The British economy should balance a free market approach to private enterprise with state control of the production of goods and services, the Bishop of Liverpool told the BCSC conference.

The “market is not God” Bishop James Jones told the 2,800 delegates attending the commercial property association meeting at the Liverpool Arena on Nov 11. “A balance between laissez-faire capitalism and the rule of the state is needed,” he said.

Bishop Jones’ questioning of the assumptions of the free market system follows statements made by bishops from across the Anglican Communion in the wake of the global financial collapse while the Archbishops of York and Canterbury have voiced strong critiques of the international financial system.

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Breakaway conservative Episcopal churches are planning to form a new Anglican church in North America.

Leaders of the Common Cause Partnership, a group representing more than 100,000 church members, say they will unveil a new church constitution December 3 at Wheaton Evangelical Free Church in Wheaton, Illinois.

Bishop Robert Duncan, who was ousted by the Episcopal church last month, has been elected to lead the new group.

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Fits the situation at hand perfectly, does it not? By the actions of his diocese, Bishop Wantland has been “removed from the jurisdiction of this Church to the jurisdiction of a Church [the Province of the Southern Cone] in the Anglican Communion.” This Rule lets him ask to remain affiliated with the House of Bishops as an honorary member, with seat and voice but no vote. (There will be be taken up for second reading at GC2009 next June a proposed Constitutional amendment [Res. A020 at GC2006] to confine the right to vote in the House just “to all bishops with jurisdiction, Bishops Coadjutor, Bishops Suffragan, Assistant Bishops and every bishop holding an office created by General Convention.” This amendment, when passed, will deprive all “resigned” [i.e., retired] Bishops of their present right to vote.)

Thus it will be most interesting to see how the Presiding Bishop treats his request. I do not mean to ask what will happen if Bishop Wantland gives the required notice that he plans to attend the next meeting of the House, because the Rule states that no action on the request is required unless and until he actually shows up for the meeting in question. (Should he do so, the Rule provides only that the Presiding Officer of the House at the meeting “nominate” him for honorary membership; it is unclear whether a vote on the nomination would be taken.) No, what I see taking place is something more important: by sending the letter and announcing his desire to assume the status of an honorary member, Bishop Wantland has cut the procedural legs out from any move to depose him as a bishop for “abandonment of communion”.

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Three of the country’s major airlines are finally being forced – after a six-year-legal battle – to make additional seats available at no charge to disabled or obese passengers who need the extra room.

The Supreme Court of Canada cleared the way for the move Thursday, rejecting an application by Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz and WestJet for permission to appeal the new policy imposed by the Canadian Transportation Agency.

The court, in keeping with tradition, gave no reason for refusing to review the case. But the effect was to uphold an agency finding that the air carriers were discriminating against the disabled.

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A deep moral and spiritual crisis in Zimbabwe explains why the nation has become so corrupt, the Bishop of Harare, Dr Sebastian Bakare, told the Human Rights Conference in Lulea, Sweden, last week.

The social, economic, and po­litical challenges were just the tip of the iceberg, Dr Bakare said in a keynote address on the place of the Church. He lamented Zimbabwe’s reputation as “a nation that denies basic democratic principles and human rights”, and said that the majority of people were denied a meaningful life, lacking “every-thing except the air they breathe”. Those benefiting from political patronage had access to all that made life easier.

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As Americans await the arrival of a new administration in Washington, investors are worrying whether the financial system is again in the danger zone.

With the stock market plunging and the credit market entering a new freeze, cries are being heard for a new government intervention to prop up major financial institutions before President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

“We can’t get from here to Feb. 1 if the current ”˜who’s in charge?’ situation continues,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, an investment firm, arguing that Congress should adopt a stimulus package, including temporary tax cuts, as rapidly as possible. Instead, he said, Washington seems paralyzed.

Read it all from the front page of this morning’s New York Times.

Good news for worried parents: All those hours their teenagers spend socializing on the Internet are not a bad thing, according to a new study by the MacArthur Foundation.

“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, “Living and Learning With New Media.” “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”

The study, conducted from 2005 to last summer, describes new-media usage but does not measure its effects.

“It certainly rings true that new media are inextricably woven into young people’s lives,” said Vicki Rideout, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of its program for the study of media and health. “Ethnographic studies like this are good at describing how young people fit social media into their lives. What they can’t do is document effects. This highlights the need for larger, nationally representative studies.”

