While we were still linked to the Brazilian Province (IEAB) we approved in our Diocesan Canons a veto on the ordination of practicing homosexuals, and heterosexuals who affirm the normality of homosexual practice, while simultaneously condemning homophobia. We also resolved to forge relationships and links exclusively with those Provinces, Dioceses, Parishes and Institutions of the Anglican Communion which uphold biblical teaching, the apostolic tradition and the resolutions of the Lambeth Conferences. The Standing Committee and bishops undersigned the “Declaration of Recife”, a document of protest against the consecration of Gene Robinson. At Lambeth 1998, of the Brazilian delegation, only Bishop Cavalcanti (Diocese of Recife) voted in favor of Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality, and in 2004, participated in a Confirmation Rite in Akkron, Ohio. On both these occasions the diocesan bishop received ample support from the wider diocesan leadership.

During the most difficult moments of our crisis with the Brazilian Province, in opposition to false teaching, the Diocese of Recife remained committed to firm debate in the sphere of ideas, principles and practice, never lowering the tone, and never indulging in personal attacks. However, the Brazilian Province (a direct ally of TEC [USA]) insisted on attacks at a personal level, a diversionary tactic intended to dislocate the focus of the real issues which divide us, so as to weaken international support for us and our just cause. In Brazil and in the UK we had to hire lawyers who could file criminal charges against our defamers – those that shy away from ecclesiastical and civil courts but not from the dark terrain of malign, using to aid their cause, the institution and the visibility of their leaders. Given the historical context, the bishop of the Diocese of Recife would have come under personal attack from adversaries, regardless of who he was.

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U.S. deaths in Iraq fell in October to their lowest monthly level of the war, matching the record low of 13 fatalities suffered in July. Iraqi deaths fell to their lowest monthly levels of the year. Eight of the 13 Americans died in combat, most of them in northern Iraq where al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent groups remain active. The U.S. military suffered 25 deaths in September and 23 in August.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, 15 U.S. military deaths were reported for October. The monthly toll in that combat theater had been in the 20s since June, when 28 Americans were killed – the worst one-month total since that war began in late 2001.

The sharp drop in American fatalities in Iraq reflects the overall security improvements across the country following the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and the rout suffered by Shiite extremists in fighting last spring in Basra and Baghdad.

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An article of faith among conservative critics of American universities has been that liberal professors politically indoctrinate their students. This conviction not only fueled the culture wars but has also led state lawmakers to consider requiring colleges to submit reports to the government detailing their progress in ensuring “intellectual diversity,” prompted universities to establish faculty positions devoted to conservatism and spurred the creation of a network of volunteer watchdogs to monitor “political correctness” on campuses.

Just a few weeks ago Michael Barone, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, warned in The Washington Times against “the liberal thugocracy,” arguing that today’s liberals seem to be taking “marching orders” from “college and university campuses.”

But a handful of new studies have found such worries to be overwrought. Three sets of researchers recently concluded that professors have virtually no impact on the political views and ideology of their students.

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The Treasury Department has turned down a request by General Motors for up to $10 billion to help finance the automaker’s possible merger with Chrysler, according to people close to the discussions.

Instead of providing new assistance, the Treasury Department told GM on Friday, the Bush administration will now shift its focus to speeding up the $25 billion loan program for fuel-efficient vehicles approved by Congress in September and administered by the Energy Department.

Treasury officials were said to be reluctant to broaden the $700 billion financial rescue program to include industrial companies or to play a part in a GM-Chrysler merger that could cost tens of thousands of jobs.

But it remained unclear whether the officials were also seeking to avoid making any decision that would conflict with the goals of a new presidential administration. The Democratic candidate, Senator Barack Obama, has said in recent days that he supports increasing aid to the troubled auto companies, while Senator John McCain has not said whether he would support aid beyond the $25 billion.

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They are discussing the Boston Globe article to which we linked earlier. I chose to make a comment. Check it out.

The strongest evidence for a tectonic shift in America’s religio-political landscape, however, comes from a Faith in Public Life survey published in October. This poll shows an astonishing turnaround among Hispanic Protestants: from 63%-37% for Bush in 2004 to 50%-34% for Obama in 2008.

But the most telling data point comes in another Faith in Public Life survey, published by Public Religion Research: Americans see Obama as more friendly to religion than McCain. While 49% said Obama was “religion-friendly,” only 45% thought that description fit his GOP opponent, who in some moments during this campaign has seemed at least as pained discussing his faith as John Kerry did four years ago.

When we look back at the 2008 presidential election, we will of course reckon with a handful of big stories about gender and race. But religion matters, too, and the big religion story is this: Democrats have effectively neutralized a political weapon that Republicans had wielded masterfully at least since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

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Jefferts Schori fielded questions from about 350 people who stayed after the service to discuss their church’s future. While some have come to terms with the growing role of gay men and lesbians in the diocese, a few said their fellow parishioners wonder whether the presiding bishop sees Jesus Christ as the sole way to salvation.

Jefferts Schori replied that like most Christians, she believes Jesus died for “the whole world.” But his life and resurrection did not sever the promise God made to Jews and to Muslims, she added, and those groups still have access to salvation.

