In an effort to maintain copies of important Anglican documents that have become virtually impossible to find on the internet (due to websites becoming obsolete or being moved to new servers), we are creating the T19 document archive.
True Union in the Body
American International Group, the insurer that has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.
Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the administration of President Barack Obama that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.
Lawrence H. Summers, director of the National Economic Council, on Sunday called the A.I.G. bonuses “outrageous.” Having said that, he quickly added on the ABC “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” program: “The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system.”
Another top White House economic adviser, Austan D. Goolsbee, described a seemingly visceral reaction by Mr. Geithner to word of the bonuses. “He was really upset by the news. He stepped in and berated them, got them to reduce the bonuses.” Mr. Goolsbee, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” added: “I don’t know why they would follow a policy that’s really not sensible, that’s obviously going to ignite the ire of millions of people.”
If you hang around the renewable-energy business for long, you’ll hear a lot of tall tales. You’ll hear about someone who’s invented a process to convert coal into vegetable oil in his garage and someone else who has a duck in his basement that paddles a wheel, blows up a balloon, turns a turbine and creates enough electricity to power his doghouse.
Hang around long enough and you’ll even hear that in another 10 or 20 years hydrogen-powered cars or fusion energy will be a commercial reality. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard one of those stories, I could buy my own space shuttle. No wonder cynics often say that viable fusion energy or hydrogen-powered cars are “20 years away and always will be.”
But what if this time is different? What if a laser-powered fusion energy power plant that would have all the reliability of coal, without the carbon dioxide, all the cleanliness of wind and solar, without having to worry about the sun not shining or the wind not blowing, and all the scale of nuclear, without all the waste, was indeed just 10 years away or less? That would be a holy cow game-changer. Are we there?
…Congressional Quarterly covers the story of former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti, whose PMA Group lobbying firm s now reportedly at the center of an FBI probe following the search of its suburban Virginia office in late 2008. The firm is slated to disband at the end of March 2009.
While charging nearly $107 million in lobbying fees, and growing from a start-up to the 11th largest lobbying firm in the USA at one point, the firm reportedly dispensed more than $1.5 million in political contributions via Magliochetti, 9 of his close relatives, and a Political Action Committee he controlled. Those contributions were made to key House Appropriations committee members John Murtha [D-PA], James Moran [D-NJ], Peter J. Visclosky [D-IN], and to John Sununu [then R-NH]. Contributions were also made to Mike Doyle [D-PA], Tim Holden [D-PA], Michael Capuano [D-MA], Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL], and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
In 2007 alone, PMA clients received some $100 billion in government contracts, an amount that is about 20% of all federal contracts that year. PMA clients also got nearly $300 million in earmarks in a the House Defense Appropriations panel’s spending bill for FY 2008.
In recent days, given the three Oscars and the fame of the actor, there has been much talk of a film entitled “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a story by writer Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. It is the story of a man who is born old, with the monstrous features of an 80-year-old and, growing, he is reinvigorated to the point of dying as a real baby. The story is of course paradoxical, but there could be an all-together more real application if transferred to the spiritual plane. We are born “old men” and we must become “new men.” The whole of life, not just adolescence, is a “an evolutionary age!”
According to the Gospel, one is not born a child but becomes a child! St. Maximus of Turin, a Father of the Church, describes Easter as a passage “from sins to holiness, from vices to virtues, from old age to youth: a youth understood not of age but of simplicity. We were in fact fallen by the old age of sins, but by the Resurrection of Christ we were renewed in the innocence of children.”[15]
Lent is the ideal time to apply oneself to this reinvigoration. A preface of this time states: “You have established for your children a time of spiritual renewal, so that they may convert to you with their whole heart, and free from the ferment of sin live the vicissitudes of this world, always oriented toward eternal goods.” A prayer, stemming from the Gelasian Sacramentary of the 7th century is still in use in the Easter Vigil; it proclaims solemnly: “Let the whole world see and recognize that all that is destroyed is reconstructed, all that is old is renewed, and everything returns to its integrity, through Christ who is the principle of all things.”