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Researchers believe boosting the amount of a naturally forming enzyme in the body could prevent cells dying and so lead to extended, healthier, lifespans..

The protein telomerase helps maintain the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes which act like the ends of shoelaces and stop them unravelling.

As we age, and our cells divide, these caps become frayed and shorter and eventually are so damaged that the cell dies. Scientists believe boosting our natural levels of telomerase could rejuvenate them.

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Many things that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson has said about the credit crunch and financial markets have come back to haunt him.

Now we may be facing a U.S. rescue of Citigroup Inc. — just one week after Paulson assured the American people that the banking system “has been stabilized.”

Citigroup’s shares dived $1.69, or 26.4%, to $4.71 today, leading another meltdown in financial shares, as investors bailed on fears that the sinking economy could torpedo the financial giant.

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Wall Street was last night anticipating that at least one of America’s Big Three carmakers will file for bankruptcy protection within weeks after bail-out plans for the country’s near-bust car industry were left in tatters.

General Motors shares sank to their lowest level since 1938 at one point yesterday amid a showdown between the outgoing Republican Administration under President Bush and the incoming Democrat Administration led by Barack Obama, the US President-elect who takes office on January 20.

While both sides of Capitol Hill bickered over the terms and conditions of a possible $25 billion (£16.8 billion) emergency loan, Wall Street traders became convinced that Washington will fail to devise, vote on, and force through rescue funds in time to save General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford.

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[Martyn] Minns, a former Episcopalian elevated to bishop by the Church of Nigeria and leader of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, said the new province could count on 100,000 people as its average weekly attendance. The Episcopal Church says its average weekly attendance is about 727,000.

Becoming a province would require approval from two-thirds of the primates and recognition from the Anglican Consultative Council, another church body.

“More than half of the Anglican world will support us,” Minns said in an interview, referring to the primates. “My guess is that we have provincial recognition from at least a majority.”

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U.S. economic and political clout will decline over the next two decades and the world will be more dangerous, with food and water scarce and advanced weapons plentiful, U.S. spy agencies projected on Thursday.

The National Intelligence Council analysis “Global Trends 2025” also said the current financial crisis on Wall Street is just the first phase of a global economic reordering.

The U.S. dollar’s role as the world’s major currency would weaken to become a “first among equals,” the report said.

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Update: Much more here including a link to the full report.

Ziff Davis Media announced Wednesday that it was ending print publication of its 27-year-old flagship, PC Magazine, and would take the title online only.

It is the latest of several magazine publishers to drop a print edition, as advertising plummets and the cost of printing a paper version rises.

“The viability for us to continue to publish in print just isn’t there anymore,” Jason Young, chief executive of Ziff Davis, said in an interview.

While most magazines make their money mainly from print advertising, PC Magazine derives most of its profit from its Web site. More than 80 percent of the profit and about 70 percent of the revenue come from the digital business, Mr. Young said, and all of the writers and editors have been counted as part of the digital budget for two years.

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The Pope’s top aides may have already informed Benedict about a campaign promise Obama made on July 17, 2007, to Planned Parenthood, stating that his first act as President would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo legislation that put restrictions on access to abortions. Some Catholics have warned that such a decree, which would essentially codify Roe v. Wade into federal law, could force doctors in Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their conscience. “There’s more fear here than wrath,” a senior Vatican official told TIME with regard to the Catholic hierarchy’s attitude toward Obama. However, if Obama signs the Freedom of Choice Act in his first months in office, “it would be the equivalent of a war,” says the same official. “It would be like saying, ‘We’ve heard the Catholic Church and we have no interest in their concerns.’ ” U.S. Catholic bishops at a meeting in Baltimore last week vowed to take on Obama for his support of abortion rights; they are also skeptical about his assurances to try to reduce the number of abortions while supporting the right to choose.

Even before the election, Democrats were warned not to risk becoming the “party of death,” according to former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke. It was Burke who famously pledged in 2004 to deny communion to the pro-choice Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry. The archbishop has since been promoted to Rome as head of the Holy See’s equivalent of a Supreme Court. Meanwhile, in response to a question last week on Obama’s pledge to reverse Washington’s policy on stem-cell research, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, who heads the Vatican office for health, made it clear that the church will not shy away from the debate. “What builds up man is good, what destroys him is bad,” he told reporters, arguing that one human being should never become a material resource for the betterment of another.

