The men who live at Taste-N-See Outreach Ministry in Bridgeport have been praising God in song and scripture for a good hour when Pastor James Jennings urges them to their feet shortly after 7:30 a.m.

There are about a dozen ex-cons here, their histories muddy with violence and drugs and shame, but they stand and embrace each other with awkward grins and thumping backslaps, one after the other, as Jennings looks on.

“Sometimes we think love is what we say, but love is what we do,” Jennings says.

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It will be much more difficult for clergy from foreign churches to be brought into this country under new immigration laws, the Anglican Bishop of Ripon and Leeds has warned.

Bishop John Packer has criticised the Government’s new scheme, which is aimed at tightening immigration controls and allowing the implementation of the points-based system.

Under the new system immigrants from outside the European Union can enter under one of five new tiers, depending on their skills and occupation.

“The restriction on charitable and religious workers will affect how people of faith from other countries come here and experience and contribute to the life of faith in this country,” Bishop Packer during a debate on the new rules in the House of Lords.

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Congress and the White House inched toward a financial rescue of the Big Three auto makers, negotiating legislation that would give the U.S. government a substantial ownership stake in the industry and a central role in its restructuring.

Under terms of the draft legislation, which continued to evolve Monday evening, the government would receive warrants for stock equivalent to at least 20% of the loans any company receives. The company also would have to agree to limits on executive compensation and dividend payments, much like those contained in the government’s $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.

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His legal lineage was impeccable. A Yale man with a law degree from Harvard, he was a litigation powerhouse, a leader at some of the more prominent firms at the New York bar who then started a top-shelf practice of his own.

But when the lawyer, Marc S. Dreier, stepped off a flight from Canada on Sunday night, federal authorities in New York arrested him in a $100 million fraud scheme, portraying his recent undertakings as more high-stakes grifting than high-end lawyering.

In brazen and carefully choreographed scams here and in Canada, Mr. Dreier, who in 1996 founded a 250-lawyer firm that bears his name, is said to have tried to take advantage of the current financial crisis by selling phony debt to hungry hedge funds looking for deals.

But in an era when high-tech frauds and inside information seem to dominate the world of white-collar crime, the square-jawed lawyer, known for his forceful personality and his penchant for high living, apparently did it the old-fashioned way.

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Prof. [Ephraim] Radner, one of 10 members of the group drafting the proposed Anglican Covenant, made no bones about division as an endearing reality in the church’s life. He called unity a thing not to “cleaned of division,” but rather emanating from “the blood of the cross, from which there is no escape. We are called to be one,” he said, “but our soul depends on the sharp sword of division.”

Bishop [James] Stanton, billing his talk “a report from the front lines in the struggle for a Communion Covenant,” took issue with too-easy attempts to define the Greek word koinonia as mere “fellowship,” when the “koinonia” of God through Christ ”“ his entering into flesh and blood” in fact brings unity through restoration of “fallen, broken humanity.”

“It belongs to koinonia,” he said, “to endure sacrifice and suffering until the battle is through.” Among the obstacles to achievement of koinonia, in Bishop Stanton’s recounting: inadequate education concerning the whole question; the lack of “corporation memory” concerning the church’s own promises to rein in divisive, free-lance activity by advanced spirits; and, last, inability “to articulate in a compelling way why the office and person of the Archbishop [of Canterbury] is critical to our continuing Communion.”

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Even as the Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 300 points on growing confidence on Wall Street on Monday, a Treasury bill auction yielded a new low of less than 0.01%, noted Miller & Tabak analyst Tony Crescenzi. That’s a sign that investor demand for T-bills, considered the safest short-term assets around, is still on the rise despite a return of nearly zero.

“Things are bad, and they don’t look like they’re getting better,” said JPMorgan Chase economist Michael Feroli. The tone of the market was a bit better than last week, and Treasury yields recovered modestly on expectations of a $15 billion automaker bailout, but he cautioned against looking too much into “the day-to-day movements.”

