As for Mr Obama, he has a chance to restore America’s moral leadership. That is not something he should do by scouring the world in search of new monsters to slay. Nor, though, can a war-weary America turn its back on people threatened by ethnic cleansing or genocide. Since 2005 the UN has accepted a responsibility to protect people in such cases, so this is not a burden for America alone. But since the UN has no army, and no other countries have the military resources America boasts, there may be times when only the superpower can move soldiers swiftly where they are needed.

Should that call come, Mr Obama will need the courage to respond, notwithstanding Americans’ fatigue. In extremis, if the danger is great and veto-wielding members of the Security Council block the way, he and others might have to act without the Security Council’s blessing, as NATO did in Kosovo. Far better would be an early effort by Mr Obama to reach agreement on the rules to apply and forces to earmark so that the UN can actually exercise its collective responsibility to protect. That will be hard, but Mr Bush was actively hostile to such work. How fitting if the next president made possible a genuinely global response to the next Rwanda, Congo or Darfur.

Read it all.

As you know, there are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a church. Finding a comfortable theological fit is key. Good music is important, as are activities for the kids. You don’t want to be stuck at a church with mediocre potluck fare. The old adage that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America is still largely true, but I’m guessing you’ll want to find a congregation that has at least some racial diversity. That will be difficult if you want to find another UCC church, which is, as you know, a predominantly white denomination. And let’s be honest: a top concern will be finding a pastor who is, shall we say, not Jeremiah Wright….

Your predecessors dealt with church attendance in various ways. Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at a Baptist church in Virginia while he was President. Ronald Reagan didn’t go to church at all, citing the hassle of making a church set up security screening for parishioners. The Clintons drove down the street every Sunday to Foundry United Methodist, where Chelsea sang in the youth choir. George W. Bush never became a regular member of any local church, preferring to worship most often at the chapel at Camp David.

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Under a discernment plan approved by convention delegates Nov. 7-8, a task force in the Diocese of Eau Claire will consider five options for the diocese’s future. These range from electing a full-time diocesan bishop to replace the Rt. Rev. Keith Whitmore, to dissolving the diocese.

Other options include the election of a part-time or bi-vocational bishop, hiring a provisional bishop, or junctioning with another diocese””most probably Fond du Lac””to form a new diocese.

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Hardline opponents of an auto industry bailout branded the industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” is near, while Democrats pledged Sunday to do their best to get Detroit a slice of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue in this week’s lame-duck session of Congress.

The companies are seeking $25 billion from the financial industry bailout for emergency loans, though supporters of the aid for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC have offered to reduce the size of the rescue to win backing in Congress.

Senate Democrats intended to introduce legislation Monday attaching an auto bailout to a House-passed bill extending unemployment benefits; a vote was expected as early as Wednesday.

A White House alternative would let the car companies take $25 billion in loans previously approved to develop fuel-efficient vehicles and use the money for more immediate needs. Congressional Democrats oppose the White House plan as shortsighted.

Read it all. I happened to catch Senators Shelby and Levin debating this on Meet the Press on the way home from morning worship–check that out also.

You put this much leverage together with this much global integration with this much complexity and start the crisis in America and you have a very explosive situation.

If you are going to fight a global financial panic like this, you have to go at it with overwhelming force ”” an overwhelming stimulus that gets people shopping again and an overwhelming recapitalization of the banking system that gets it lending again. I just hope the U.S. Treasury has enough money to do it. When you look at the way A.I.G. and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are eating money, you start to wonder.

And that brings me back to Obama. We need a leader who can look the country in the eye and say clearly: “We have not seen this before. There are only two choices now, folks: doing everything we can to shore up banks and homeowners or risk a systemic meltdown.”

Yes, that may mean rescuing some bankers who don’t deserve rescuing, while also helping prudent bankers who were doing the right things. And, yes, that may mean rescuing reckless home buyers who never should have taken out mortgages and now can’t pay them back, while not aiding people who saved prudently and are still meeting their mortgage payments.

Read the whole thing.