Nevertheless, 54% of U.S. Catholic voters supported Obama, who is Protestant. That may give him the cover to move ahead with his pledges.

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Two nondenominational churches ”“ New Beginning Christian Church and The Sanctuary of Wilmington. Each values tithing. Each congregation claps and sings in worship. And each congregation enthusiastically responds to the preaching.

But the main difference in these churches is the people sitting in the pews.

Most of the members of New Beginning Christian Church are black. Most of the members of The Sanctuary are white.

Another in the long line of should-have-been-already-posted. An uncomfortable but important topic.

The Church of England’s General Synod has held its third virtual question time. The text of all 28 Questions and Answers is available if you follow the link to the pdf provided here. Well worth the time–KSH.

In every American election, there is a message to government. We send a clearer message in some years than others, as with the elections of President Reagan in 1980, President Clinton in 1992 and this year President-elect Barack Obama, who rode decisively to victory on America’s impatience for change.

While S.C. voters didn’t join the presidential bandwagon, there is an equally clear mandate in this year’s state polling that should not be missed in the excitement of the national elections.

Around the state, voters made it clear that they consider public education a priority, they support their public schools and they want their schools to have the resources needed to succeed.

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It seems that gun violence has become an epidemic, one that imposes a pervasive social and economic toll on Greater Charleston. Read the paper, watch the local news broadcasts ”” guns are a commodity in a mindset of violence that simply befuddles us. That broad daylight shootout at Citadel Mall last week is just the latest chapter of a continuing story that always ends without answering the looming questions ”” why the violence, why the guns?

No doubt the National Rifle Association zealots already are drafting their responses. Put your dukes down, guys, this is not an argument on Second Amendment rights. It’s about awareness of how guns fall in the hands of bad people, and the numbing misery gun violence brings when children and young adults sense an obligation to go armed, and then follow a “shoot-first” attitude.

Read it all from the local paper.

The number of young people considering a military career has significantly increased for the first time in about five years, buoyed by more positive news out of Iraq.

Military officials predict interest will rise even further because of the worsening economy.

“We’d like to think now we’ve bottomed out here and (recruiting) now will continue increasing,” said Curtis Gilroy, a Pentagon personnel official. “A lot of that is because of the relatively good news out of Iraq.”

The percentage of young people who said they would probably join the military increased from 9% to 11% in the first half of this year, according to a Pentagon-sponsored survey. The poll questioned 3,304 young people ages 16 to 21.

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From high-school dropouts to college graduates to elected officials, Americans are “alarmingly uninformed” about the USA’s history, founding principals and economy ”” knowledge needed to participate wisely in civic life, says a report scheduled to be released Thursday.

The study, the third in a series by the non-profit Intercollegiate Studies Institute, finds that half of U.S. adults can name all three branches of government, and 54% know that the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Almost 40% incorrectly said that it belongs to the president.

Those who have held elected office lack civic knowledge; 43% do not know the Electoral College is a constitutionally mandated assembly that elects the president. One in five thinks it “trains those aspiring for higher office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”

“Without knowledge of your country’s history, key texts and institutions, you don’t have a frame of reference to judge the politics and policies of today,” says Richard Brake, head of the institute’s American Civic Literacy Program.

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Read the description and follow the link to the actual interview. There is much material of interest here–KSH.

A WOMAN has become the first patient in the world to receive an organ created in a laboratory, in a pioneering operation that could change transplant surgery, doctors said yesterday.
Claudia Castillo’s body part was grown using her own stem cells harvested from bone marrow.

Professor Anthony Hollander, part of the team behind the breakthrough, described it as an example of “stem cell science becoming stem cell medicine”.

This was one of the top stories here on the evening news last evening. Read it all.

The Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, the Most Revd Alan Harper, OBE has welcomed yesterday’s breakthrough in talks to secure the resumption of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont.

He said: “I warmly welcome the decision on the part of the main partners in the Northern Ireland government executive to resume meetings of the executive and to take forward proposals for the devolution of policing and justice powers. I also very much welcome the decision that the executive will meet much more frequently and purposefully in order to deal with the backlog of business that has accumulated over the past five months.

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Watch it all, an excellent reminder of just some of the local ramifications of the economic tsunami through which we are going.