As the reality of the mortgage meltdown and its massive, widespread aftershocks set in, investors and the financial industry are readjusting their strategies and becoming more cautious. Even if the government’s bailouts and other actions succeed in propping up the housing market, unemployment is worsening ”” a factor that will mean more losses for banks, and a tougher time for the government as it tries to stabilize the fragile economy.

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There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: as, among other things, it may plainly appear by the common prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service: the first original and ground whereof, if a man would search out by the ancient fathers, he shall find, that the same was not ordained, but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness. For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year, intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers of the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation of God’s word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth. And further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion.

But these many years passed, this godly and decent order of the ancient fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain stories, Legends, Responds, Verses, vain repetitions, Commemorations, and Synodals, that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun, before three or four Chapters were read out, all the rest were unread. And in this sort the book of Isaiah was begun in Advent, and the book of Genesis in Septuagesima; but they were only begun, and never read through. After a like sort were other books of holy Scripture used. And moreover, whereas St. Paul would have such language spoken to the people in the Church, as they might understand, and have profit by hearing the same, the Service in the Church of England (these many years) hath been read in Latin to the people, which they understood not; so that they have heard with their ears only; and their hearts, spirit, and mind, have not been edified thereby. And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient fathers had divided the Psalms into seven portions, whereof every one was called a nocturn, now of late time a few of them have been daily said (and oft repeated), and the rest utterly omitted. Moreover, the number and hardness of the Rules called the Pie, and the manifold changings of the service, was the cause, that to turn the Book only, was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times, there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.

These inconveniences therefore considered, here is set forth such an order, whereby the same shall be redressed. And for a readiness in this matter, here is drawn out a Kalendar for that purpose, which is plain and easy to be understood, wherein (so much as may be) the reading of holy Scripture is so set forth, that all things shall be done in order, without breaking one piece thereof from another. For this cause be cut off Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, and such like things, as did break the continual course of the reading of the Scripture.

Yet because there is no remedy, but that of necessity there must be some rules: therefore certain rules are here set forth, which, as they be few in number; so they be plain and easy to be understood. So that here you have an order for prayer (as touching the reading of the holy Scripture), much agreeable to the mind and purpose of the old fathers, and a great deal more profitable and commodious, than that which of late was used. It is more profitable, because here are left out many things, whereof some be untrue, some uncertain, some vain and superstitious: and is ordained nothing to be read, but the very pure word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is evidently grounded upon the same; and that in such a language and order as is most easy and plain for the understanding, both of the readers and hearers. It is also more commodious, both for the shortness thereof, and for the plainness of the order, and for that the rules be few and easy. Furthermore, by this order the curates shall need none other books for their public service, but this book and the Bible: by the means whereof, the people shall not be at so great charge for books, as in time past they have been.

And where heretofore, there hath been great diversity in saying and singing in churches within this realm: some following Salisbury use, some Hereford use, some the use of Bangor, some of York, and some of Lincoln: now from henceforth, all the whole realm shall have but one use. And if any would judge this way more painful, because that all things must be read upon the book, whereas before, by reason of so often repetition, they could say many things by heart: if those men will weigh their labor with the profit in knowledge, which daily they shall obtain by reading upon the book, they will not refuse the pain, in consideration of the great profit that shall ensue thereof.

And forasmuch as nothing can, almost, be so plainly set forth, but doubts may arise in the use and practicing of the same: to appease all such diversity (if any arise), and for the resolution of all doubts, concerning the manner how to understand, do, and execute, the things contained in this book: the parties that so doubt, or diversely take any thing, shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocese, who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same; so that the same order be not contrary to any thing contained in this book.

Though it be appointed in the afore written preface, that all things shall be read and sung in the church in the English tongue, to the end that the congregation may be thereby edified: yet it is not meant, but when men say Matins and Evensong privately, they may say the same in any language that they themselves do understand. Neither that any man shall be bound to the saying of them, but such as from time to time, in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, parish Churches, and Chapels to the same annexed, shall serve the congregation.

–The preface of the first Book of Common Prayer (1549)

This is just simply fantastic–it was also in this past Sunday’s sermon. Watch it all.