The Holy Spirit is the soul of this renewal and rejuvenation.
Like all skilled historians, Irons and Noll expertly track change over time. C. Vann Woodward did the same in his classic The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955), a work that showed how a new, crippling racism developed in the post-Civil War years. Race was not an eternal, changeless force, asserted Wood ward. History is contingent. Its course is not set. Good history can raise consciousness and inspire activism. Martin Luther King Jr. called Wood ward’s book the “historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” Like Woodward, Irons and Noll reveal the changing dynamics of race, politics and religion. They show how groups and individuals adapt to new currents and reevaluate and sometimes reify tradition.
Irons and Noll prompt readers to think historically about the hope of racial reconciliation and the tragedy of church-sanctioned race hatred. It’s almost impossible to read these two books and not ponder what might have been or what could be in store for America’s future.
To look at him, one would never guess the Rev. Patrick Douthitt has inoperable melanoma, an aggressive malignant form of cancer, growing in his abdomen.
Energetic and robust, he smiles and laughs easily as he continues to work as a chaplain at St. Francis Hospice, bringing comfort to people in the final weeks and days of their lives.
Douthitt retired last April after 20 years as rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa and 15 years at churches in Illinois and Wisconsin.
Since then, he has worked full time as a hospice chaplain, doing what he loves the most: being with people in difficult times.
The Bishop of Manchester has been forced to take a vow of email silence after his computer was crippled by a virus.
The Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch has been unable to send or receive messages for nearly 10 days, it has emerged.
And a `significant’ number of the 6,000 emails he thought he had sent during the past 10 months probably never found their mark, a Church of England spokesman admitted.
Computer experts are now frantically trying to restore his computer, which was hit by the virus on March 3.
I have always been Christian and religious. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. I grew up in a conservative Presbyterian church that had a “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude toward homosexuality, so when I came out to myself as queer at 16, I was devastated. At first, I considered celibacy, which was my church’s only answer to homosexuality. I would have done it if I had been sure it was what God wanted, but something nagged at my brain. How could it be a sin? Who was I hurting? Why would God have made me queer if I was supposed to spend my whole life fighting it? I considered fighting it for a while and then started looking for other options.
I found out that a lot of denominations, my own included, have groups of churches that accept lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people without asking us to change. I visited all different kinds of churches: Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ and Presbyterian. I began to believe that homosexuality was not a sin ”” that God loves and accepts people regardless of their sexuality. Jesus, after all, said nothing about homosexuality and spent his time with all sorts of people on the fringes of society.
Still, I had considered getting ordained for a long time, and if that was what God was asking of me, I wanted a church in which I could get ordained without having to be celibate. This narrowed my search down to the Episcopal, Unitarian Universalist and Metropolitan Community Churches. I tried a local Episcopal Church and fell in love almost instantly. Sexuality was talked about openly, I was allowed to be a Sunday school teacher and the priest herself was in a committed, same-sex relationship. I was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in June of 2009 and it felt like coming home.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
In a departure from traditional Islamic teaching, [Ann Holmes] Redding holds that Jesus was crucified and was resurrected. She argues that the Koran doesn’t explicitly deny that Jesus was crucified but only that the Jews did not crucify him.
However, Imam Abdul Hameed of the Islamic Center of Rhode Island disputes her reading. The Koran, he says, makes clear that Jesus was not crucified or killed, but was “lifted up” to God.
“I think she is a little confused. There is no possibility for one to be both a Muslim and a Christian,” Hameed said. “If she doesn’t believe that [Jesus] is the son of God, she is not Christian. And she can’t be a Muslim if she believes Jesus died on a cross.”
Redding says she prefers to stay away from some of the constructs theologians have built to help decide “who is in and who is out, who is going to heaven and who is not.”
