North Korea escalated its vitriol against South Korea and the United States on Wednesday with warnings of a “powerful military strike” if any North Korean ships were stopped or searched as part of an American-led operation to intercept vessels suspected of carrying unconventional weapons.

South Korea agreed to join the operation after North Korea tested a nuclear device on Monday, its second nuclear test in three years. The North had earlier warned the South not to participate in the operation, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative.

“We consider this a declaration of war against us,” North Korea said in a statement carried by its official news agency, KCNA. “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty, and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.”

Read it all.

As job losses rise, growing numbers of American homeowners with once solid credit are falling behind on their mortgages, amplifying a wave of foreclosures.

In the latest phase of the nation’s real estate disaster, the locus of trouble has shifted from subprime loans ”” those extended to home buyers with troubled credit ”” to the far more numerous prime loans issued to those with decent financial histories.

With many economists anticipating that the unemployment rate will rise into the double digits from its current 8.9 percent, foreclosures are expected to accelerate. That could exacerbate bank losses, adding pressure to the financial system and the broader economy.

“We’re about to have a big problem,” said Morris A. Davis, a real estate expert at the University of Wisconsin. “Foreclosures were bad last year? It’s going to get worse.”

Read it all.

President Obama and Dick Cheney conspired on Thursday to propagate a myth. The myth is that we lived through an eight-year period of Bush-Cheney anti-terror policy and now we have entered a very different period called the Obama-Biden anti-terror policy. As both Obama and Cheney understand, this is a completely bogus distortion of history.

The reality is that after Sept. 11, we entered a two- or three-year period of what you might call Bush-Cheney policy. The country was blindsided. Intelligence officials knew next to nothing about the threats arrayed against them. The Bush administration tried just about everything to discover and prevent threats. The Bush people believed they were operating within the law but they did things most of us now find morally offensive and counterproductive.

The Bush-Cheney period lasted maybe three years. For Dick Cheney those might be the golden years. For Democrats, it is surely the period they want to forever hang around the necks of the Republican Party. But that period ended long ago.

Read the whole piece.

The last Lambeth Conference proceeded without resolutions, and the result was far deeper and richer because of the focus on conversation, dialogue and building relationships. This ACC meeting conducted some of its business in that way, but a great deal of time and energy was devoted to hearing reports and dealing with resolutions.

The members of the ACC arrive and are inundated with long and complex papers on a great variety of subjects ”“ resolutions from the different networks, the recent draft of an Anglican covenant, the Windsor Continuation Group report, a 256-page book on ecumenical relations and many others ”“ and are expected to make decisions after brief opportunities for small-group discussion.

The details of decision-making would surprise most Episcopalians. A small group develops material ahead of time and then offers it to the group with relatively little opportunity for deliberation or alteration. The resolutions presented for deliberation are vetted and edited by a resolutions committee.

The pace of work is leisurely, with 40 hours of formal work spread over 11 working days. The chair exercises a great deal of discretion in referring or declining to entertain resolutions; elections are not straightforward ballots for a single individual; discussion of any proposed amendment requires the support of 10 members; the president (the Archbishop of Canterbury) steps in fairly frequently to “steer”; and the rules are quite evidently not Robert’s!

The contrasts with General Convention are significant….

Read it all.

The role that marriage plays in kinship encompasses far more than arranging a happy home in which two hearts may beat as one–in fact marriage is actually pretty indifferent to that particular aim. Nor has marriage historically concerned itself with compelling the particular male and female who have created a child to live together and care for that child. It is not the “right to marry” that creates an enduring relationship between heterosexual lovers or a stable home for a child, but the more far-reaching kinship system that assigns every one of the vast array of marriage rules a set of duties and obligations to enforce. These duties and obligations impinge even on romantic marriage, and not always to its advantage. The obligations of kinship imposed on traditional marriage have nothing to do with the romantic ideals expressed in gay marriage.

Consider four of the most profound effects of marriage within the kinship system.

