When she was 20, Jessi Thull’s father died of cancer, an event that took seven months from diagnosis to death, and that she describes now as “overwhelming.”

Thull was brought up as a church-going Christian, but her father’s death and the resulting pain made her question God’s existence. “I had no sense as to how there could be a good God who would just watch as a family falls apart,” she said.

Thull, now 26 and reconciled with God, was examining her skepticism recently as part of a program at The Journey, a popular evangelical church in south St. Louis that is taking dead aim at the resurging popularity of doubt and skepticism in American society.

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Richard Engle has been doing some terrific pieces like this one on the “other” war–watch it all..

The rest of the Richard Engle’s reports are here.

California’s Calpers, the US’s biggest pension fund, last week reported a loss of 20 per cent of its assets, or more than $40bn, between July 1 and October 20 this year.

State and local pension funds comprise a patchwork of 2,700 funds that manage $1,400bn on behalf of 21m employees, including teachers, firefighters and other municipal workers.

About 40 per cent are underfunded, meaning that they would not be able to pay the future pensions that employees have been promised. State governments have lifted pension benefits ”“ a move that is politically popular ”“ but have often failed to put in more money to pay for them.

Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, this year convened a taskforce to address the shortfalls in Illinois funds. For example, funding for the Police Fund has fallen to less than 50 per cent.

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So who is this Catholic priest from Fresno who stood up and spoke out against Proposition 8, putting his career on the line? As a gay man who finds the church’s views on homosexuality so objectionable, why has he been a priest for more than 20 years and subjected himself to such moral conflict?

After reading my colleague Duke Helfand’s story about Father Geoffrey Farrow and his recent career-suicide from the pulpit, I was curious.

Farrow agreed to meet me for lunch in the middle of a schedule that’s gotten very busy since he became persona non grata to his employer. He’s been asked to appear all over the state for rallies against Prop. 8, which would amend the California Constitution to say marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Over the years, I’ve gotten e-mails from a number of people asking me if planets, stars or constellations are mentioned in the Bible. Of course they are!

There are computer programs you can get that contain the whole text of the Bible and allow you to do global searches on words or phrases. When I just looked up “stars” I came across a number of instances. (And, in the process, I missed one of the most famous ones: the opening from Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”)

But of course, that’s just gathering data. As a scientist, what I do instinctively is to look the data over and try to find trends. And over the next few days I want to share some of these insights here. It’s not just that stars are mentioned in passing in the Bible; what is fascinating to me is how they are used…

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A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed the decision of a lower court, which determined two years ago that the diocese failed to prove its case.

The civil lawsuit claimed that the leaders of what became St. John’s Anglican Church are not the legitimate officers because they are no longer Episcopalians. According to the lawsuit, new officers elected by members who did not break away from the congregation should have authority over the property.

Vista Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Stern disagreed in her November 2006 ruling.

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Where relationship banking still survives, there have been relatively few problems of bad debts. The problems have arisen in transactional and unsecured credit card banking with one-off or completely unknown customers. Of course the customers have often behaved badly; if a bank does not know its customers, who are only blips on a computer screen, some of them will behave badly. The bank only has itself to blame.

The Sunday Times yesterday had a blazing example of the evils that can result. Banks issuing credit cards have found a legal way of turning unsecured debt into debt secured on house property. That means that credit card debt, which banks have been ladling out to all comers, can lead to the repossession of the family home. Which bank is notorious for the harsh use of this loophole of which credit card customers were given no prior warning? Apparently it is Northern Rock, which was “rescued” by being nationalised. So the grotesque situation has arisen in which the Government is repossessing the houses of credit card customers – to their considerable dismay – as part of the rescue of an incompetently run bank.

The decline of moral responsibility has damaged British banks; it is the real flaw behind the credit crisis. There will be new regulation of the world’s banking system after the crisis. Governments cannot risk another catastrophe on this scale. The banks need to change their behaviour. They need to re-establish relations with their clients and value experience in their staff.

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The order plans on closing its Augusta house also and is in the process of “refounding itself for new ministry opportunities in a new location, but with the same mission of prayer and service to God’s world.”

“We feel that the Holy Spirit is moving us to relocate to a new area and to re-found our community and mission,” said Sister Cintra Pemberton OSH. The closings bring “us much pain,” she said, “but we recognize that we can no longer afford to operate and staff three convents.”

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Don’t get me wrong. The U.S. is a great nation. She has pushed the bounds of science and technology and brought prosperity to the masses, creating the world’s largest middle class. She has defeated some of the world’s vilest villains and brought freedom and the rule of law to the farthest reaches of the planet. But she is not perfect. She has toppled democratically elected governments in favor of friendly dictators and firebombed civilians. She has consumed resources at a dangerous pace and ravaged the environment in the process. She has allowed her cities to fester and her family farms to wither and die. And, she has gone from a progressive tax structure, that was built upon the biblical premise that to whom much is given much is required, to one that provides massive tax relief to the people who need it least the rich.