“I see evidence of holiness in people who are not Christians. I have to assume in some way God is present and important in those people who may not consciously know Jesus. And it’s really God’s problem to figure out how to deal with that,” she said, to surprised laughter and applause. “My problem is to be the best Christian I can be and to share what I know of the power of Jesus in my own life.”

Once again the Presiding Bishop hits exactly the wrong note on the subject of the scandal of particularity. Neither Billy Graham nor Benedict XVI would make this error in this pluralistic age. This continues to reinforce the strong concern many of us have about the loss of vibrant and muscular Christology among TEC’s leaders. Read it all

The study is the first to draw a direct link between sexual content on TV and the likelihood that teens who watch it will become parents. Researchers examined survey data from about 2,000 teens. They plucked out 23 popular shows and asked how much teens watched each. They coded the replies to established indicators of sexual content for each show ”” everything from nudge-nudge jokes on network sitcoms to full-blown intercourse on steamy cable dramas.

What they found: By age 16, teens who watched a lot of sexually charged TV were more than twice as likely to be pregnant or father an out-of-wedlock baby as teens who watched very little: 12% vs. 5%. The gap holds steady through age 20. Researchers controlled for parents’ race, income and education and teens’ total TV time.

Previous studies have linked sex on TV to earlier initiation of sex; this is the first to link TV sex to pregnancy.

“I don’t find it surprising,” says Jane Brown, who studies media and adolescent health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill….

I don’t find it surprising either. Read it all.

O God, the Maker and Redeemer of all believers: Grant to the faithful departed the unsearchable benefits of the passion of thy Son; that on the day of his appearing they may be manifested as thy children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever. Amen

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

–Revelation 14:12,13, very appropriate for All Soul’s Day

Britain and France today called for urgent international action to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

In a joint statement to mark the end of their two-day visit to the region, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner said there was “no excuse for turning away”.

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, expressed concern that the Congo could be lurching towards a repeat of the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda in which up to a million people were killed. “I am very concerned by the situation in the Congo,” he told reporters during his tour of the Gulf states. “Thousands have been displaced. We must not allow Congo to become another Rwanda.”

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But the best thing that can be said for the system is that it is so democratic. In most countries party leaders are chosen by political insiders. In America rank-and-file party members (and some independents) get to choose””and this year they upset all political calculations by rejecting the inevitable Mrs Clinton on the left and choosing the maverick Mr McCain on the right.

Millions of people have been enthused by the campaigns on both sides. On October 26th 100,000 people in Denver, Colorado, endured cold weather and time-consuming security checks to see Mr Obama. Mr McCain and (particularly) Mrs Palin have also attracted boisterous crowds. More people than ever before have given money to one candidate or another””and unprecedented numbers will take part in get-out-the-vote efforts on election day. All the signs are that this will be the third presidential election in a row where turnout has gone up rather than down.

There are plenty of reasons to withhold the final cheer. The candidates spend too much time repeating their stump speeches and not enough wrestling with tough questions (the Obama campaign’s aloof way with the press is particularly inauspicious). But the biggest problem is perhaps that the process is too enthralling. Americans have spent the past two years in a state of obsession with their presidential campaign. Even important global events such as Russia’s invasion of Georgia have been seen through that prism.

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In his tract Areopagitica Milton said that, rather than be satisfied with the formulas of Luther or Calvin, the English had to forge a new liberal version of Protestantism: “God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his Church, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and as his manner is, first to his Englishmen?”

Simultaneously opposing the religious authoritarianism of both “High” and “Low”, Milton urged toleration and the co-existence of different forms of Protestantism. He persuaded Cromwell to show leniency to sects many saw as heretical: “Woe to us, while, thinking thus to defend the gospel, we are found the persecutors.”

He kept pushing for the full separation of Church and State, but was not anti-religion: Milton wanted a secular state on Christian grounds ”” only in such a State could a free Christian culture thrive. Imagine a new sort of Christian culture, Milton said, in which there is no priestly power, no uniformity of worship, no “orthodoxy”, just the free pursuit of Christian truth. Christianity must not stand against the spirit of liberty, but embrace it absolutely.

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Apparitions are in. It’s official. Martin Shaw is to star as an exorcist in the BBC One programme Apparitions, a drama devoted to supernatural phenomena to be broadcast on November 13.

For the religious believer, apparitions of the Marian variety have proved a hot topic this autumn, in places as geographically diverse as Baltimore and Bosnia. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore has asked Gianna Tallone-Sullivan, the alleged recipient of regular and apparently apocalyptic messages from the Virgin Mary, to stop publicising their content. In Bosnia, the controversial apparitions of Medjugorje, the remote Balkan village where it is alleged that the Virgin Mary has appeared daily since 1981, resurfaced with the news that the Vatican had disciplined for sexual misbehaviour a Franciscan who was once mentor to the shrine’s six seers.

