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Update: The ENS release on the Presiding Bishop’s remarks is now out and is here.

In the Akan language of West Africa there is a concept called Sankofa. San means return; ko mean go; and fa means take. So Sankofa refers to returning to fetch something you once discarded so you can take it back home. A popular symbol used to represent this concept depicts a mythical bird that flies forward with its head turned back. And those who practice Sankofa in this tradition, by taking the best from the past into the future, are understood to be wise. There isn’t much of this ideal in America. New stands at the center of our national mythology: New World, New York, New Deal, New Frontier. When we leave something behind, we are not inclined to go back and fetch it.

There is of course much of 2008 to leave behind, not the least being our greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. But there is much to go back and fetch, too, including the collective determination of our voters to open the White House to a man who could not even have voted when Abraham Lincoln was alive.

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Israel bombed Gaza for a third day Monday in an “all-out war” on Hamas, as tanks massed on the border and the Islamists fired deadly rockets in retaliation for the blitz that has killed at least 318 people.

Anger over the mammoth bombing campaign spiralled in the Muslim world , UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon again deplored the violence, and efforts to hold talks between Syria and Israel were suspended as a result of the bombardment.

With Israeli tanks idling along the border of the battered Palestinian enclave , the army declared the area a closed military zone — a move that in the past has often been followed by ground operations.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has warned of a possible ground offensive, declared that the Jewish state was in “an all-out war with Hamas and its proxies”.

“We will avoid as much as possible hitting civilians while the people of Hamas and other terrorists deliberately hide and operate within the civilian population,” he told a parliamentary session.

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Watch it all. Makes the heart glad.

The struggles of the Big Three automakers are sending shock waves through the philanthropic community: The three companies gave a combined $116 million in charitable donations last year.

Listen to it all from NPR.

The man is a marvel. I especially enjoyed the footage of him playing before President Kennedy at age 7 which I had not seen before. Watch it all.

As a conservation measure, Dr. Chu has recommended that Americans drive smaller cars or pay higher taxes for driving big ones. It would be reassuring to know that he also supports, as a short-term measure for reducing dependence on foreign oil, responsible efforts to increase domestic oil and gas production. These may be stopgap supplies, but having them is better for us than not.

When he was introduced to the press by Mr. Obama, Dr. Chu said, “We must repair the economy and put us on a path forward toward sustainable energy.”

That is fine, as long as he keeps his eye on the economy’s near-term energy requirements, as well.

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‘Today” in the ancient Christian tradition is a long time.

“Today” almost always lasts more than 24 hours. In fact, “today” often is eight days long in the church. On Christmas Eve, we sang, “Today He who holds the whole creation in His hand is born of a virgin.” On Christmas Day we sang, “Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One, and the Earth offers a cave to the Unapproachable One.” On Friday, we sang, “Today Bethlehem receives Him who reigns forever with the Father; today angels glorify the newborn babe in hymns worthy of God.” And today (Sunday) we sing, “Today the ancient bond of the condemnation of Adam is loosed: Paradise is opened to us.” And “Today in Bethlehem I hear the holy angels: Glory to God in the Highest!”

Why is “today” so long?

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Two-thirds of Americans think religion is losing its influence on U.S. life, a sharp jump from just three years ago when Americans were nearly evenly split on the question, according to a new Gallup Poll.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans think religious influence is waning while just 27% say it is increasing. That perspective demonstrates a continuing downward trend, Gallup said.

But the 27% figure is still higher than the record low, set in a 1970 poll, when just 14% of Americans thought religion was increasing in influence.

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The government has rejected criticism by five Anglican bishops who questioned the morality of its policies.

The Bishops of Durham, Winchester, Hulme, Manchester and Carlisle accused ministers of failing to tackle poverty and pressuring people to get into debt.

But Cabinet Office Minister Liam Byrne said Labour had fought hard to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

And Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell, who represents the Church in the Commons, called the bishops’ claims “nonsense”.

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The Rt Rev Graham Dow, the Bishop of Carlisle, and the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester, said Labour deserved credit for some past achievements but it was struggling to balance its conscience with the pressure to win the next election.

“I agree with the Conservatives that the breakdown of the family is a crucial element in the difficulties of our present society,” said Bishop Dow.

“The Government hasn’t given sufficient support to that because it is scared of losing votes.” He argued that Labour’s failure to back marriage and its “insistence on supporting every choice of lifestyle” had had a negative effect on society. “I think Labour has got tired,” he said. Bishop Scott-Joynt said: “The Government hasn’t done anything like enough to help those less well off, particularly in terms of tax redistribution. There also has been the disaster of the 10p tax.

“It is imperative that this Government help the poorer people and hold the hard-hit communities in its sights, but it seems to have its eye on re-election instead.”

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The regular suggestion that baling out countries will lead them to misbehave again won’t work, either. That might be true of some banks and businesses. It isn’t true of countries like Tanzania, who, after debt remission, have experienced the joy of developing education, medicine and other essentials ”“ in fact, of building a new home.

We don’t just need, in other words, to ”˜turn the economy round’, and get it back to where it was before. We need to turn it inside out. The Christmas message suggests that it’s time for a major, global rethink about the multiple, interlocking problems we can no longer ignore. And about the many-sided, but essentially coherent, proposals that flow directly from the Baby at Bethlehem, demanding to be worked out at street level.

The God who became homeless at Christmas longs to transform this muddled old world into a place where all can be at home at last. That’s what Jesus taught us to pray for.

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[Archbishop Greg] Venables attended both conferences, at Canterbury and Jerusalem. “The African bishops did not go to Lambeth because they feel frustrated,” he said. “The Anglican Church in Africa has always been very traditionalist, and when the United States suddenly took a direction that many did not agree with, they found there was no room for dissenters.”