“The Trinity is a wonderful way of thinking about God. ”¦ But will I reduce God to a formula? No.
(ACNS) This year’s United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was focused on the priority theme: the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS. The Anglican Delegates at CSW 53 worked hard to ensure that they took part in all aspects of the two week programme. They were delegates representing the Anglican Communion and supported by Anglican Women’s Empowerment (AWE) and by a worship framework which in itself was challenging and sustaining.
The delegates in reporting to their provinces recognize the progress which has occurred in many countries. The number of women in decision making roles has increased and girls’ access to education has improved. The delegation learned about innovative services for those living with HIV/AIDS; those involving faith communities, including Anglican churches, were of particular interest.
While we focused on areas of success, there were multiple examples of gender inequality that led the Anglican delegation at CSW to voice considerable concerns. Of special concern was the slow implementation of the MDGs, their relation to gender equality and the resulting increased suffering of women and girls. This is further exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
This time France and Germany are right ”” and America is wrong. To the extent that there was a real transatlantic difference of opinion at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting this weekend, the Germans and French had economic logic on their side in resisting American demands for extra fiscal stimulus and trying to focus the discussion on strengthening the big global banks.
For while there may be a case in the future for additional tax cuts and public spending programmes to boost economic demand, the immediate priority must be to restore the stability of the world financial system and to persuade or force banks to start lending again to non-financial businesses and consumers.
Until the banks return to something like business as usual ”” which does not mean the insanity of the 2004-06 boom years but the normal availability of credit on sensible terms to sound borrowers ”” additional fiscal stimulus will not do much good. If, on the other hand, the banks were stabilised and the moderate reduction of credit that is still required were allowed to proceed in an orderly manner, as was broadly happening until the collapse of Lehman, then the world economy would probably emerge from recession in the next six months or so, without any need for further macroeconomic measures.
The singing of songs at rugby grounds is not something normally associated with demure young mezzo-sopranos, but the one who will give voice to the national anthem at the England v France match at Twickenham today is different. Very different.
Faryl Smith is just 13, but already a double record-breaker, and seemingly set to be an even bigger sensation than Charlotte Church when she burst on to the scene aged 11.
Smith’s £2.3m recording contract was the biggest ever awarded to someone of her age, and since the resulting album was released a week ago, it has become the fastest-selling solo classical debut in chart history.
Once a month Lindsay Blanks holds a free seminar in a hotel conference room and it never fails to fill up with desperate people looking for help.
The 46-year-old lawyer knows if he runs a notice advertising free advice on divorce, people with questions will come.
“It’s the one topic we get the most questions about,” Blanks said bluntly. “We do these every month.”
In the spring of 2002, the Navy’s brig became the only military installation on U.S. soil to house enemy combatants. The first to arrive was Yaser Hamdi, a young Saudi who soon asked for a soccer ball.
A reasonable request, one brig staffer said.
“Personally, since the recreation area the detainee has access to is secured, he is under two man guard force supervision and cuffed during recreation call, I feel comfortable with accommodating the request, unless directed otherwise,” he said in an e-mail to another brig official.
But Department of Defense leaders thought otherwise, citing policies for detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Two weeks before President Obama and the leaders of 19 other industrial nations meet to confront a global economic contraction, top finance officials meeting here Saturday committed to take “whatever action is necessary” to revive consumer demand and regulate global markets. Even so, they still seemed to have divergent views on what actions are required now.
At the end of a lengthy meeting at a luxury resort outside London, the so-called Group of 20 nations, who together represent about 85 percent of the world economy, failed to offer specifics about the size or timing of coordinated economic stimulus, and some major players, including Germany and France, remain deeply reluctant to add to their national debt.
They did agree on Saturday to commit more money to help developing countries and the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, where the downturn has spilled into street protests. They also pledged to step up efforts to revive bank lending and regulate hedge funds.