4. A Republican candidate could have won the presidency this year.

I doubt it. In the hastily penned postmortems of campaign ’08, much of the blame for McCain’s loss seems to have fallen at the feet of the candidate and his advisers, who (so the narrative goes) made a series of lousy strategic decisions that wound up costing the Arizona senator the White House. There’s little question that some of the choices McCain and his team made — the most obvious being the impulsive decision to suspend his campaign and try to broker a deal on the financial rescue bill, only to see his efforts blow up in his face — did not help. But a look at this year’s political atmospherics suggests that the environment was so badly poisoned that no Republican — not Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, not even the potential future GOP savior, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — could have beaten Obama on Nov. 4.

Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.

In the national exit poll, more than seven in 10 voters said that they disapproved of the job Bush was doing; not surprisingly, Obama resoundingly won that group, 67 percent to 31 percent. But here’s an even more stunning fact: While 7 percent of the exit-poll sample strongly approved of the job Bush was doing, a whopping 51 percent strongly disapproved. Obama won those strong disapprovers 82 percent to 16 percent. And Bush’s approval numbers looked grim for the GOP even before the September financial meltdown.

Just one in five voters in the national exit polls said that the country was “generally going in the right direction.” McCain won that group 71 percent to Obama’s 27 percent. But among the 75 percent of voters who said that the country was “seriously off on the wrong track,” Obama had a thumping 26-point edge.

Those numbers speak to the damage that eight years of the Bush administration have done to the Republican brand. It’s a burden that any candidate running for president with an “R” after his — or her — name would have had to drag around the country.

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In a speech to conservative evangelicals, who debated proposals for a new “church within a church”, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali said that there has been a lack of discipline.

Traditionalists have been upset that the Episcopal Church escaped punishment despite consecrating Gene Robinson as Anglicanism’s first openly gay bishop.

The Bishop of Rochester told clergy that the new movement was equivalent to the Reformation in the sixteenth century, which led to the establishment of the Church of England.

He said that the Church has become too “wishy-washy” and urged evangelicals to stand against the liberal agenda.

“No Church can be effective without discipline,” said Dr Nazir-Ali.

Read it all.

Ms. [SHARON] HOURIGAN: I saw the teachers that were, you know, sitting in broken chairs and, you know, falling out of them half the time, and they would spend their money on supplies for the classroom. They would take their free time to tutor the kids, and it was just incredibly appalling to me that after all of this time, after 30 years of this kind of service, that they would be treated so shabbily ”” just appalling.

[LUCKY] SEVERSON: Denying the union was not a risky venture because the diocese knew the law, as it is now, is on its side. In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Catholic teachers were not protected by the National Labor Relations Act because they weren’t included in it. But when the act was written, the vast majority of Catholic teachers were nuns and priests. Now it’s different. Today nine out of 10 teachers are lay teachers.

In a last ditch effort to get union protection under state law, the Pennsylvania House is debating legislation, known as House Bill 2626, which is similar to laws already enacted in three states. It would force the diocese to bargain collectively with teachers’ unions in religious schools of all faiths and allow them to bring grievances to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board ”” a bill the diocese strongly opposes.

Prof. [BRIAN] BENESTAD: If the Catholic schools are required to recognize the union, then you’re going to have government, you know, intervening in the school, making decisions about whether the bishops’ invocation of doctrine is really genuine.

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The first invitation to the Lambeth Conference was given by Archbp. Rowan in May 07. The invitation included the bishops of TEC (except Gene Robinson or those consecrated under the jurisdiction of African provinces to serve in the US with disaffected parishes from TEC). The Windsor process set up to identify what was at stake in the Anglican communion after that consecration in 2003, and how the Communion should respond was still ongoing as TEC had been given until 30 Sept to intimate whether they would be complying with the requests made of them by the Primates meeting which had taken place in Dar es salaam in Feb. They and had not yet done so. Would an invitation to Lambeth before that date be like a letting off the hook? What would the impact of the invitation be in other parts of the Communion. The answer soon came.

The Archbishop of Uganda declared that those who consecrated Gene Robinson, and had not repented or apologised for that consecration, were just as responsible for the breach in the Communion as Gene Robinson himself, and if those TEC bishops were to attend Lambeth neither he nor the other bishops of Uganda would be coming.