Apparitions, however, are not just a topic for Roman Catholics: for the first time in history a leader of the Anglican Communion, Dr Rowan Williams, went on public pilgrimage recently to Lourdes, the French Pyrenean shrine where, according to the Roman Church, the Virgin Mary appeared on 18 occasions in 1858.

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In the coming era of personal genomics — when we all can decode our genes cheaply and easily — political candidates may be pressed to disclose their own DNA, like tax returns or lists of campaign contributors, as voters seek new ways to weigh a leader’s medical and mental fitness for public office.

The technology is advancing so quickly that the next generation of presidential hopefuls may be judged not just on the content of their character but also on the possibilities revealed in their genes, highlighting the tension between privacy and public life.

“DNA is not an issue in this campaign, but in the next campaign it will be bigger,” says George Annas, a leading authority on bioethics and human rights at Boston University. “It’s coming.”

Caught this in Friday’s Wall Street Journal–I confess I hadn’t even considered it. Ugh. Read it all–KSH.

Stephen Hawking, the cosmologist and author of the bestselling A Brief History of Time, is to take part today in a conference at the Vatican on Darwin, evolution and intelligent design.

Pope Benedict XVI this morning opened the conference, organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which will last until next Tuesday. He said that like modern Popes before him, he saw no contradiction between the Christian concept of Creation and science. He cited Galileo, whom, he said “saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author.” He added: “To “evolve” literally means “to unroll a scroll”, that is, to read a book. The imagery of nature as a book has its roots in Christianity, and has been held dear by many scientists.”

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Hmm. But if this is the case why are so many of the pundits treating it as if it is such a done deal? I suffered through ABC’s This Week on satellite radio on the way home from morning worship, and all of those on the panel had Obama in the 300 plus numbers in the electoral college on Tuesday. Given how many twists and turns there have been, and given all the media mistakes in this area in the last several Presidential races, one would think people would be a bit more tentative. In any event, read it all.

Reporting from Washington — The Supreme Court would not be recommended as the best place in this city to hear a raucous conversation that makes full use of the F-word, the S-word and assorted other vulgarities.

It is a place of decorum. Officers will firmly reprimand a visitor who errs by leaning an elbow on the next chair.

Tuesday morning may be an exception, however. While the nation focuses on the presidential election, the justices will discuss the F-word and its variants in a case that could determine whether these words will be heard more on television and radio.

The nation’s broadcasters are fighting fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission for airing the banned words, even if inadvertently.

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In metro Detroit, several churches preach the prosperity gospel in some form, with their pastors increasingly talking about the failing economy in sermons. But skeptics say such teaching contradicts the biblical teachings of Jesus by equating material success with morality. And some preachers have been slammed for spending millions of their congregants’ money on their tax-exempt churches and homes, instead of helping the poor.

What’s behind the success?

Osteen is a best-selling author, and his Houston church is reported to be the largest in the United States, drawing about 38,000 people every week for services inside a massive complex that used to be the arena for the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Millions around the world watch his televised sermons.

What explains the church’s success?

“There are so many negative things pulling us down in life, even before the economy” became an issue, Osteen said. “Our message is always about uplifting people and giving them practical principles to use in their everyday life.”

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

In Worcestershire, the Wyre Forest District Council, another of the three local bodies identified as most at risk, has nearly $14.5 million of public funds socked away in Icelandic banks, or about $145 for every resident. The council’s chief executive predicted a “devastating impact” on local services if the situation was not resolved quickly.

“The time that our community most needs us is the time we’ve got one hand tied behind our back,” said John-Paul Campion, the council leader.

London has dispatched an expert to assist the council in examining its finances and exploring its options, but that, Campion said, is not the issue.

“We don’t need someone to come help us manage our budget. We need someone to help us get our money back.”

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The conservatives tried unsuccessfully to work the system by proposing resolutions at diocesan conventions to distance the diocese from the national church. Then Lebhar and other priests began to take their congregations out of the denomination.

Other Anglican bishops, mostly from Africa and South America, extended oversight to those congregations and clergy who had departed.

Lawsuits over property ensued.

“It was a painful and disillusioning time,” Lebhar said.

The diocese successfully sued Lebhar’s parish to establish the precedent that departing congregations cannot remain on church property.

Bruce Dougherty, senior warden at All Souls Anglican, said many in the congregation were devastated to leave behind the facilities they’d held dear for nearly 30 years. Many continue to grieve.

At Grace Episcopal, member Richard Cobb, 66, was one of 35 who remained behind on the 7-acre, 21-building campus in 2006. He said it caused him “great sadness” to see hundreds of friends abandon the parish and denomination.

In April, Howard rescinded the holy orders of Lebhar and 21 other priests and deacons, many of whom already had led their congregations out of the diocese months or years before.

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Take a look.

The Cloister’s ears are ever open to the global goings-on of the Catholic community and have heard whispers of some alarming news from our British bretheren.

Westminster Cathedral, the UK’s flagship Roman Catholic place of worship, could be forced to close within a decade if cash is not found for urgent repairs. Parts of the Byzantine-style building, which opened in 1903 but has never been completed, are now in danger of structural collapse if urgent repairs are not made.

Read it all.