affirmation of who we are in our sin but a transformation from it. There’s change involved
I came to know Christ as my Lord and Savior in 1981 through the witness of a priest of this diocese. He had the courage, the heart, to share the gospel with me. And it was good news for me. Before I responded to this free gift of God’s grace, I was, as St Paul reminds us in Ephesians “without God and without hope in the world”. My life was aimless. Like Peter I was unfocussed and sinking fast. Adrift, without direction, I lived from one day to next without a thought of tomorrow. I was self-centered and I was self-directed, lost in my sin and separated from God. Just like with Peter on the water, Jesus reached out his hand and caught me. He saved me, rescued me from my sin. The Bible says, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us ”“the godly for the ungodly”. He didn’t wait till I cleaned up my act. He didn’t demand I work harder, or do better. He snatched me up as is — “Just as I am, without one plea!”. But he didn’t leave me there. He transformed me. He gave me new direction in my life, joy, peace and contentment. He gave me deeper love for my wife and children. He gave me a depth of commitment to my family which had been so very weak. After I surrendered my life to Christ, I strived to be Christ- centered rather than me-centered. And my life has never been the same since. Thanks be to God.
Third and last sentence, Jesus said “Don’t be afraid”. This third and last sentence reminds me of the first words uttered to the faithful by John Paul II upon becoming Pope. “Do not be afraid to open your heart to Jesus… I’m begging you, please do not be afraid.” Brothers and sisters, we have nothing to fear. God is with us in this. He really is.
In this great debate we have been having these past years I have heard many analogies to past wars and inspiring war leaders, men like Thomas Paine, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill and even Neville Chamberlain and Marshall Petain. Even the title of this convention “A house divided against itself cannot stand” from Matthew 12:25 was quoted most famously by Lincoln.
In the midst of the Civil War a question was asked of President Lincoln. The inquirer said: “Mr. President, we trust during this time of trial in which the nation is engaged, God is on our side, and will give us victory.” Lincoln replied: “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side. For God is always right!” I think Mr. Lincoln was right on target.
If we act out of godly motives, with godly love toward each other then both sides will be on God’s side and no matter which side carries the vote, both sides will win in the end. And if that be the case we have nothing to fear. Moses spoke these words to the people of Israel as they prepared to engage the Amorites, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified [because of them], for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” So it is with us. God has not given us a spirit of fear. He will see every re-organizer and every re-aligner through this challenging time, every one who puts their full faith and trust in him. Can we trust him in this vote. Can we trust that His will for all of us will prevail in this convention today? Can we bless each other as we separate? In the last several years our Bishop’s final blessing has often begun with these words of St. Paul from I Corinthians 16:12-14. Be watchful; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. Let it be so today and always.
For His sake I pray, Amen.

Clergy and lay members of the theologically conservative Pittsburgh diocese voted overwhelmingly Saturday to break from the liberal Episcopal Church, with which it differs on issues ranging from homosexuality to biblical teachings on salvation.

Assistant Bishop Henry Scriven said the vote means the Pittsburgh diocese is now more firmly aligned with the majority of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, which is more conservative than the communion’s 2.2 million-member U.S. church.

“I am delighted,” Scriven said, “that what we have done today is bringing the Diocese of Pittsburgh back into the mainstream of worldwide Anglicanism.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

No doubt he can’t help it: the Rev. Mark Harris provides us with a textbook example of a liberal’s utter lack of logic in commenting for his readers on what has in fact happened today with the Diocese of Pittsburgh:

If it is the majority [that votes to change the Constitution], they will claim that “The Diocese of Pittsburgh” has left. That will be completely inaccurate. What will be true is that a majority of the delegates representing their parishes will have voted to leave. Not all the members of a parish voting to leave will do so, just as not all members of a parish voting not to leave will stay. Instead, PEOPLE will leave or stay.

(Bold added for emphasis.) It is woolly thinking such as this that has landed The Episcopal Church in all its current difficulties. The Rev. Harris sits on TEC’s Executive Council—just think how that body reacted to the proposed changes by various dioceses to their Constitutions: it passed a resolution proclaiming the changes to be null and void. Groupthink of the kind engaged in by Mark Harris and his liberal colleagues who currently hold the reins of The Episcopal Church has produced the current atmosphere of unChristian lawsuits, depositions and dunderheaded proposals for more legislation “to fix the problem.” (Hint to the liberals [which they will never get, but I’ll make it anyway]: If you are the problem to begin with, what do you think passing yet more loopy laws and crazy canons will accomplish? That’s right: more problems.)

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(Press Release) The Standing Committee of The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh today took action to recall Bishop Robert Duncan to his position as diocesan bishop. Bishop Duncan was involuntarily removed from the post by The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops on September 18. While the diocese remained in The Episcopal Church, it submitted to the decision. Now that the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is part of the Province of The Southern Cone, it is free to invite Bishop Duncan back into leadership.