Vinay Samuel in his recent address to the Reform Conference identifies this moment, this invitation given to the TEC, as being the trigger for GAFCON. I think he is right about that. At GAFCON in my conversations with African Bishops, this was the moment when they became convinced that nothing would be done to discipline TEC. From then on, other provinces declared they would not be coming to Lambeth.

Read it all.

“We’re delighted, we’re ecstatic, we’re so excited to move forward now,” said Cora Werley, spokeswoman for Remain Faithful, a local orthodox laity group that supported Iker’s stance. “We have an incredible gospel to spread. Now we can do it without all this hanging over us.”

Others, saying they will remain with the Episcopal Church, expressed resignation and sorrow.

“It’s certainly no surprise,” said Walter Cabe, president of the Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians, an umbrella group of conservatives and liberals who opposed the split. “But more than ever, we have a great deal of respect for rectors and parishes who have identified themselves loyal to the Episcopal Church regardless of pressure.”

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The Fort Worth diocese amended its constitution to shift allegiance from the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion, its parent body. The measure passed by a vote of 72 to 19 among the clergy and 102 to 25 among the laity, at the diocese’s 26th annual convention at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Tex.

The diocese was welcomed Saturday into the Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina, but the realignment is expected to be temporary while the diocese works to establish a conservative province of the Anglican Communion in the United States, diocese leaders said.

Bishop Jack L. Iker laid blame for the split on what he described as “a church that is increasingly unfaithful and disobedient to the word of God, a church that has caused division and dissension both at home and abroad, a church that has torn the fabric of the communion at its deepest level, a church that acts more and more like a rebellious protestant sect and less and less like an integral part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church. It is time to say enough is enough.”

Read it all.

Not so long ago, corporate giants with names like PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward roamed the earth. They faded and were replaced by new companies with names like Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target. The U.S. became famous for this pattern of decay and new growth. Over time, American government built a bigger safety net so workers could survive the vicissitudes of this creative destruction ”” with unemployment insurance and soon, one hopes, health care security. But the government has generally not interfered in the dynamic process itself, which is the source of the country’s prosperity.

But this, apparently, is about to change. Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be.

This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line.

Read the whole article.

Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry. The device has rarely been far from his side ”” on most days, it was fastened to his belt ”” to provide a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

Read it all.

Filings totaled 108,595, surpassing 100,000 for the first time since a law that made it more difficult ”” and often twice as expensive ”” to file for bankruptcy took effect in 2005. That translated to an average of 4,936 bankruptcies filed each business day last month, up nearly 34 percent from October 2007.

Robert M. Lawless, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, pointed to the tightening of credit by banks as a significant factor in the increase in October. As banks have pulled back on lending, he said, consumers have been finding it more difficult, and in many cases impossible, to use credit cards, refinance their home mortgages or fall back on their home equity lines to get them through a rough period.

“A credit crunch can drive people into bankruptcy today rather than later as sources of lending dry up,” Professor Lawless said. “With the consumer credit tightening and the economy in a nosedive, this pop could just be the beginning of a long-term rise in the bankruptcy filing rate to levels that are even higher than we had before the 2005 bankruptcy law.”

Read it all.

Q: There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the bishops’ teaching on voting is too nuanced, because it was used in all kinds of ways by all kinds of groups during this election, because it said Catholics are not single-issue voters. What do you think?

A: I think that most Catholics understand what the church’s teachings are and those voter guide things are always problematic but I think in general people understand. It was interesting, if one considers Massachusetts, which is so overwhelmingly Democratic, and 8 years ago Gore got 75 percent of the Catholic vote and four years ago, Kerry, who is Catholic and from Massachusetts, got 50 percent of it, so they lost 25 percent of the vote in four years, and I think a lot of that was the influence of people’s concerns about life issues and things like that. And obviously when you look at the differential between the way that Catholics who are church-going Catholics vote and those who are not church going Catholics, I think that the Catholics reflect the church’s teaching. Not as much as we’d like them to, but certainly this last election there were many other factors that intervened.