Take the time to watch it all, there is much to ponder here (Please note: because it is set in Las Vegas some of the images are less than helpful for the much younger blog reader). An excerpt from this was used this past Sunday in the sermon by yours truly–KSH

Some very interesting video material here if you follow the links provided.

The case, Varnum vs. Brien, could make Iowa the first state in the Midwest to legalize same-sex marriage. Other high-court decisions that favor gay rights advocates have come from traditionally liberal coastal states, including California, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

“This is the heartland of America – a place where family values are revered,” said University of Iowa law professor Angela Onwuachi-Willig, who has signed a court brief supporting gay-marriage rights. “It would be an incredibly strong signal for the Iowa Supreme Court to find that same-sex marriages are legal.”

Yet a ruling that upholds the Iowa Defense of Marriage Act would amount to a major setback for the gay rights movement, and a victory for social conservatives who argue that same-sex marriage threatens traditional families.

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Another possibility is that the human need to believe in the unseen world itself points to, while not proving, the reality of hidden dimensions. It could be that materialism — the philosophical assumption that reality is nothing but physical stuff — is a prejudice rather than a fact. Perhaps an unseen reality does exist, revealed in flashes that can be confusing or misleading, to which we sometimes give flaky designations. Like “Bigfoot.”

Religions used to confidently navigate this twilight realm. Some faiths still do, quietly. When Louisiana’s Catholic governor, Bobby Jindal, was being considered as a running mate for John McCain, the fact that Jindal once participated in an exorcism became a briefly sensational media story. As for the rabbi who presided over our twins’ bris, the evangelistic branch of Judaism to which he belongs, Chabad, stands out as bucking the trend elsewhere in Judaism toward a pallid rationalism.

The same trend is mirrored in other faiths, especially the shrinking mainline Protestant denominations. It may be that such pallidness helps explain why Americans turn to florid paranormal beliefs, as opposed to traditional supernatural ideas. Indeed, U.S. polling data from Gallup, reported by Baylor University researchers, shows that belief in the occult is more common among non- or infrequent churchgoers or those belonging to a liberal Protestant denomination than it is among frequent churchgoers and conservative evangelicals.

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Five Anglican archbishops have backed the introduction of a new Anglican province in North America, a significant, though unsurprising boost for the conservative-led initiative.

“We fully support this development with our prayer and blessing,”
said the archbishops, who are called primates because they lead regional branches of the worldwide Anglican Communion. “It demonstrates the determination of these faithful Christians to remain authentic Anglicans.”

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His concerns go to the very core of how America lives and how Wall Street operates. A child of the Great Depression and a man of legendary personal thrift, Volcker thinks Americans have been living above their means for too long.

“It is the United States as a whole that became addicted to spending and consuming beyond its capacity to produce,” Volcker lectured the Economic Club of New York in April. “It all seemed so comfortable.”

Bringing consumption back in line with income would not only crimp individuals and families, but also require major readjustments in the global economy, which has relied on the U.S. as consumer of last resort.

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“If you have an art form that is not accessible … it becomes snobbish and elitist and people aren’t going to be interested. That’s one of the reasons people hate poetry, why it has such a small audience. And that angers me because it takes poetry away from the people.”

–Poet Thomas Lux

The war in Iraq has ended. Violent elements remain, but they no longer threaten the very fabric of Iraq. The Iraqi Army, police and government continue to outpace the elements that would prefer to see Iraq in chaos. Iraq is no longer an enemy. There is no reason for us to ever shoot at each other again. But Afghanistan is a different story. I write these words from Kandahar, in the south. This war here is just getting started. Likely we will see severe fighting kicking off by about April of 2009. Iraq is on the mend, but victory in Afghanistan is very much in question.

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Several thoughts.

1. Why would anyone with the common sense God gave gravel think that a board consisting of political appointees–none of whom as named to date have any auto experience–will bring anything useful to the table? They don’t know jack about the industry and none has experience as a turn around investor. (OTOH, they can’t do all that much worse than the current management of the Big Three.)

2. An oversight committee comprised of 6 cabinet level officers has way too many chiefs and no indians. Who’s going to be in charge?

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How many employees does General Motors have? How many General Motors employees and their spouses are covered by GM’s pension plan? What is the ratio between the first and the second?