The first is the most important: It is that marriage is concerned above all with female sexuality. The very existence of kinship depends on the protection of females from rape, degradation, and concubinage. This is why marriage between men and women has been necessary in virtually every society ever known. Marriage, whatever its particular manifestation in a particular culture or epoch, is essentially about who may and who may not have sexual access to a woman when she becomes an adult, and is also about how her adulthood–and sexual accessibility–is defined. Again, until quite recently, the woman herself had little or nothing to say about this, while her parents and the community to which they answered had total control. The guardians of a female child or young woman had a duty to protect her virginity until the time came when marriage was permitted or, more frequently, insisted upon. This may seem a grim thing for the young woman–if you think of how the teenaged Natalie Wood was not permitted to go too far with Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass. But the duty of virginity can seem like a privilege, even a luxury, if you contrast it with the fate of child-prostitutes in brothels around the world. No wonder that weddings tend to be regarded as religious ceremonies in almost every culture: They celebrate the completion of a difficult task for the community as a whole.

Read the whole article.

Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago ”” the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says.

When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. “It illustrates how severe the recession has been.”

Read it all.

With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax.

Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax — called a value-added tax, or VAT — has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.

At a White House conference earlier this year on the government’s budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama’s policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate.

“There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform,” Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. “I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table.”

Read it all.

Publishing powerhouse Christianity Today International, citing hard times in its industry, is shutting down four publications and laying off 31 workers.

According to a plan announced Friday (May 22), two magazines will fold: Today’s Christian Woman and the Campus Life College Guide, which targets Christian undergrads. CTI will also cease to publish Glimpses, a worship bulletin insert with stories from Christian history, and Church Office Today, a bi-monthly newsletter read by church administrators.

The moves, which reduce CTI staff numbers by 22 percent to 108 employees, mark the latest attempt to cut costs at Carol Stream, Ill.-based CTI. In January, the organization shuttered two other magazines””Marriage Partnership and Ignite Your Faith””and sold a third, Today’s Christian.

Read it all.

…”˜virtue ethics’ has grown in importance over the past 30 years. What matters is not just following the rules but becoming a good person and developing virtuous habits. Rules help us to see what this might entail but crucial to moral growth are the following of practices and learning from life in community. Tradition, the example of others, training in moral goodness ”” these are all important elements in becoming good men and women. For Christians this underlines the importance of life in the church. Christianity is not something we learn just by reading books but by being with others and taking part in such regular practices as prayer and worship. ”˜Café church’ and other so-called ”˜fresh expressions’ that are not tied to such traditional practices often overlook this.

How does a secular society teach its members moral values and enable them to grow in virtue? The favourite prescriptions of New Labour, lessons at school on how to be happy or sex education and citizenship classes, only go so far. Most people learn by joining the ”˜little battalions’, voluntary organisations like the scouts and guides, who carry out certain practices designed to inculcate a particular ethos. At their best, church schools do this, which is the real reason why they are so effective. Once the public schools aimed to turn out ”˜Christian gentlemen’, a flawed ideal, perhaps, but better than the entrepreneurial creed taught today.

Parliament needs to think about how it can instil in members a genuine sense of public service. A start has been made by the Speaker’s departure, but we should see the deselection of MPs who grossly abused their expenses. In fact, what is so alarming about the whole affair is the little sign of genuine remorse on display anywhere among politicians.

Read it all.

This commission has met in Tanzania, Canada, and India. Sweden was chosen as the venue for this meeting in order to allow sustained engagement and deepening theological reflection on the theme of diakonia, which has been emerging as the central theme on which this commission wants to make its contribution. The discussion discovered strong links between the “six marks of mission,” which provide a framework for Anglican engagement in God’s mission, and developments in Lutheran understandings of diakonia, as seen in the Diakonia in Context handbook which Kjell Nordstokke from the LWF introduced to the group.

The life of the Christian Church has diaconal character, this commission believes. Using a diaconal lens has allowed the commission to examine issues of ecclesiology and ministry from fresh perspectives. Diakonia and koinonia (communion) are two faces of the same reality, two sides of the same coin on which God’s image is stamped. The commission believes that a renewed and full understanding of diakonia will strengthen the mission and unity of the Church at every level. God is now calling Anglicans and Lutherans to find concrete diaconal expressions for the growing communion between them.

The inseparable relationship of diakonia and communion is integral to the church in every context, but it is expressed in particular ways in each place. As part of its mandate, the commission received regional reports, which reflect a diversity of contexts, needs, and responses. The commission is learning that there is no single pattern for growth in communion; promising initiatives are found in many forms. In some places, the prophetic dimension of diakonia has particular urgency, and in fact is the leading impetus toward greater unity. In others, the most pressing challenge is to bring diakonia closer to the heart of the churches’ life together.