The Central New York Episcopal Church is suing a splinter congregation in Binghamton. The diocese is taking the Church of the Good Shepherd to court on December 12th to recoup all of its property and assets. That includes the church building. FLN’s Bob Price spoke with Senior Pastor Matt Kennedy about how the church could be affected for taking a stance against the consecration of homosexual bishops.

Find the audio links in the middle of the page.

The relationship between Paul and the Risen One is so profound that it impels him to affirm that Christ was not only his life, but his living, to the point that to be able to reach him, even death was a gain (cf. Philippians 1:21). It was not because he did not appreciate life, but because he understood that for him, living no longer had another objective; therefore, he no longer had a desire other than to reach Christ, as in an athletic competition, to be with him always. The Risen One had become the beginning and end of his existence, the reason and goal of his running. Only concern for the growth in faith of those he had evangelized and solicitude for all the Churches he had founded (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:28), induced him to slow down the run toward his only Lord, to wait for his disciples, so that they would be able to run to the goal with him. If in the previous observance of the law he had nothing to reproach himself from the point of view of moral integrity, once overtaken by Christ he preferred not to judge himself (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:3-4), but limited himself to run to conquer the one who had conquered him (cf. Philippians 3:12).

It is precisely because of this personal experience of the relationship with Jesus that Paul places at the center of his Gospel an irreducible opposition between two alternative paths to justice: one based on the works of the law, the other founded on the grace of faith in Christ. The alternative between justice through the works of the law and justice through faith in Christ thus becomes one of the dominant themes that runs through his letters: “We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified” (Galatians 2:15-16).

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Dear colleagues,

As you know, the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to fester. Much is still underreported. In addition to the crisis in the Goma region, there are two areas of rebel activity in Congo which have not hit the news: the Dungu area, in the north, where the Lord’s Resistance Army has attacked villages and abducted adults and children in recent weeks, and also the Gety/Aveba/Nyankunde region, close to Bunia, where a new militia group emerged in late September and displaced many people from their homes.

Our Anglican sisters and brothers in those areas have been deeply affected, and are in the forefront of relief efforts and peacemaking.

I am echoing Archbishop Fidèle Dirokpa’s call for a day of prayer for peace in the Congo on Sunday 23 November.

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The California Supreme Court voted 6 to 1 on Wednesday to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, the voter initiative that restored a ban on same-sex marriage, but refused to permit gay weddings to resume pending a final decision.

The court may hold a hearing on the lawsuits as early as March, a timetable that scholars said was swift considering the complexity and importance of the legal issues.

The court’s action, taken during a closed conference, suggested that the court wants to resolve all of the legal issues surrounding Proposition 8, including the fate of existing gay marriages, in a single ruling.

Read the whole article.

A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit’s Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers’ fate to a lame-duck Republican president. Caught in the middle of a who-blinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers””and millions of Americans’ jobs””after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. President George W. Bush has “no appetite” to act on his own.

U.S. auto companies employ nearly a quarter-million workers, and more than 730,000 other people have jobs producing the materials and parts that go into cars. About 1 million on top of that work in dealerships nationwide. If just one of the auto giants were to go belly up, some estimates put U.S. job losses next year as high as 2.5 million.

“If GM is telling us the truth, they go into bankruptcy and you see a cascade like you have never seen,” said Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, who was working on one rescue plan Wednesday. “If people want to go home and not do anything, I think that they’re going to have that on their hands.”

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The plan is scheduled to be publicly released on Dec. 3 in Chicago at a gathering of the Common Cause Partnership, a coalition of conservative Anglicans who oppose moves within the Anglican Church of Canada toward blessing same-sex unions and the ordination of an openly gay man as an Episcopal bishop in the U.S.

“What’s quite disturbing, in my opinion, about this proposal is the determination to create a province based on theological grounds,” Archbishop Hiltz said Nov.17. “The creation of provinces, as I have always understood it, is based on mission. It is based on a commitment to embrace and give flesh to an expression of the gospel in a particular context. There is a geography associated with that context, there is a set of cultural needs, a set of social needs.”

He also noted that the Anglican Consultative Council is the only body of the church that can create a province, and it does so, only after “after a long period of discernment and testing the viability and capacity for the province to maintain itself in the spirit of mission.” The Anglican Consultative Council is also the only body of the church that includes bishops, clergy and laity.

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