But the vagueness of the commitment meant that it will be up to President Obama ”” and the leaders of China, Russia and European nations, among others ”” to convince the markets that they have a coordinated strategy as they prepare to meet in London on April 2.
In Dante’s frightful underworld, sinners face a descending funnel of worsening torments keyed to their sins. The lustful are blown about in a whirlwind; the violent boil in a river of blood. But betrayers, alone at the bottom, are savaged by the one called emperor of the realm of grief, in person.
“You’re buried in ice, because you’ve buried yourself in ice,” Mr. Pinsky, the nation’s poet laureate from 1997 to 2000 and a Dante scholar, said in an interview on Thursday.
Poetic justice, indeed.
It is fitting, Mr. Pinsky says. Betrayal destroys the trust that binds humanity, and with it, the betrayer himself. Dante was consumed by the sadness and mystery of sin ”” and what it did to the sinner:
How is it that we choose to sin and wither?
Like waves above Charybdis, each crashing apart
Against the one it rushes to meet …
“It’s not a poem about ”˜you did this, you get this,’ ” Mr. Pinsky says. “It’s about the mystery of how you hurt yourself. It’s like the Talmud says: the evils others do to me are as nothing compared to the evils I do to myself.”
Which leads to a question: When we do hit the bottom ”” this year or years from now ”” how will we know?
There’s no easy answer.
Mr. Galbraith was not the first or last economist to acknowledge fallibility at predicting turning points. (Just think back to assurances by top government officials in early 2007 that the growing problems with subprime mortgages were “contained.”)
Forecasting the end of the current recession is even more difficult because it will hinge on how quickly and efficiently governments resolve the crisis in the banking system. Many investors continue to worry that the world’s biggest financial institutions are insolvent, despite assurances from Washington that those firms have plenty of capital.
How political leaders diagnose and fix the banks will be critical. Analysts say misguided and erratic government responses exacerbated Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s and the Depression of the 1930s. “The things that can screw it up are bad policies,” said Thomas F. Cooley, dean of the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Clearly, Professor Jones has ignored or is somehow unaware of these facts. Otherwise he would not have complained that “some of the speakers felt that the schismatics (as I think of them) were being persecuted by lawsuits, and needed to be protected from the American Church.” If he knew or cared about the facts, he would have known that TEC has initiated almost 60 lawsuits against churches, clergy and individual lay leaders whose only offense has been to try and “mend the tear” in the fabric of our beloved Anglican Communion by seeking refuge in other Anglican jurisdictions. Those who have fled to other provinces of the Anglican Communion have been appealing to the rest of the Communion for protection from the American Church, and rightly so. Our office keeps track of these legal actions: they are increasing at an astonishing rate and in flagrant violation of the Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam (2007) where the Primates demanded that TEC stop the litigation. Literally millions of dollars have been wasted by TEC in emptying church buildings-and to what end?
Professor Jones ought to know better than to claim that “the power of the executive branch (the President and the Presiding Bishop of TEC) is carefully circumscribed.” This is nonsense. Unlike the checks and balances provided in the Constitution of the United States, TEC has no independent judicial branch that can circumscribe abuses of power by bishops. For this exact reason, the Presiding Bishop of TEC has been able to flagrantly torture the plain meaning of the canons in order to unlawfully depose 12 bishops. TEC diocesan bishops have been free to do the same to their clergy, inhibiting and deposing over 108 deacons and priests. In addition, the Presiding Bishop has violated both constitution and canons in dismissing lawfully constituted Standing Committees and substituting her own, in furtherance of litigation. These facts document both the abolition of the rule of law within TEC and an imperial expansion of the Presiding Bishop’s powers.
[i]We’ve corrected the headline. Apologies to the Rev. Ashey for not catching the misspelling sooner. — the elves[/i]
I Think that the American Church has done an embarrassingly poor job of articulating its theology. I found its response to the Windsor report (the document To Set our Hope on Christ) lacking in theological arguÂment, and have said so publicly.