Read it all.

(The column to which this responds was posted earlier on the blog here–KSH).

Gilbert’s observations were in the context of our current economic woes. As soon as we know how bad things are (or aren’t), he said, we’ll adapt and get along just fine.

He may be right as far as it goes, but the same uncertainty that makes human beings unhappy also stimulates the creativity that makes us happy. Was Leonardo da Vinci happy? Homer? George Washington? Man’s drive to create isn’t born of contentment but of anxiety attached to the unconscious agitation that comes from the greatest certainty ever devised: Death.

Here is a truism, if not an aphorism. Without death and the certainty of physical finitude, Homo sapiens would never have left the cave. Unhappiness and uncertainty — rather than happiness and certitude — are what get us off our duffs.

No misery. No Sistine Chapel.

So what happens to the creative spirit when government steps in to soothe our anxieties? Without unhappiness, what happens to culture? Without adversity, what happens to motivation? Parents know. Suffice to say, the work ethic is not strong among the coddled.

Read it all.

The ruling Tuesday by California’s Supreme Court upholding a ban on same-sex marriages shows that, despite a year of successes for gay activists, the road toward full marriage rights remains difficult — particularly when voters are given a direct say.

The decisions in three states this year to legalize same-sex marriage, and the possibility that three others will soon follow suit, created a sense that the issue was gaining irreversible momentum and widespread acceptance, with many advocates making comparisons to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But the California ruling served as a reminder that same-sex marriage remains deeply polarizing, and the movement is likely to see more reversals and setbacks as it tries to expand beyond the favorable terrain of the Northeast.

Read it all.

The May 26 ruling of the high court upheld the constitutionality of the state’s Proposition 8 declaring that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” but said the voters’ decision could not be applied retroactively to those who married before the initiative was passed.

Bishop [Stephen]Blaire said he and his fellow bishops “are strongly committed to protecting the dignity and worth of every human person” and supported “the intent of law to provide equal protection for all.”

“However, such purpose does not have to trump the natural and traditional definition of marriage between a man and a woman,” he added in a May 26 statement. “The law has found other ways to regulate civil unions without destroying the traditional understanding of marriage.

“We believe — as do the majority of Californians — that marriage between a man and a woman is foundational to our culture and crucial for human perpetuity,” Bishop Blaire said.

Read it all

Some see it as the universal symbol of sacrifice in World War I, others see it as the undisputed sign of Christianity, but it will be up to the Supreme Court to make a final determination as to whether a 7-foot cross remains standing in a California desert to memorialize war veterans.

The cross was first erected in 1934 in what is now the federally protected Mojave Desert Preserve by a group of veterans whose doctors advised them that the desert heat would help them recover from shell shock.

Veterans today say this war memorial and others like it across the country that use religious symbols are under attack by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“They are not the enemy; they are just dead wrong,” says Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Read it all.

Bishop Michael Ingham asked the retiring bishop of Algoma, Ronald Ferris, to consider assisting him last year by serving as a pastoral bishop to conservative parishes in his diocese under the shared episcopal ministry plan set out by Canadian House of Bishops.

However, in BC Supreme Court Tuesday, May 26, the former Canadian bishop said he felt strongly that he couldn’t serve as a bishop within a diocese that, in his opinion, had departed from biblical teaching and blessed same sex unions.

Read it all also.

There was also extensive discussion on the principles of trust law in relation to religious purpose trusts, as well as the court’s traditional inherent jurisdiction and its duty in respect of such trusts.

Mr. Cowper gave an overview of the history of the crisis and the division occurring in the Anglican Church, not only locally in New Westminster (which he referred to as “ground zero” of the crisis), but nationally and internationally, characterizing this case as one of “division not departure”. The Anglican Church is dividing, so is it fair and just for one party (in this case, the defendant diocese and bishop) to claim all the property and assets? As Mr. Cowper stated, “The question before the Court is whether the division created by the Defendants’ doctrinal and liturgical innovations justifies the expulsion of the plaintiff congregations from the church properties they funded, maintained and have long considered their church homes”.

Mr. Justice Kelleher was clearly engaged and listened intently throughout the day, asking clarifying questions on several occasions.

Read it all.

