The new chairman of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has begun his tenure by criticizing the theological stance of Dr Rowan Williams as ill behoving the office of Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Ven Michael Lawson, the Archdeacon of Hampstead, told The Church of England Newspaper: “Rowan’s theological method is reflective and in a sense poetic. It’s a valuable contribution to the discussion. But there is a distinction to be drawn between even the best kind of speculative theology and the leadership required of an Archbishop.”

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Two unilateral cease-fires at the end of a 22-day war in the Gaza Strip will buy another pause of limited duration in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, but nothing more. There are no bilateral agreements to prevent a resumption of fighting, let alone to resolve the underlying causes of conflict. Israeli officials say they dealt a significant blow to the Hamas military infrastructure and that the leveling of large swaths of Gaza will deter future rocket attacks on Israel. Hamas leaders, emerging from the rubble to resume control of Gaza, declare the organization’s very survival a success; they live to fight another day. Both sides’ claims may be true, yet they are false victories that cost more than 1,300 lives, the vast majority Palestinian civilians, and brought devastation to Gaza. There are no winners without negotiated solutions.

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There have been four articles so far this week, check them each out and see what you think.

In other words, Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do. He is confronting liberal and conservative, gay and straight, evangelical and mainline with the common good, the ideal lost in the culture wars and polarized politics of the last 20 years, but essential to the functioning of the American — or for that matter, any — democracy that hopes to survive its current crises and prosper long into an indefinite future.

Obama seems to think (and I agree) that serving the common good is not an option. It is a necessity.

Replacing the rhetoric of constant confrontation with a sustained search for areas of agreement and reasonable compromise is not an option. It is a necessity.

Unless we all have a stake in the future of the republic, the republic has no future.

Can we do it? Yes, we can.

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Problems involving taxes and a household employee surfaced during the vetting of Caroline Kennedy and derailed her candidacy for the Senate, a person close to Gov. David A. Paterson said on Thursday, in an account at odds with Ms. Kennedy’s own description of her reasons for withdrawing.

The account emerged 14 hours after Ms. Kennedy announced that she was taking her name out of contention for the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, and as Mr. Paterson, according to two Democrats told of his thinking, was leaning toward selecting Representative Kirsten E. Gillibrand, an upstate lawmaker in her second term in Congress.

Hard feelings toward Ms. Kennedy were clearly building among the governor’s staff on Thursday, after a dramatic evening in which she was reported to be dropping out, then wavering, then ultimately, shortly after midnight on Thursday, issuing a statement ending her candidacy.

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Archbishop Drexel Gomez says he believes that the church is being called to be a credible agent of transformation in contemporary society, and that a church convinced of its security in God’s grace can be liberated from the social pressures to conform to the culture, and can take a public stand where there are matters of justice and human well-being at stake.

At a special service on Sunday, Jan. 11 at Christ Church Cathedral, he said such a church can represent the gospel by its public declarations about social issues and the “hands-on” involvement with the problems in communities, and it is then that the church would be doing the “work” that it is called to do.

“Because of what God has already done in Jesus and what God will do as he brings His new creation into fulfillment, because this good and gracious God has made provision for believers to be incorporated into His plan, believers have certain responsibilities [and] the heart of the apostle’s challenge is to be steadfast.”

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The president’s elderly stepgrandmother brought him an oxtail fly whisk, a mark of power at home in Kenya. Cousins journeyed from the South Carolina town where the first lady’s great-great-grandfather was born into slavery, while the rabbi in the family came from the synagogue where he had been commemorating Martin Luther King’s Birthday. The president and first lady’s siblings were there, too, of course: his Indonesian-American half-sister, who brought her Chinese-Canadian husband, and her brother, a black man with a white wife.

When President Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday, he was surrounded by an extended clan that would have shocked past generations of Americans and instantly redrew the image of a first family for future ones.

As they convened to take their family’s final step in its journey from Africa and into the White House, the group seemed as if it had stepped out of the pages of Mr. Obama’s memoir ”” no longer the disparate kin of a young man wondering how he fit in, but the embodiment of a new president’s promise of change.

For well over two centuries, the United States has been vastly more diverse than its ruling families. Now the Obama family has flipped that around, with a Technicolor cast that looks almost nothing like their overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant predecessors in the role. The family that produced Barack and Michelle Obama is black and white and Asian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. They speak English; Indonesian; French; Cantonese; German; Hebrew; African languages including Swahili, Luo and Igbo; and even a few phrases of Gullah, the Creole dialect of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Very few are wealthy, and some ”” like Sarah Obama, the stepgrandmother who only recently got electricity and running water in her metal-roofed shack ”” are quite poor.