The faith community has our work cut out for us if America is to become the “city upon a hill” envisioned by some of our greatest leaders. And if self-awareness is the beginning of wisdom, perhaps we should start by reading the Bible with different eyes. Let’s lose the hubris. Maybe we’re not ancient Israel. Maybe we’re Rome.

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At a time when more than 37 million Americans are in poverty, including many who are newly poor and paying keen attention, spiritual leaders are encouraging the young to vote and urging voters to select candidates who will fight poverty.

“I feel more momentum, energy and focus on poverty than I have in churches in three decades or more,” said Jim Wallis, chief executive officer of Sojourners social justice ministries in Washington.

“Partly, it’s a new generation. Baby boomers are becoming church leaders and speaking to a new generation that wants their lives to make a difference. It’s a new altar call, if you will,” he said.

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Luke is making the same point in Acts, and in his account the apostles’ sermons are summaries of this. It is not that Jesus was an ordinary human being, who received a celestial promotion after the resurrection; rather, from the beginning Jesus was the Lord (kyrios), the Son of God–and Luke lets his reader know this from the beginning of his gospel. However, Jesus’ Lordship and Deity were hidden in humility until the resurrection–he is the Lord who waits at tables. It is only after his resurrection, that Jesus is exalted to the right hand and his identity as “Lord of all” (panton kyrios) is finally recognized and proclaimed by his followers.

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As the financial crisis crimps demand for American goods and services, the workers who produce them are losing their jobs by the tens of thousands.

Layoffs have arrived in force, like a wrenching second act in the unfolding crisis. In just the last two weeks, the list of companies announcing their intention to cut workers has read like a Who’s Who of corporate America: Merck, Yahoo, General Electric, Xerox, Pratt & Whitney, Goldman Sachs, Whirlpool, Bank of America, Alcoa, Coca-Cola, the Detroit automakers and nearly all the airlines.

When October’s job losses are announced on Nov. 7, three days after the presidential election, many economists expect the number to exceed 200,000. The current unemployment rate of 6.1 percent is likely to rise, perhaps significantly.

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The Episcopal Diocese of Rochester has the rights to the property of the All Saints Church in Irondequoit even though the parish voted to break away from the denomination, the state’s highest court ruled today.

In 1989, All Saints Church signed a document that placed all of its property in trust for the diocese and the national church. The church has since separated from the national church because it disagreed with the ordination of a gay bishop.

But the separation didn’t affect the diocese’s right to the property, the Court of Appeals said in a unanimous ruling, upholding decisions made by two lower courts.

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Two rival monks are posted at all times in a rooftop courtyard at the site of Jesus’ crucifixion: a bearded Copt in a black robe and an Ethiopian sunning himself on a wooden chair, studiously ignoring each other as they fight over the same sliver of sacred space.

For decades, Coptic and Ethiopian Christians have been fighting over the Deir el-Sultan monastery, which sits atop a chapel at the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The monastery is little more than a cluster of dilapidated rooms and a passageway divided into two incense-filled chapels, an architectural afterthought alongside the Holy Sepulcher’s better-known features.

And yet Deir el-Sultan has become the subject of a feud that has gone far beyond the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. The Ethiopians control the site, but the Egypt-based Copts say they own it and see the Ethiopians as illegal squatters.

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From the diocesan website:

It is with a profound sense of sadness that the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande acknowledges the vote of the Vestry of St. Francis-on-the-Hill in El Paso, Texas, to leave the Episcopal Church. This vote took place on Tuesday evening, October 21, 2008, and a majority of the Vestry present voted to make this move.

This decision comes after meetings between the congregation, the President of the Standing Committee and the Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, the Rt. Rev. William Frey. At those meetings, Bishop Frey and Canon Kelly made it clear to the congregation that, if they made the decision to leave the Episcopal Church, they could not take their property with them. That counsel follows the consideration of the Standing Committee and Deans of the Diocese that, after the departure of St. Clement’s Church from the Diocese in 2007, other departing congregations would not be able to avail themselves of the same parameters surrounding the severing of a relationship with the Diocese of the Rio Grande.

The Standing Committee understands that St. Francis has filed a suit for declaratory judgment with the District Court in El Paso County, Texas. We have begun to respond to the Court, reminding them that, according to our common agreements, parishes hold their property in trust for the larger Church community.

The Diocese of the Rio Grande is in the midst of an exciting and hopeful period in its life, having entered into a process to call and elect its next Bishop. With the able assistance of a New Life Team, the Diocese has entered into a purposeful time of listening and reflection, with the prayerful hope that this process will lead to healing and reconciliation in the Diocese as we look forward to our next Bishop. It is particularly disappointing that the people of St. Francis-on-the-Hill have chosen this moment to depart from the fellowship of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, as it is a time full of anticipation and hope for the future.