“This is going to be a new era of frugality,” [David] Rosenberg said. “This isn’t some flashy two- or three-quarter deal. This is a secular change in household attitudes….”

The coming decade may, in some ways, remind people of those years during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, Rosenberg said.

“Life wasn’t so bad for the Cleavers,” he said, referring to the family depicted in “Leave It to Beaver,” the television show that ran from 1957 through 1963. “They weren’t up to their eyeballs in debt and they weren’t a three-car family with a 5,000-square-foot McMansion.”

Behavior by newly ascetic U.S. consumers, whose spending drives more than two-thirds of the economy, will translate into “less return to capital and less-remarkable equity returns,” said Milton Ezrati, senior economist at Jersey City, New Jersey- based Lord Abbett & Co., which manages $70 billion. “The whole picture is muted.”

Read it all.

The Church of Scotland last night effectively gagged its members from public discussion of gay ministers and postponed a potentially divisive vote on the issue for two years in a desperate bid to avoid a schism.

A debate on a call to ban openly homosexual people from appointment to the ministry was torpedoed by an 11th-hour motion that dominated the General Assembly yesterday.

Instead of proceeding with the vote ”“ which many traditionalists had warned could split the Kirk ”“ members agreed to establish a commission to study the issue and report back in 2011.

Read it all.

The [Episcopal Church General] convention’s host, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, has tried to send a message by approving a policy at its December convention that gives local priests permission to officiate at rites of blessing for same-sex couples.

“I think it’s about time we get about the business of having marriage equality in the church,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese. “I am waiting with bated breath to see what happens” at the Anaheim meeting.

Conservative Episcopalians argue that liberalized policies will not only alienate U.S. parishes but will also add further strain to the church’s troubled relationship with church leaders in Africa and elsewhere in the global Anglican Communion.

This month, one of the communion’s worldwide leadership bodies affirmed its support for moratoriums on consecrating non-celibate gay bishops and on blessings for same-sex couples. The group was led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion’s spiritual leader, who is scheduled to attend the Anaheim convention.

Resisting those mandates will “turn up the flame,” said the Rt. Rev. Edward S. Little II, bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana and a leader in a group of clergy trying to strengthen Episcopal ties to the Anglican Communion. “If we take a step at General Convention that takes us down the road, we will lose more people,” he said.

Still, the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, said she believes the U.S. church and its global partners can co-exist even if they disagree on the rights of gay men and lesbians in the church. She also said she did not expect this year’s convention, at which bishops, clergy and lay leaders are allowed to vote, to reach a decision on the issue of same-sex blessing rites.

“We’re not afraid of people watching over our shoulders,” Jefferts Schori said. “We live with diversity on issues that get people charged up.”

Read it carefully and read it all.

The California Supreme Court upheld a ban on same-sex marriage today, ratifying a decision made by voters last year at a time when several state governments have moved in an opposite direction.

The decision, however, preserves the 18,000 marriages performed between the court’s decision last May that same-sex marriage was lawful and the passage by voters in November of Proposition 8, which banned it. Supporters of the proposition argued that the marriages should no longer be recognized.

Today’s opinion, written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George for a 6-to-1 majority, said that same-sex couples still have the right to civil unions, which gives them the ability to “choose one’s life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship that enjoys all of the constitutionally based incidents of marriage.” But the justices said that the voters had clearly expressed their will to limit the formality of marriage to opposite-sex couples.

Read it all and follow the link to the opinion itself.

Check it out.

They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt.

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company ”” almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two local high schools and said he found that many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Update: There is more here.

Another update: Ilya Somin (Assistant Professor at George Mason University School of Law) has some thoughts here.

Pope Benedict XVI paid homage Sunday to the victims of World War II, visiting a Polish military cemetery at the site of a decisive battle in southern Italy and praying that peace may prevail over war today.

Benedict, who was forced to join the Hitler Youth as a child in Germany, made a pilgrimage to the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, which was leveled during a 1944 Allied bombardment and was the site of a bloody ground battle between German and Allied forces.

“In this place, where so many lost their lives … we pray especially for the souls of the fallen, commending them to God’s infinite mercy, and we pray for an end to the wars that continue to afflict our world,” Benedict said in English at the end of Mass celebrated at the foot of the monastery in the city of Cassino.

Read it all.