This is the dilemma today in the Anglican Church, he said. There is a “serious crisis,” according to Venables, but the decision to break apart or to settle the differences has been postponed. The next Anglican Communion Primates’ Meeting, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be held in Alexandria, Egypt in February 2009.

The bishop of Argentina said he had persuaded the African primates to attend, but he admitted that they are skeptical about the results that can be expected.

“They say that it will just be more of the same. Their patience is running out. They feel that ‘again, white people want to run everything their own way,'” he said.

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The Rt Rev John Packer, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, and the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield, accused Parliament of becoming increasingly liberal and unchristian, and said that breaking the relationship would bring greater independence.

The bishops are the most senior ecclesiastical figures to support Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said earlier this month that a separation of church and state would not be “the end of the world”.

There is already growing pressure among Labour MPs for the Government to press ahead with disestablishment. Three former cabinet members said they backed the idea and it is clear that many senior figures within the Church would not oppose such a move.

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Dr Williams last week spoke out against government policy on public spending, likening it to “an addict returning to a drug”. This Christmas week, he wrote in these pages on the dangers of sticking to political principles at all costs, a road that at its most extreme end leads to the kind of abomination that was Nazi Germany, a mindset in which people’s lives are disposable and sacrificed on the altar of those principles.

When it comes to observations such as these, Dr Williams will still have his critics and detractors, in spades. It seems to be a characteristic of his that he doesn’t much care that he has them; it clearly doesn’t seem to discourage him from saying the unsayable. In that, he follows an honourable episcopal tradition of speaking truth to power. But his interventions in these straitened times feel peculiarly more appropriate. It may well be that what prelates have to say fits times of recession and depression rather more directly than in times of boom and plenty. That’s perhaps as it should be; yesterday’s great Christian festival celebrates the birth of the son of God in the hardship of a stable. It also means that Dr Williams and his fellow bishops should brace themselves for a demanding and wearing 2009, because rather more people might be listening more carefully.

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He shows up at the hottest clubs in the wee hours and spends thousands on top-shelf liquors, doling out five-figure tips like silver dollars.

He’ll send bottles of Dom Perignon to tables around him on a whim, or take a waitress out on the town for a shopping spree.

His name isn’t Diddy. He doesn’t show up in the gossip columns or the Fortune 500. He’s not even a celebrity at all.

The mystery man whose bottomless pockets have made him a legend in clubland is a young Episcopal priest from northeastern Pennsylvania.

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Meanwhile, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth continues its ministry as an integral part of the Episcopal Church.

Many Episcopalians in the diocese never supported Iker’s aims. Months before Nov. 15, they began planning to reorganize and refocus the diocese ”” not to organize a new one, as Iker’s office has recently claimed ”” to carry on the work of the church. They formed the mostly lay-led Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians, made up of representatives from the remaining Episcopal congregations.

Since Nov. 15, 15 intact and reorganizing parishes and somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 Episcopalians in North Texas, some meeting in their parish property and some in temporary space, have continued to worship and explore new and effective ways to carry out the church’s mission of reconciling the world to God and all humankind to each other through Jesus Christ.

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If Barack Obama wants to help end the genocide in Darfur, he doesn’t have to look far for ideas of how to accomplish that.

President Bush and his top aides have been given, and ignored, a menu of options for tough steps to squeeze Sudan – even destroy its air force – and those will soon be on the new president’s desk.

The State Department’s policy planning staff prepared the first set of possible responses back in 2004 (never pursued), and this year Ambassador Richard Williamson has privately pushed the White House to squeeze Sudan until it stops the killing.

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Sixteen of the Rev. Darrell Venters’s fellow priests are running themselves ragged here, each serving three parishes simultaneously. One priest admits he stood at an altar once and forgot exactly which church he was in.

So Father Venters, lean and leathery as the Marlboro man ”” a cigarette in one hand and a cellphone with a ring tone like a church bell in the other ”” spends most of his days recruiting priests from overseas to serve in the small towns, rolling hills and farmland that make up the Roman Catholic Diocese of Owensboro.

He sorts through e-mail and letters from foreign priests soliciting jobs in America, many written in formal, stilted English. He is looking, he said, for something that shouts: “This priest is just meant for Kentucky!”

Read it all from the front page of the New York Times.

From here:

While Randy believes that Jesus is “the Way” for him and most Westerners, he affirms the truths enshrined in the great religions and philosophies of the human race.

From here:

We commit ourselves to exemplify and promote the following values as a church:

* The reliability and power of the Bible, God’s Holy Word.

* The good news of redemption and restoration in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

* The necessity of the fresh life of the Holy Spirit in ministry and worship.

* The importance of the local church in the work and advancement of the kingdom of God.

* The strengthening of marriage and family relationships.

* Possessing the spirit of grace and demonstrating attitudes of graciousness in our church family and to our community.

* Generosity and biblical stewardship with our resources.

* Harmony and stability in church and family life.

* Servant-heartedness in spirit and action.

* The pursuit of personal holiness, integrity and Christ-like character.

* Excellence in all that is done in service for Christ and His church.

* Practicality in the presentation of God’s Word.

* The expression of love, friendliness and warmth in the work and worship of the church.

A theological rift between a local Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York led a congregation to re-establish its faith with a new denomination.

On Dec. 14, a majority of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church congregation in Tonawanda left in a split with the diocese over theological differences between the increasingly liberal Episcopal Church and more conservative congregation members, establishing St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church less than a mile away. Now, the small congregation of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Forestville is following suit with a similar break from the diocese, likely establishing itself as a local mission extension of the new-found St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church.

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