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The Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, Donald W. Wuerl; the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori; and the primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, Archbishop Demetrios, also offered prayers at other moments in the service.

“It was a conscientious effort to have a broad tapestry representing the faces of American religion,” said Rabbi David N. Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, in Washington.

The participants, prayers and even the hymns were chosen by a committee of Mr. Obama’s advisers on religious issues. Altogether, there were three rabbis because the committee wanted to have representatives from the Reform, the Conservative and the Orthodox branches of Judaism (the Orthodox branch usually prohibits participation in a prayer service in a Christian sanctuary).

The Rev. Jim Wallis, a liberal evangelical who is president of Sojourners, a magazine and grass-roots organization based in Washington, said that he and other religious leaders were preparing for a dual role: to challenge the president on policies, and “to clear the way” so people will be prepared to accept the changes he institutes.

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When it comes to getting advice, President Barack Obama is following the same path as the two men who came before him.

He’s leaning on Bishop T. D. Jakes of the Potter’s House in Dallas. The bishop returned from Washington Wednesday afternoon.

“It was an amazing experience,” Jakes said. He summed up the entire day in one word, “Unity.”

“Republicans and Democrats, young and old were coming together in a sense that was mind boggling.”

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A change in the announced dates for the upcoming primates’ meeting and a slight adjustment to the published calendar of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will make it possible for her to attend the final day of the gathering of Anglican leaders in Alexandria, Egypt.

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Since the days of the founding of this Republic, Episcopalians have prayed each inauguration day that “Rulers may have grace, wisdom and understanding to execute justice and to maintain truth.”

In keeping with a tradition of more than 230 years, some 40 people attended a prayer service at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church of Waco this morning to request heaven’s aid to guide incoming President Barack Obama.

Although Psalm 146 advises “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them. When they breathe their last, they return to earth and in that day their thoughts perish,” the faithful nonetheless asked God to bless the President of the United States and all those in authority to make them ever mindful of their calling to serve the people.

“Grant them wisdom and strength to know and to do your will,” said the Rev. Jeff Fisher, rector of St. Alban’s.

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Mr. President and Mrs. Obama, Mr. Vice President and Dr. Biden, and your families, what an inaugural celebration you have hosted! Train ride, opening concert, service to neighbor, dancing till dawn . . .

And yesterday . . . With your inauguration, Mr. President, the flame of America’s promise burns just a little brighter for every child of this land!

There is still a lot of work to do, and today the nation turns its full attention to that work. As we do, it is good that we pause to take a deep spiritual breath. It is good that we center for a moment. What you are entering now, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, will tend to draw you away from your ethical center. But we, the nation that you serve, need you to hold the ground of your deepest values, of our deepest values.

Beyond this moment of high hopes, we need you to stay focused on our shared hopes, so that we can continue to hope, too.

We will follow your lead.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams will pay a pastoral visit to the Diocese of Ely as it launches its 900th anniversary celebrations this weekend, 23”“25 January.

During his visit, Dr Williams will meet with all the clergy of the Diocese, and visit communities reflecting its diversity, before taking part in the inaugural Eucharist of the 900th anniversary celebrations at Ely Cathedral on Saturday 24th January. The visit will end on Sunday at Great St Mary’s Church, Cambridge, where he will preach the Hulsean Sermon before the Vice-Chancellor and University.

His pastoral visit will begin on Friday 23rd January at 3 pm in Cambourne, a new town community near Cambridge. Dr Williams will dedicate the site for the construction of an eagerly awaited church building.

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An island nation that bulked up on debt and lived beyond its means. A plunging currency. And a financial system edging toward nationalization.

With the pound at a seven-year low and still falling, and the British banking system requiring ever-larger rounds of government support, it is no wonder that observers in recent days have pronounced this city “Reykjavik-on-Thames.”

While that judgment seems exaggerated, there are uncomfortable echoes of Iceland’s financial downfall in Britain’s trajectory. And for ordinary consumers, who enjoyed a long boom that transformed the drab United Kingdom of old into Cool Britannia, fears are growing that Britain could return to the economic stagnation of the 1970s.

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President Barack Obama moved swiftly on Wednesday to impose new rules on government transparency and ethics, using his first full day in office to freeze the salaries of his senior aides, mandate new limits on lobbyists and demand that the government disclose more information.

