Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig preaches increasingly to the converted: Hebrew congregations and rabbinical and cantorial students who no longer assume that a rabbi has to be a he or heterosexual. Rabbi Wenig, 52, has seen and propelled her share of changes in Judaism since being ordained in 1984, and now teaches classes of more women than men at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Greenwich Village, seminary of the Reform movement, Judaism’s liberal branch. A lesbian with two grown daughters from a previous marriage whom she raised in Brooklyn with her longtime partner, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Rabbi Wenig won acclaim for her widely published 1990 sermon “God Is a Woman and She Is Growing Older,” portraying the deity as a loving if long-suffering mother who wonders why you haven’t called.

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Finance ministers of the largest industrial countries vowed on Saturday to keep their multitrillion-dollar stimulus efforts in place, but at a meeting here they failed to agree on any firm limits on bankers’ bonuses, a sign of the deep rifts that remain between American and European leaders.

The ministers did agree on a blueprint to raise capital requirements at banks to strengthen the world financial system as the recovery takes hold, a major goal of the United States Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner.

Regarding the higher capital requirements, Mr. Geithner said here that his goal was to reach a final agreement on the new standards by the end of next year.

Mr. Geithner added that while concerted action by central banks and governments had “pulled the global economy back from the edge of abyss,” he added that “conditions for a sustained recovery led by private demand are not yet established.”

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Only a Christ of the killing fields where the love of God was engraved in a like suffering can both judge and transform these appalling realities.

The Gospel accounts of the terrible torture of the Crucifixion of Jesus have at their heart, words spoken from the heart of that agony, a prayer for forgiveness for those who nailed Him to the rough wood; a longing thirst, both physical and spiritual; a commendation of His mother to his beloved Disciple; a promise of paradise to the penitent thief; a cry of dereliction ”” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and a commending of His spirit to His Father. “Therefore he who shows us God, helpless hangs upon the tree, and the very nails and spear, tell of what God’s love must be.”

In the Christ of that killing field we find a love reaching out to us that will never let us down and will never let us go.

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The question of gay clergy threatens to tear Anglicans in Scotland apart, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC), Bishop David Chillingworth, has warned.

In an interview published Aug 21 in the Scotsman, Bishop Chillingworth said the gay clergy question was “an issue that has been threatening to tear us apart, and many of us live across a spectrum in which out of one side of our minds we can say there is a justice and inclusion issue here, and out of the other there is a dialogue that needs to go on with the traditional teaching of the Church and what the Bible says.

“You can’t wish either of those away. You have to deal with both,” he said. The Primus’ comments come as a push is underway from within the liberal wing of the Scottish church to end its ban on gay bishops and blessings, and in the wake of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement that [noncelibate] gay clergy were outside the bounds of Anglicanism.

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The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, called for greater tolerance and understanding of Islam and Muslim communities during a visit to the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre today. He said that harmony and cohesion between all Londoners is vital to the success of the capital.

The Mayor’s message, which comes during the Muslim sacred month of Ramadan, is that there is more that unites Islam and Muslims with other major world religions and with non-Muslims than divides or separates them. In common with many other religions, such as Christianity, Islam teaches that there is only one true God. There are also shared beliefs about societal values and a basic moral code of behaviour.

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It was just five months ago that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made the New Flyer bus factory here a symbol of the stimulus. With several cabinet secretaries in tow, he held a town-hall-style meeting at the factory, where he praised the company as “an example of the future” and said that it stood to get more orders for its hybrid electric buses thanks to the $8.4 billion that the stimulus law devotes to mass transit.

But last month, the company that administration officials had pictured as a stimulus success story began laying off 320 people, or 13 percent of its work force, having discovered how cutbacks at the state level can dampen the boost provided by the federal stimulus money. The Chicago Transit Authority did use some of its stimulus money to buy 58 new hybrid buses from New Flyer. But Chicago had to shelve plans to order another 140 buses from them after the state money that it had hoped to use to pay for them failed to materialize. The delayed order scrambled New Flyer’s production schedule for the rest of the year, and led to the layoffs.