Q: You just alluded to the fact that many of the people in your archdiocese are Catholics who support abortion rights, including leading politicians, and both US senators. What is your position on whether they should present themselves for Communion, and whether you should be giving it to them?

A: The church’s teaching on worthiness for Communion and proper disposition is in the Catholic catechism, and it’s no secret, and I support that. There is perhaps a teaching where we have not done as good a job of late as we used to. When I was growing up, we would go to confession every Saturday, we would fast from midnight, there was much more of an awareness of the need to be spiritually prepared and in communion with the church and in a state of grace. Today I think we need to reinforce that teaching a lot. And once that teaching is better understood, then, I think, it will be obvious as to who should be coming to Communion and who shouldn’t. But until there’s a decision of the church to formally excommunicate people, I don’t think we’re going to be denying Communion to the people. However, whatever the church’s decision is, we will certainly enforce.

Q: Your position four years ago was that you did not want confrontations at the altar rail.

A: That’s right. We do not want to make a battleground out of the Eucharist.

Read it all.

In a five-page communiqué that mixed broad principles with specific steps to be tackled in the next three months, the Group of 20 pledged to bolster supervision of banks and credit-rating agencies, to scrutinize executive pay at firms, and to use fiscal and monetary policies to cushion the blow of a downturn that is hitting countries around the world.

Pushed by President Bush, who convened the gathering at the suggestion of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to free markets and trade.

But the statement also laid blame for the crisis at the doorstep of the United States, saying governments “in some advanced countries” had taken inadequate steps to prevent a buildup of risk.

The meeting laid out a roadmap for overhauling financial regulations that would postpone most of the difficult decisions until Mr. Obama is in office.

Those measures include setting up a so-called college of supervisors, which would share information about global financial institutions, and a plan to harmonize accounting standards. Mr. Bush cited a proposal to move the trading of credit-default swaps, a financial instrument that has been blamed for some of the recent upheaval, into a central clearinghouse, which would allow regulators to monitor risk.

Read it all.

Specifically we will vote against, and we urge you all to vote against, the propositions which purport to amend our diocesan constitution and canons and the resolution regarding membership in the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Those of us who will remain in the Episcopal Church respectfully but profoundly disagree that passage of these propositions will in fact “remove” the Diocese itself, as well as church property in the diocese, from the Episcopal Church.
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1. The propositions are invalid because they are inconsistent with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, such as the requirements that each diocese maintain an unqualified accession to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and for church officials to act consistently with their fiduciary duty to the Episcopal Church, including recognition of the express trust interest of the Episcopal Church in church property.

2. The propositions violate the fundamental conditions under which the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth was created from within the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas and by which the new diocese assumed the use of and control over Episcopal Church property. These conditions include conformity with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, as our diocesan officials expressly acknowledged in the primary convention of the diocese in 1982 and as they have judicially admitted on behalf of the Diocese in the declaratory judgment entered in 1984 and again in the Holy Apostles litigation in the mid 1990s.

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“Senator Obama built a substantial lead early and was able to maintain it throughout the race,” Barna explained. “Just when it appeared that he might win in a landslide, Senator McCain chose Governor Palin as his running mate, and that at least got the unmotivated conservative Christian vote on board. But the election clearly showed that a winning coalition requires more than just evangelical voters. George W. Bush rode to victory twice on the backs of the born again population. But Sen. McCain fared relatively poorly among the non-evangelical born again segment and was unable to compensate by replacing them with a large enough group of ideological moderates.”

Barna noted that in 2008, traditional issues did not energize the right. “There was substantial issue fatigue related to the moral issues that usually rev up the troops on the right. Although the candidates had very distinct and dissimilar views on moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage, those differences were not deal breakers for most voters. Voters are tired of fighting battles that seem interminable. And in a year when there were so many other significant crises and conflicts to consider, people’s focus shifted away from the usual throat-wringing issues.”

This may also have been a turning point for future elections. “It’s possible that the Catholic vote has now returned to the Democratic fold until another Ronald Reagan emerges to lead the Republicans. And ethnic voters flexed their muscle and came away with a win. Who would have suspected that African-Americans and Hispanics would have forged a bulletproof alliance? But they did this time around, and if Senator Obama fulfills his promise and his promises, then 2008 might have birthed a very significant new voting bloc for the future – one that is already 30% of the population and growing.”