Obama called the moves, which overturned two policies of his predecessor, “a clean break from business as usual.” Coupled with Tuesday’s Inaugural Address, which repudiated the Bush administration’s decisions on everything from science policy to fighting terrorism, the actions were another sign of the new president’s effort to emphasize an across-the-board shift in priorities, values and tone.

“For a long time now there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said at a swearing-in ceremony for senior officials at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House. He added, “Transparency and rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

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Christian thinkers came together at Methodist Church House in London this week to talk about how the Churches could lead the way through the economic crisis.

The speakers at the conference, organised by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, examined the root causes of the current crisis from a faith perspective, and gave their thoughts on what the free churches’ role in addressing the global financial meltdown should be.

John Ellis, strategic leader of the Methodist Church Connexional Team and Treasurer of the United Reformed Church who previously worked at the Bank of England, made the connection between HSBC’s relatively safe riding of the economic storm and its chairman’s Christian faith.

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A bid to end the ban on monarchs and heirs to the throne marrying Roman Catholics was introduced at Westminster yesterday in a bid to reverse “centuries of ingrained anti-Catholic prejudice” in Britain’s constitution.

Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris’s Royal Marriages and Succession to the Crown (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill also seeks to end the discrimination against women in the line of succession under the 300-year-old Act of Settlement.

However, what the Oxford MP’s private member’s bill does not attempt to do is to change the law so that Catholics can become king or queen.
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He told The Herald that his bill was not the vehicle for this as it would require the support of the UK Government, which was not minded at present to make such a major change given that it would lead to the disestablishment of the Church of England.

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Twenty clergy members participated in the service, including representatives from the Islamic Society of North America, the Hindu Temple Society of North America, and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Prayers were based on the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer but had been retouched to draw on George Washington’s 1789 prayer service and Abraham Lincoln’s 1865 inaugural address.

In her sermon, Watkins drew on words from an array of thinkers, including Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Cherokee Indians, and even the president himself. She particularly emphasized the need to draw on American values, like loving one’s neighbor, in the face of crises.

“Our individual well-being depends on a world in which liberty and justice prevail,” Watkins said. “This is the biblical way. It is also the American way.”

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In February, 2005, Vic Toews, who was then Justice critic for the opposition Conservatives, said changing the definition of marriage would open the door to court challenges from people who wanted polygamous unions.

But even those who argued in favour of expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples say they anticipated this sort of legal manoeuvre.

David Rayside, a political science professor at the University of Toronto who studied the same-sex debate, said yesterday he is not at all surprised that the defence is being attempted in a polygamy case. But he doesn’t think it will fly.

“The claims by same-sex couples were, in some respects, very conventional,” he said. “In fact, there has been no significant change in the direction of moving beyond two people.”

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The Obama administration will take action on a “dramatic scale” to revive credit markets and strengthen banks so they are able to lend, Treasury secretary- designate Tim Geithner said on Wednesday.

Testifying to the Senate committee considering his nomination, Mr Geithner said the Obama team was working on a “comprehensive plan” to deal with the banks and hoped to unveil it soon.

“We’re going to have to do more to make sure that the institutions at the core of our system are strong enough that they can lend.”

He refused to offer any insight into how this might work, in spite of pressure from the markets, saying: “We have seen the costs in terms of uncertainty created by tentative signals not followed up with clear actions.”

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It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

That’s a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans – evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at – to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own – then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome – others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don’t reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms.

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Dave Brown, one of this city’s best-known home builders, had kept his head above water through the housing downturn, not missing a single interest payment on his loans.

So he was confounded a few months back when one of his banks, spooked by the decline in his company’s revenue, suddenly demanded millions of dollars in additional collateral to continue carrying loans on his projects.

He was unable to come up with the money, and in October, JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on five of his developments. Shortly thereafter, Brown Family Communities, 33 years in the business, decided to shut its doors.

“They treated me like a deadbeat who missed his car payment,” said an embittered Mr. Brown, 76. “They wanted their money now.”
After riding high on one of the greatest housing booms in American history, the nation’s home builders today face a devastating reversal of fortune.

When you hear people say credit isn’t flowing or credit isn’t available this is what it means in practical terms. Read it all .

Some Anglo-Catholics might be uneasy with the predominance of evangelicals among those seeking a third North American province of the Anglican Communion. But the leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has thrown its support behind the movement in part because of assurances that there will be no women bishops, according to the Rt. Rev. Jack L. Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth.