The American response emÂphasised the personal experiences of members of the Body of Christ in the United States, and the historical context that led to the American Church’s current position. This reÂflects the nature of theological discusÂsion in the United States, where exÂperience and historical context are given great weight. This is a theoÂloÂgical epistemÂology that I think is quite defensible. But I think that theoÂÂÂlogical epistemÂology itself needed to be defended, and that was not done.
In addition, by putting so much emphasis there, doctrinal issues that are part of the debate ”” such as scripÂÂtural authority and human nature ”” were not discussed in enough depth. Theologies of scripÂtural authority and human nature were implied, but not elaborated. The American position deserves (and can receive) a stronger theological rationÂale.
Polish the pitchfork, fire up the torches, and join the revolt preparing to storm the Bastille.
That’s the impression from several corners of the state about the public’s mood. Voters already steamed about the recession, rising unemployment and corporate bailouts are growing angry about taxes, too.
News that one in 10 Georgia lawmakers is a repeat violator of tax laws has fueled a call for a rewrite of the state’s tax code. And it’s not just conservatives who feel that way.
When a series of President Barack Obama’s appointees to senior posts revealed they hadn’t paid their taxes, the anger grew. When the Georgia Department of Revenue distributed a list of outstanding taxes owed by 19 unnamed legislators, frustration boiled further.
This underlines once again the need for massive tax simplification. Read it all.
Police clashed with stone-throwing protesters today as opposition politician Nawaz Sharif defied a house-arrest order and denounced what he called the government’s creation of a “police state.”
Pakistan’s burgeoning political crisis has alarmed Western governments, who fear the power struggle will sideline efforts to rein in a growing Islamic insurgency. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton separately telephoned Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday in an effort to calm the situation, but street violence was escalating.
…A proposed agreement between the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Episcopal Church to recognize each other’s sacraments and allow case-by-case acceptance of each other’s clergy stirred debate.
Several people were concerned or confused about how it would apply locally, where there are two bodies called the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. The larger of the two is aligned with an Anglican province in South America rather than with the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal agreement passed 140-135.
Two fathers of gay men spoke on opposite sides of the chastity and fidelity amendment.
“The current ordination standard cuts like a knife into the heart of what many presbytery members believe about their friends and family members who are gay,” said Mike Fazzini, an elder at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church. “It sends my son the message that he is not worthy … because the love of his life happens to be of the same sex.”
Thomas Fox, an elder from Lebanon Presbyterian Church in West Mifflin, said one of his sons was gay and had died of AIDS.
“My son Don was a very loving son and I miss him greatly,” he said. “However, he chose to live a life of sin … I would not have recommended him for a position of leadership in the church.”
[John] Jones and a fellow soldier, Army Master Sgt. George Holmes, are the first two students in a six-month course designed to train seriously injured veterans for finance industry jobs. The Philadelphia brokerage firm that runs the program was founded by a wounded Vietnam veteran who believes that anyone who excels in combat can flourish in the high-pressure world of Wall Street.
The timing may not seem opportune: The financial sector is in meltdown, the stock market is volatile, layoffs are rampant, and the public backlash against Wall Street is fierce and unsparing.
So why bring wounded veterans into this cauldron?
“These are the guys who sacrificed to keep us free. If you don’t trust them, you don’t trust anybody,” said Lawrence Doll, the disabled Vietnam veteran who started the Drexel Hamilton brokerage.
Clay Caulfield balanced a worn Bible in his lap as he grasped the outstretched hands of fellow worshippers in the cramped church office. His eyes closed tight, he bowed his head in prayer, his words spilling forth in a fervent stream.
“We pray for your guidance, God, as you change us and make us grow,” Caulfield said to a chorus of “Amens.”
This time last year, the tall, toned 23-year-old would have been on the mound, pitching for the College of Charleston Cougars. Those days are behind him.