Some different material here than that found elsewhere, so worth perusing.

Clergy and lay delegates of the Fort Worth Episcopal Diocese, which is theologically conservative, voted overwhelmingly Saturday to leave the Episcopal Church, which is more liberal.

The vote by 219 valid delegates was nearly 80 percent in favor of leaving. The vote was taken at St. Vincent’s Episcopal Cathedral in Bedford, where a vote also is scheduled on whether to temporarily align with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a conservative entity that includes parts of South America.

Read it all.

Delegates to the 26th annual diocesan convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth voted Saturday to realign the diocese with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

With little debate or emotion, delegates voted by order, 73 votes in favor, 20 against, among clergy and 98-28 among the laity for realignment. After the vote Bishop Jack Iker read a letter from Archbishop Gregory Venables, welcoming Fort Worth into the Southern Cone.

In a statement, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said after the vote that the church “grieves the departures of a number of persons from the Diocese of Fort Worth. We remind those former Episcopalians that the door is open if they wish to return.

“We will work with Episcopalians in the Diocese of Fort Worth to elect new leadership and continue the work of the gospel in that part of Texas. The gospel work to which Jesus calls us demands the best efforts of faithful people from many theological and social perspectives, and The Episcopal Church will continue to welcome that diversity.”

Read it all.

I realize that for some of you this means that at the conclusion of this Convention, you will no longer recognize me as your Bishop and that the House of Bishops of TEC will initiate plans to depose me as a Bishop of TEC. However, it is important to understand what such an action can do and what it cannot do. I cannot be un-ordained any more than I can be un-baptized. Holy Orders, like Holy Baptism, bestows an indelible character and imparts a grace that is irrevocable. A deacon, priest or bishop who is deposed may be deprived of exercising his ordained ministry in congregations of The Episcopal Church, but he is not thereby un-ordained or removed from Holy Orders. The clergy of this Diocese were ordained not just for The Episcopal Church, but for the one holy catholic and apostolic church. We are deacons, priests and bishops of the Church of God, not an American denomination. As the Preface to the Ordination Rites says on page 510 of the Prayer Book, “The threefold ministry is not the exclusive property of this portion of Christ’s catholic Church.” I can assure you that all the clergy of this Diocese, under the authority and protection of the Province of the Southern Cone, will continue to exercise our ordained ministry as deacons, priests and bishops in good standing in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Our Province will change, but the validity of our sacred orders will remain unchanged.

I am certain that in the months ahead, leaders of TEC will move to depose not only me, but every deacon and priest here present who votes for realignment at this Convention. Sad to say, some of you here in this Convention hall will cooperate with and facilitate those plans. It is my belief that such a course of action is not only unreasonable and uncharitable, but violates our ecclesiological understanding of what the Anglican Communion claims to be. If we are a worldwide Communion of Provinces who share a common faith, practice and ministry, then it does not make sense to depose clergy who move from one Province to another. No one is abandoning the Communion of the Church by realigning with another Province. The far better way to proceed would be for TEC to accept the fact that a realignment has occurred, to recognize the transfer of this Diocese to another Province of the Anglican Communion, and to wish us well in the name of the Lord. There is something deeply disturbing about a Church that would prefer to litigate and depose rather than to negotiate a peaceful, amicable separation among brothers and sisters in Christ who can no longer walk together.

I call upon the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and her colleagues to halt the litigation, to stop the depositions, and to cease the intimidation of traditional believers. Instead, let us pursue a mediated settlement, a negotiated agreement that provides for a fair and equitable solution for all parties, and let us resist taking punitive actions against our opponents. Christians are called to work out our differences with one another, not sue one another in secular courts.

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The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth follows the California-based Diocese of San Joaquin as well as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Quincy, Illinois, in disassociating itself from the Episcopal Church.

IRD Religious Liberty Director Faith J.H. McDonnell commented:

“Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has stated that the worst is behind the denomination. Saying so ignores the continued departure of parishes, and even more so, the decline in Sunday attendance.