Anglican Church of Canada parishes in Waterloo Region should soon be able to hold services to celebrate the relationships of gay parishioners, but they won’t be blessing same-sex marriages for at least another year — if ever.

Read it all.

I must confess that I’m quite torn on the issue [of same sex blessings] and in that sense ponder whether I actually might reflect where a significant part of the church might be. On the one hand, I agree with the National House of Bishops desire to “develop the most generous pastoral response possible within the current teaching of the church”. On the other hand, my catholic sensitivity of whom we are as church mandates that I take very seriously the Archbishop of Canterbury’s request that we embrace a ”˜season of gracious restraint’ in the matter of same-gender blessings. To state the obvious, nothing is easy here!….

As we journey to General Synod 2010 in Halifax, I intend to embrace the pastoral model. It is where I suspect Huron’s heart is. For further clarification, I am committing to maintaining the moratoria as requested by the wider Anglican family. For me, this season of ”˜gracious restraint’ will take us to Halifax 2010. We find ourselves in an ”˜in-between time’ that must be used to prepare for the national gathering and beyond. I also reaffirm the National House of Bishops’ statement on Sexuality that commits to the most generous pastoral response possible within the current teaching of the church. To that end, I am asking the Diocesan Doctrine and Worship Committee (or a sub group) to synthesize and make available the most recent and relevant material to aid in this discernment time. (This is a long list that includes the House of Bishops statements/The Rothsay report/The Galilee report/The Windsor Report/The Anglican Consultative Council statements/Primates’ communiqués/Lambeth Indaba reflections/Council of General Synod communiqués/ Anglican Covenant process”¦see why my file is so large!) I’m also requesting the Doctrine and worship Committee (or a sub group) to develop appropriate protocols, guidelines and evaluative tools to enable us to move forward with appropriate liturgies to celebrate the love, mutual fidelity and support that gay and lesbian Anglicans model every day for the church and wider community. I envisage that the framework for this would be Eucharistic in nature with approved intercessory prayers but with no nuptial blessing (as per the 2007 statement of the House of Bishops).

When the Doctrine and Worship Committee has done their work, I am prepared to consider giving permission for those requesting to move ahead (using of course, the approved liturgies).

Read it all

Take a look at this chart for one pictorial view.

According the Episcopal Church Annual of 1993 (itself based on parochial reports of 1991) there were 6,813 baptized members in the diocese of Montana, the 2004 annual lists 6,441 members, and the most recent diocesan statistics from the national church for 2007 lists 5,414 members. This represents a decline of just over 20.5% in this 16 year period.

According to the U.S. Census data, the population of Montana grew from 786,690 in 1980 to 799,065 in 1990, and then to 902,195 in 2000. The most recent estimate of Montana’s population in 2005-2007 is 946,815.

A day after North Korea’s nuclear test, tensions on the Korean Peninsula rose further as Seoul announced that it would join a U.S.-led initiative to curb nuclear trade and the North reportedly test-launched two more short-range missiles.

North Korea said Monday that it had conducted a nuclear test followed by several short-range missile launches, drawing criticism from world capitals as well as a warning that Pyongyang had violated a United Nations Security Council resolution.

Read it all.

What we are seeing is not contrition but the sulky behaviour of rogues who have been caught swindling, cheating and lying – yet are outraged because they didn’t think this was wrong.

So they blame us for telling them that it was. The public disclosure of their shopping choices thus strikes them as persecution.

They just don’t grasp that claiming for dog food and barbecue sets, let alone £1,645 duck-houses in the style of 18th-century Sweden, was simply wrong; and to the extent that these were sanctioned by the rules, the rules were also wrong.

But if the vast bulk of MPs don’t get it, their leaders are no better. From all sides, we hear the all-too-familiar sound of political leaders doing the only thing they appear to know – reacting not from principle but out of opportunism.

Read it all.

Pastor Mik Megary watched the clock in the elementary school gym tick to 9 o’clock. The Fellowship Alliance Church’s Sunday service was supposed to begin, but the two dozen folding chairs, carefully arranged into three rows, were empty.

“This is really embarrassing,” said Megary, a special education teacher who started the Christian missionary church in Ocean Pines seven years ago.

The church usually attracts about 10 people each week during winter and as many as 40 in summer, but Memorial Day weekend posed a challenge: A few of the regulars were out of town, and no tourists ventured over the Route 90 bridge.

Read it all.