The move came minutes after the close of the 143rd Diocesan Convention. After a short meeting, the Standing Committee officially announced the diocese’s plans to elect a bishop on November 7. The election will take place during a special convention of the diocese. It is expected that Bishop Duncan will be the only candidate on the ballot.

“This is a great day for the diocese. Bishop Duncan has served the Lord and this diocese faithfully and well through one of the most significant periods of our diocesan history. We look forward to welcoming him back to his episcopal office,” said the Rev. David Wilson, president of the diocese’s standing committee. Fr. Wilson also announced that the Standing Committee had agreed to ask Bishop Duncan to function in the diocese between now and November 7.

Archbishop Gregory Venables has appointed Bishop Duncan to be the Southern Cone’s “commissary,” or representative, in the diocese. In this role, Bishop Duncan will be able to visit parishes and offer episcopal ministry such as confirmation on behalf of the Standing Committee while it continues to serve as the Ecclesiastical Authority until the completion of the election on November 7,” explained Fr. Wilson.

“I am deeply grateful for the possibility of serving as both the seventh and eighth bishop of The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. We have been through much together over the last years, but I am convinced a new day is dawning for all of us,” said Bishop Robert Duncan.

(Press Release) Deputies to the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh’s 143rd Annual diocesan convention voted by strong margins on October 4 to join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

Vote totals on the key constitutional provision that opened the way for the change were as follows. A total of 191 laity voted. 119 voted in favor. 69 voted against, 3 abstained. A total of 160 clergy voted. 121 voted in favor. 33 voted no. 3 abstained. 2 invalid ballots were cast.

“We deeply value our shared heritage and years of friendship with those still within that denomination, but this diocese could not in good conscience continue down the road away from mainstream Christianity that the leadership of The Episcopal Church is so determined to follow,” said the Rev. Peter Frank, director of communications for the diocese.

The passage of the vote by the diocesan convention, the diocese’s highest governing authority, means that the entire Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, including all of its congregations and clergy, is now part of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. The diocese expects a small group of 210 clergy and a minority of its 70 parishes to withdraw from the diocese and reorganize under the authority of The Episcopal Church. The diocese is committed to making such decisions of conscience as easy as possible for all those involved.

The Province of The Southern Cone decided in 2007 to offer temporary oversight and pastoral care to mainstream Anglicans disengaging from The Episcopal Church. They hope there will be a new Anglican province in North America for those Anglicans who hold to historic faith and order. In the meantime, scores of individual congregations and four dioceses either have, or are considering, accepting the generous offer of The Southern Cone. The dioceses of Fort Worth and Quincy will both make their final decision in November.

“We are deeply thankful to the Province of the Southern Cone for offering us a clear way to stay within The Anglican Communion as the necessary work of building a new province goes forward. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Christians of many denominations and traditions both here in Pittsburgh and around the world that have prayed for us, encouraged us and stood with us as we have made this decision,” said Frank.

Remember the definition of the TED spread–The difference between what banks and the Treasury pay to borrow money for three months.

This really is a helpful chart. Make sure also to look at the weekly picture and then the monthly chart. Basically, the higher this goes, the more clogged the world financial system becomes, until a heart attack becomes inevitable.

The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury continue to fail in their attempts to stabilize the U.S. financial system. That is due to failure to grasp the nature of the problem, which concerns the parallel banking system. Rescue policy remains stuck in the past, focused on the traditional banking system while ignoring the parallel unregulated system that was permitted to develop over the past twenty-five years.

This parallel banking system financed vast amounts of real estate lending and consumer borrowing. The system (which included the likes of Thornburg Mortgage, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers) made loans but had no deposit base. Instead, it relied on roll-over funding obtained through money markets. Additionally, it operated with little capital and extremely high leverage ratios, which was critical to its tremendous profitability. Finally, loans were usually securitized and traded among financial firms.

This business model has now proven extremely fragile. First, the model created a fundamental maturity mismatch, whereby loans were of a long term nature but funding was short-term. That left firms vulnerable to disruptions of money market funding, as has now occurred.

Second, securitization converted loans into financial instruments that could be priced according to market conditions. That was fine when prices were rising, but when they started falling firms had to take large mark-to-market losses. Given their low capital ratios, those losses quickly wiped out firms’ capital bases, thereby freezing roll-over funding.

In effect, the parallel banking business model completely lacked shock absorbers, and it has now imploded in a vicious cycle. Lack of roll-over financing has compelled asset sales, which has driven down prices. That has further eroded capital, triggering margin calls that have caused more asset sales and even lower prices, making financing impossible for even the best firms.

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