“Suing four different dioceses simultaneously is going to be the least of Jefferts Schori’s problems if Episcopalians continue to die off, stop going to church or leave for more vibrant communities of worship.

Read it all.

Sixty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the landmark U.N. document still is not respected fully around the world, said a top Vatican official.

“Unfortunately nowhere in the world, even among (countries) that have embraced, promoted and highlighted this declaration,” are all its articles observed, said Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

The cardinal spoke Nov. 13 at a Vatican press conference detailing events the Vatican will sponsor Dec. 10 to commemorate the anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly’s adoption of the declaration in 1948.

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[Henry] Paulson says the department plans to expand its efforts to ease the credit crunch, but his strategy for the remaining $400 billion or so in TARP may not do the trick either. In particular, we’re skeptical of Paulson’s plans to invest in credit-supplying institutions that aren’t banks — for example, giant insurance company American International Group received a $40-billion investment from TARP — and to address problems in more types of debt markets, including credit card and student-loan debt. As the Center for American Progress points out, the biggest issuers of credit card debt are bank holding companies that have already dined at the TARP trough. And the U.S. Department of Education has already agreed to provide a secondary market for student loans.

The most welcome change that Paulson promised was to use a portion of TARP to avert foreclosures in some unspecified way. That effort may prove to be as weak as the administration’s other initiatives to help homeowners, but at least it’s aimed at the root of the credit crisis.

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A website launched Friday with the backing of technology industry and Hollywood elite urges people worldwide to help craft a framework for harmony between all religions.

The Charter for Compassion project on the Internet at www.charterforcompassion.org springs from a “wish” granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong at a premier Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in California.

“Tedizens” include Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin along with other Internet icons as well as celebrities such as Forest Whittaker and Cameron Diaz.

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No googling or using references, etc. Who is the only American writer to win an Academy award, a Tony award, and the Pulitzer prize. I didn’t know and wondered if you did–KSH.

I will be speaking at a seminar at this major event this morning which draws hundreds of youth from throughout the diocese. Please pray for the gathering, the speakers, Bishop Lawrence, and especially the participants. if you have a moment, check out the homepage of the youth minstry in the diocese of South Carolina. They do fantastic work–KSH.

The Reverend Robert Stocksdale of St. Andrew’s Church in Meriden, voted in favor of the [diocesan] resolution.

“I would like for us to have the ability to chose,” he said. “I don’t think Jesus would turn away anyone.”

Turn people away from doing what, exactly? Or does Jesus not care what people do. There is that rich young ruler gentleman, for example, whom Jesus let walk away. And for a reason too. Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, is expected today to become the fourth theologically conservative diocese to break away from the national Episcopal Church, part of a long-running dispute between conservatives and liberals.

The debate among the 2.2 million members of the U.S. Episcopal Church has raged over issues ranging from interpretations of the Bible to ordination of gay priests and blessing of same-sex unions.

The vote will be held today during Fort Worth’s 26th annual diocesan convention. It is expected that 80 percent of the delegates will vote to leave, reflecting a vote held last year, part of a long “discernment” process, Bishop Jack Iker explained.

Read it all.

Lanette Carpenter can’t say enough about the people of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Hurst, especially choir members she has sung with for years.

“They’ve walked with me through the best and worst times of my life,” she said.

But the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, including St. Stephen’s, is to break officially from the Episcopal Church today, becoming the fourth diocese in the nation to leave since last year over such issues as the ordination of female priests and the acceptance of an openly gay bishop.

Though Ms. Carpenter doesn’t agree with everything the Episcopal Church does, she loves it, and doesn’t want to leave.

So on Sunday, she and other Episcopal Church loyalists from St. Stephen’s plan to hold services at a local women’s club.

“It’s like a man and woman getting a divorce, and now they have to have two households,” she said. “It saddens me greatly.”

Read it all. This is not mainly over “social” issues, but theological ones, the nature, authority and intepretation of the Bible, how the church makes decisions, marriage, Christology and yes, even soteriology, the nature and means of salvation.