The people of the Diocese gather at their annual Convocation beginning on Friday, October 24, and the presence of the delegation from St. Francis will be sorely missed. Any time a part of the Body of Christ severs itself from the Body, the injury that results requires time, prayer and God’s healing power to restore. We move forward, confident that divine healing will continue to be with us, and that God will lead the Diocese of the Rio Grande into continued leadership in mission and ministry. Our prayers continue to be with the clergy and people of St. Francis.

The Right Rev. Robert Bennett was elected on the second ballot to be the 12th bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron Saturday.

Bennett was chosen from a slate of six candidates, including the Venerable Richard Salt, Rector of Trinity church in Sarnia and Archdeacon of Lambton/Kent.

He becomes the representatives of Anglican parishes from Windsor to Kitchener to Tobermory at a time when the church faces several critical decisions.

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Church attendance in England has continued to fall, according to the latest Church of England statistics, but donations to the Church are increasing and the numbers of new clergy have increased.

Church Statistics 2006/7 showed that the attendance of weekly congregations were down one per cent, but found that Christmas and Easter congregations had increased by seven and five per cent respectively.

A 15 per cent increase in new clergy meant the Church ordained 552 people in 2007, the highest number since the year 2000. Last year 290 men and 262 women were ordained, although 52 per cent of them were ordained to non-stipendiary ministry. Of those ordained to full-time, stipendiary ministry, 162 were men and 102 were women.

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A quarter of America’s bishops have said that the most important issue for voters in the forthcoming presidential election is abortion – comments that may help boost the fortunes of Republican candidate John McCain.

Some 50 out of the nation’s 197 active bishops have published articles or given interviews during the run-up up to the election urging abortion as the key issue on which voters should decide which way to vote.

Senator McCain opposes the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, which legalised abortion in the US, but has refused – most recently, at last week’s final television debate between the presidential candidates – to impose an abortion-based “litmus test” on his Supreme Court nominees. The Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, has repeatedly indicated his support for the 1973 ruling alongside a pledge to sign a proposed Freedom of Choice Act that would invalidate any state or local ordinance intended to “deny or interfere” with a woman’s choice to have an abortion.

Among the bishops who have intervened is Bishop Robert Hermann of St Louis who last Friday wrote: “the issue of life is the most basic issue and must be given priority over the issue of the economy, the issue of war or any other issue.” His comment came in a column for the archdiocesan newspaper that appeared hours before Mr Obama addressed 100,000 people in the heavily Catholic city.

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Friedman’s cheerleading for globalization has brought brickbats not only from economic populists but also from environmentalists, who point out that if China and India raise their per-capita resource consumption to American levels, the world is well and truly doomed. Unsustainable development poses a serious challenge to Friedman’s globalist vision and indeed, an existential dilemma for humanity. Our disasters are no longer local; we’re playing with all the chips now. To his credit, Friedman doesn’t try to dodge or minimize the challenges. The first half or so of the book is a solemn tour of woes: “the growing demand for ever scarcer energy supplies and natural resources; a massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries and their petrodictators; disruptive climate change; energy poverty, which is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-nots; and rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss, as plants and animals go extinct at record rates.”

These metastasizing dangers don’t for a second cause Friedman to question his commitment to globalization. He’s determined to make the project work, and green is the key that he hopes will open the way. Happily, his instincts on green issues turn out to be considerably more reliable than his instincts on foreign policy. In the name of energy independence, a lot of other self-consciously butch new greens support ethanol and other biofuels, which raise the price of food and encourage deforestation, or “clean coal,” which blows the tops off of mountains. Friedman doesn’t fall into those traps. He’s found the right people to talk to, focused on the correct inflection points, and hit on the best answers to the biggest questions.

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As angry as many people were about the bailout of Wall Street, something else makes people just about as angry: falling stock prices. It is probably for this reason that Washington decided to take the risk and push one of the more outrageously extravagant spending programs in the history of the world. The benefits of rising stock portfolios are concentrated while the costs of a bailout are diffuse. In the political calculus, then, politicians were betting that they would come out ahead.

What’s really at issue is a deeper problem that is culture-wide: the intolerance toward failure. We can’t face it. It is probably a symptom of the economic boom during which all stocks go up, all bets pay off, all homes rise in value, and everyone is slightly richer today than yesterday and half as rich as tomorrow. You just can’t lose. It was true in Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, and it has been true in the United States for some ten years or more.

This is the mentality that spreads throughout a society in which the drug of loose credit — based not on savings but rather the paper products of a printing press — spreads to every sector. Every investor is an amazing stock picker and every home buyer a financial genius. But the illusions don’t stop there. The ethos of genius inflation permeates everyone and everything, so that there emerges a culture-wide resistance to the very notion that someone might not be up to snuff.

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Read it all.They elect their tenth bishop there this week.