“Though we have our continuing differences over the issue of the ordination of women, Bishop Duncan and the [Common Cause Partnership] lead bishops have given assurances that there will be no women bishops in the new province and that the historic, traditional theological position on this matter will be protected, respected and welcomed,” Bishop Iker said.

“Anglo-Catholics, while grateful for this attitude, have called for a thorough theological and biblical study of the issue of the ordination of women as a top priority in the new province,” Bishop Iker said. “It must give due consideration to the reality that the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which together comprise over 80 percent of the world’s Christians, have already spoken on this issue and that unilateral actions on our part have already seriously damaged ecumenical relations for the future. Are we willing to submit to the mind of the whole church? Are we really committed to abiding by common consent as determined by general councils?”

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President Barack Obama’s economic team is pushing to complete a bank-rescue plan that can be twinned with the $825 billion stimulus package being negotiated with Congress to alleviate the rapidly deepening financial crisis.

While full details of the rescue haven’t been settled yet, people familiar with the deliberations said the package is likely to include a $50 billion-plus program to stem foreclosures, fresh injections of capital into the banks and steps to deal with toxic assets clogging lenders’ balance sheets.

Officials “feel like they need to move quickly to provide some sense of calmness and assurance to the market that the government isn’t going to let this problem get out of hand,” said John Douglas, a partner at the Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker law firm and a former general counsel at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

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A terrible question stalks our land, even at this moment of promise and hope: Is there any principle left by which the United States can transcend the present bitterness and divisions over religion in public life and live up to the promise of the American experiment? Race was the older and, many thought, deeper of America’s problems, but today’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as well as Barack Obama’s election shows how far we have come. Religion in public life is the next challenge.

James Madison called America’s original settlement of this contentious issue the “true remedy,” and for a long time it was certainly the most nearly perfect solution the world has seen.

Today, however, controversies over religion in public life have become the holy war front of the wider culture wars, and the American settlement is going awry. Whether it’s the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places, faith-draped monuments to our war dead or even a government-church partnership ”” as with the faith-based initiatives ”” controversy invariably rears its head at the intersection of religion and public life.

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Less than half the money dedicated to highways, school construction and other infrastructure projects in a massive economic stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats is likely to be spent within the next two years, according to congressional budget analysts, meaning most of the spending would come too late to lift the nation out of recession.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office found that only about $136 billion of the $355 billion that House leaders want to allocate to infrastructure and other so-called discretionary programs would be spent by Oct. 1, 2010. The rest would come in future years, long after the CBO and other economists predict the recession will have ended.

The report does not analyze the entire $825 billion package assembled by House leaders and aides to President Obama. Parts of the legislation are scheduled to be considered today in the House Appropriations Committee. Other portions of the proposal — including $275 billion in tax cuts and nearly $200 billion for jobless benefits, health care for the poor and other entitlement programs — are expected to pour cash into the nation’s faltering economy much more quickly.

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Most clearly, yesterday’s activities confirmed that Obama’s presidency will mark a sharp break from that of George W. Bush. The new president did not hesitate to highlight their differences. Obama spoke of a change of course in the Iraq war and of the “false choice between our safety and our ideals.” Those last words were aimed at the previous administration’s positions on civil liberties and harsh interrogation techniques. Most striking, given Bush’s unpopularity abroad, was Obama’s declaration to a world watching intently and eagerly that “we are ready to lead again.”

Still, perhaps mindful that during his campaign he faced doubts about his readiness to lead in a time of war, Obama was careful to balance his pledge to use diplomacy and cooperation in dealing with the rest of the world with steely words of resolve. To those out to harm the country, he said: “Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

The confluence of events and Obama’s politics suggest that his presidency could bring a more momentous shift — from an era of conservative governance to one in which Washington assumes a more central role in the life of the country.

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He’s not only the first black president, but the good dad he wishes he’d had. She’s not just the first black first lady, but the good mom her good parents raised her to be. Just being themselves, the Obamas ”” a stable and mutually respectful couple, traditionally bourgeois in all the important ways ”” may inspire a more critical healing process than the ongoing one between American blacks and whites: namely, bridging the 45-year-old rift between black men and black women.

It is a great irony of American history that the passage of the longest-overdue social legislation ever written ”” the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act ”” coincided with the collapse in the general culture of the very institutions ”” religion and marriage ”” that sustained black dignity and self-respect throughout centuries of slavery and entrenched racism.

America’s resilient majority-white society was rocked, but not completely rolled, by the sexual revolution that erupted at the end of the civil rights era. But the social pillars of a psychologically fragile black community were toppled in that anti-establishment earthquake.

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