No googling or researching, please. Take a guess.

Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said today that new data shows that more than half of loans modified in the first quarter of 2008 fell delinquent within six months.

“After three months, nearly 36 percent of the borrowers had re-defaulted by being more than 30 days past due. After six months, the rate was nearly 53 percent, and after eight months, 58 percent,” the Comptroller said in remarks at the Office of Thrift Supervision’s National Housing Forum today.

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An agreement between the White House and Congressional Democrats over the shape of a rescue plan for the auto industry advanced on Monday, with Congressional Democrats calling for a taxpayer-financed plan that would be directed by one or more appointees of President Bush.

According to draft language being circulated on Capitol Hill, the Democrats would call for an overseer, also known as a “car czar,” with expertise in such areas as “economic stabilization, financial aid to commerce and industry, financial restructuring, energy efficiency and environmental protection.”

The United Auto Workers union, meanwhile, is planning to seek a stake in General Motors and a seat on its board in exchange for concessions by its members.

The draft bill, which is still being negotiated by Congressional leaders and the Bush administration, would provide emergency bridge loans totaling about $15 billion to the foundering automakers, particularly General Motors and Chrysler, which are in the greatest danger of financial collapse.

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The Sunday service at Greater Grace Temple began with the Clark Sisters song “I’m Looking for a Miracle” and included a reading of this verse from the Book of Romans: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

Pentecostal Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, who shared the sanctuary’s wide altar with three gleaming sport utility vehicles, closed his sermon by leading the choir and congregants in a boisterous rendition of the gospel singer Myrna Summers’s “We’re Gonna Make It” as hundreds of worshipers who work in the automotive industry ”” union assemblers, executives, car salesmen ”” gathered six deep around the altar to have their foreheads anointed with consecrated oil.

While Congress debated aid to the foundering Detroit automakers Sunday, many here whose future hinges on the decision turned to prayer.

Outside the Corpus Christi Catholic Church, a sign beckoned passers-by inside to hear about “God’s bailout plan.” Roman Catholic churches in the Detroit area distributed a four-page letter from Cardinal Adam Maida, the archbishop, offering “some pastoral insights and suggestions about how we might prepare to celebrate Christmas this year when economic conditions are so grim.”

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Disarming and self-deprecating humor could also account for the rise of younger, suburban, megachurch pastors such as California’s Rick Warren and Florida’s Joel Hunter.Both are Bible-believing evangelicals who are known for being able to laugh about themselves.

“The more seriously we take God, the less seriously we need to take ourselves,” says Hunter, of Northland Church in suburban Orlando. “Self-deprecating humor not only reduces the intimidation factor, it personifies the possibility of success of people with flaws. Pastors who can joke about their own shortcomings are paradoxically making the ideals of religion seem more possible by putting them in a common human experience.”

Humor is the final frontier of broad cultural acceptability and, yes, integration. When an imam and an evangelical preacher walk into a bar with the classic setup’s more familiar trio of a priest, a minister and a rabbi, it won’t matter that the newcomers don’t order drinks. The important thing will be that they are in on the joke.

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–We recognize that evangelical Anglicans will pursue a variety of strategies for dealing with the current crisis in the Communion, and we support those who are seeking to work through the existing Anglican Communion structures, those who are working within the framework set out in the GAFCON Statement, and those supporting both.
–We call on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates to recognize the urgency of the situation as it affects parishes and clergy, particularly in the USA, Canada and Brazil, and to give immediate and serious consideration to granting recognition to the new Province in the USA.”

Go here to read it all.

Eight members of Christ Church in Savannah attended an event in Chicago last week unveiling the constitution and laws of a proposed new North American arm of the Anglican Communion.

Christ Church spokeswoman Stephanie Lynch said the group signed a symbolic statement marking the congregation’s intention to join the new organization once membership details have been worked out.

“It’s really more of a symbolic gesture. Nothing is binding,” Lynch said. “At some point we’ll be released from (the Anglican province of) Uganda and transferred to this new North American province.”