Just weeks after being drafted by the New York Yankees last June, the hard-throwing right-hander decided to hang up his cleats and pursue a higher calling: working as a servant of God. Caulfield walked away from the Yankees, gave up his sports scholarship and hasn’t played baseball since.
On March 13, the annual convention of the Diocese of South Carolina urged Dr Forrester’s election be rejected arguing it was not “confident that this is someone who will preach and uphold the apostolic Trinitarian Faith.”
South Carolina urged the “Bishops and Standing Committees of all other Episcopal Dioceses,” a majority of whom must affirm the Northern Michigan election, “carefully and thoroughly to study especially those writings, statements, and sermons of the Reverend Kevin Thew Forester pertaining to the Doctrine of the Trinity and the nature of God.”
The Executive Board of the Diocese of Dallas on March 10 questioned the legality of the election, saying no valid election had been held.
In planning the election Northern Michigan said its new bishop would not be given the authority of a traditional bishop, but would be part of a 12-person Episcopal Ministry Support Team (EMST). “While the Bishop will carry out the roles designated by the Constitution and Canons such as ordination, confirmation, and attendance at the House of Bishops, other “episcopal/ apostolic/ oversight” roles will be fulfilled by members of the [EMST],” the discernment committee said.
On March 9, President Obama signed an executive order lifting restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. This is not surprising. It was a campaign promise. What is surprising is that, at the very time the federal government is throwing its full faith and credit behind experimentation on human embryos, science appears to have progressed away from embryonic stem cell research, leaving the government – and politicians – in the dust.
Whatever you thought about the Bush Administration’s limitations on funding for embryonic stem cell research, that policy decision had the effect of promoting scientific research on alternative and ethical sources for stem cells. It is likely that these avenues of research would not have been pursued if all available funds had been channeled into embryo research. These avenues have been among the most successful in developing the promised cures that embryonic stem cells have failed to even begin to achieve. The most notable ethical stem cell advancements have taken place on three fronts.
The president fails to understand that “scientific integrity” does not exist in a vacuum; it must always answer to the demands of ethics. Science is not free to pursue what it is able to do; it must be limited by what it should do in an ethical world that seeks to protect every individual as well as benefit the whole of humanity. .
The cold calculus behind embryonic stem-cell research frankly frightens us. If it is OK to “derive” stem cells from the living bodies of human embryos, causing the destruction of those innocent human lives, what does that say but that some lives have more value than others? That we may sacrifice some human lives for the benefit of others?
Don’t fool yourself. Someday you’ll be sick and weak, aged and infirm. A society that places no value on intrinsic human value is no place you’ll want to live — or eventually be allowed to.
DAVID MASCI (Senior Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life): Well, there are a range of different opinions in the American religious community. Jewish denominations and mainline Protestant churches, particularly more liberal mainline Protestant churches, support embryonic stem cell research. They say that embryos have intrinsic value and worth, but the incredible possibilities that stem cell research offer ”” cures for cancer and things like that ””outweigh those concerns and considerations. On the other side, you have the Roman Catholic Church and you have more evangelical Protestant churches like the Southern Baptist Convention or the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. These churches oppose embryonic stem cell research. They say an embryo was a person and a person has the right to life and you can’t take that life away, even for the best of reasons.
[KIM] LAWTON: What about the people in the pews? Do they agree with the leadership of these institutions?
Mr. MASCI: White evangelical Protestants tend to support their churches’ positions on this, only 31 percent of evangelicals support embryonic stem cell research, so a substantial majority say no, we don’t want embryonic stem cell research. With Catholics it’s the other way around. Fifty-nine percent of American Catholics support embryonic stem cell research, which of course goes exactly against what the Church’s leadership is saying. Now when you ask Catholics who attend Mass regularly, weekly, whether they support embryonic stem cell research, that number drops to 46 percent. So people actually in the pews, people who are attending Roman Catholic services, they do ”” they are more likely to support their leadership’s views on this than Catholics as a whole.