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The Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, whose diocese encompasses Los Angeles County and five other Southern California counties, made the announcement Friday during a diocesan convention in Riverside.

Bruno acted just days after hundreds of conservative Episcopal congregations in North America formed a breakaway church amid a rift that began with the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire five years ago.

Bruno’s declaration is not expected to have a major effect on Episcopal churches in Southern California. Many have been blessing gay unions for years. But he has now made it official.

“The practice has not changed. The policy has. . . . It’s sort of like ‘coming out,’ ” said the Rev. Susan Russell, a lesbian priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Russell also is president of Integrity USA, a group representing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the Episcopal Church.

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When conservative members of the Episcopal Church announced plans to found a new denomination this week, the fissure had a direct impact on one local church and appeared uncomfortably familiar to members of another.

No churches in the local Episcopal diocese planned to join the new denomination, called the Anglican Church in North America. But a Scranton parish was among the small denominations that had previously left the Episcopal Church that formed a coalition to develop the new province.

Grace Reformed Episcopal Church, on Laurel Drive, is a part of the Reformed Episcopal Church, which broke away from the mother Episcopal Church in 1873 for broadly evangelical reasons. The pastor of the local church, the Rev. Paul Howden, said the presiding bishop of his denomination helped lead the way in forming the coalition of conservative denominations and Episcopal dioceses that on Wednesday joined to make the new province.

For the small denomination ”” there are about 10,000 members of the Reformed Episcopal Church ”” the new province signals a much bigger alliance than it has had in its history as a breakaway group.

“Instead of feeling lonely and isolated with so few churches throughout the country, we go from 10,000 to 100,000 members,” he said, referring to the estimated number of adherents in the new province.

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The church started ordaining women in 1976, according to Phyllis Bartle, Rector of St. Jude’s Episcopal Church in Orange City. She counts herself as religiously conservative. She expressed empathy for the breakaway group, but said her church won’t join it.

“I actually understand where they’re coming from, but I’m not called there, yet,” Bartle said.

Colbert Norville, rector of Daytona Beach’s St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, also sympathized with the seceding conservatives. However, he, too, is staying put.

“I believe in the Episcopal church as it stands now,” said Norville. “I think a lot of people have forgotten their ordination vows.”

Nevertheless, he was critical of a growing movement in his denomination to accept…[same sex practice].

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Speaking to a group of parishioners before Sunday’s service, Duncan likened the split to the Reformation, when Protestant churches split from a wealthy and powerful Catholic church that had “lost its way.”

“We’re in the midst of another Reformation,” Duncan said. “Protestantism has gotten off track, and God is doing what he always does, and that is to reform it.”

Without mentioning gay priests, Duncan said the established church has strayed from its adherence to Scripture. As an example, Duncan cited the refusal of a head bishop to say that the Christian faith is the only path to salvation in the afterlife.

In an interview after his sermon, Duncan called it “unfortunate” that the consecration of a gay bishop prompted the split. He said church members were already alienated by a church that diluted biblical teachings, but they were forced to leave because the consecration directly contradicted scripture.

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Take the time to look through it carefully.

Connecticut Episcopal Bishop Andrew Smith, who has struggled with defections of individual churches within his diocese in recent years, said he cannot yet gauge the significance of this development in the ongoing struggle for the soul of the Episcopal Church.

“It’s immensely sad. It really is,” Smith said. “It’s also unprecedented. I think what would give any persons or churches pause [before leaving the Episcopal Church] is the reality that although they are calling this a new province, it is not in communion with the [Anglican Communion].”

That may be wishful thinking on Smith’s part.

The bishop has watched as several of his churches, which were part of a group called the “Connecticut Six,” left the diocese and affiliated with more conservative bishops. The diocese is still embroiled in a lawsuit with one of the churches ”” Bishop Seabury Church in Groton ”” over who owns the church property. The diocese recently defrocked Bishop Seabury’s priest, the Rev. Ronald Gauss.

Both Gauss and the Rev. Donald Helmandollar ”” whose Bristol congregation also left the Episcopal Church but chose to give up its property to avoid a legal battle ”” believe the creation of a new province will give other conservative churches the push they needed to leave.

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