One of those laid off was David Wahl, 52, who had worked there for a decade and who sat behind the vice president at the town-hall-style meeting, soaking up the optimism of the moment. “With mass transit being pushed so hard,” Mr. Wahl recalled, “I figured I’d be able to work until I was 75.”

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An increased presence on the streets has helped North Charleston police seize hundreds of illegal guns.

With gun arrests now slowing, police wonder if they have finally made a dent in the firearms pipeline that drove violence to record heights.

After recording a total of 55 killings in 2006 and 2007, police launched a number of efforts to get a handle on crime, including a boost in patrols and traffic stops. Police conducted nearly 49,000 traffic stops last year, compared with about 30,300 just two years earlier.

Police Chief Jon Zumalt said he doesn’t think it’s any coincidence that gun arrests and violent crime fell last year during this blitz. That trend continues. Through July, the number of shootings in the city was down 17 percent, following an 18 percent drop in 2008, police said.

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Long-term climate records from the Arctic provide strong new evidence that human-caused global warming can override Earth’s natural heating and cooling cycles, U.S. researchers reported this week in the journal Science.

For more than 2,000 years, a natural wobble in Earth’s axis has caused the Arctic region to move farther away from the sun during the region’s summer, reducing the amount of solar radiation it receives. The Arctic is now 600,000 miles farther from the sun than it was in AD 1, and temperatures there should have fallen a little more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since then.

Instead, the region has warmed 2.2 degrees since 1900 alone, and the decade from 1998 to 2008 was the warmest in two millenniums, according to a team headed by climatologist Darrell S. Kaufman of Northern Arizona University.

Not only was the last half-century the warmest of the last 2,000 years, “but it reversed the long-term, millennial-scale trend toward cooler temperatures,” Kaufman said.

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Neldon and Ina Johnson shared their lives for more than 35 years. They were sealed in an LDS temple, had children and celebrated an anniversary each year. They had shared insurance policies and joint tax filings.

Their divorce appeared to be the dissolution of a long, involved marriage — except for the part where they were never actually married.

Seven years after their divorce, amid claims from Ina Johnson that she is owed alimony, Neldon Johnson says that the divorce wasn’t valid because they were never married. On Wednesday, the Utah Supreme Court heard arguments on this complicated case involving common-law marriage laws, deceit and the right of the court to rule on other marriages that aren’t technically legal by state law.

When the couple filed for divorce in 2001, they both indicated that they had been married in 1964 in Arizona, which was the same thing they had told everyone else they knew over the years. The couple went so far as to have their “marriage” sealed in the Manti temple one year after their supposed wedding date.

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Nouriel Roubini, a leading economist who predicted the scale of global financial troubles, said a U-shaped recovery is possible, with leading economies undeperforming perhaps for 3 years.

He said there is also an increasing risk of a “double-dip” scenario, however.

“I believe that the basic scenario is going to be one of a U-shaped economic recovery where growth is going to remain below trend … especially for the advanced economies, for at least 2 or 3 years,” he said at a news conference here.

“Within that U scenario I also see a small probability, but a rising probability, that if we don’t get the exit strategy right we could end up with a relapse in growth … a double-dip recession,” he added.

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Regarding Steve Bailey’s column in the Aug. 21 Press-Banner, I would like to know why he found it necessary to make a disparaging remark about cops in his praise for firefighters. It is remarks like this that put a policeman’s life in peril….

I suggest Mr. Bailey go on a ride-along with a local police officer or deputy sheriff, and maybe he will get a new perspective of what a cop’s duties entail. They do not view the public as enemies.

God bless them for all the important work they do. Read it all.

Diocesan leaders previously told me that priests had long been prohibited from financial involvement with parishioners. But it turns out that the policy was pretty vague — it read, according to the press release: “The relationship of members of the clergy with fellow clergy and with members of the laity must be of the highest moral and professional character.”

Stanton recently suspended Warnky from the ministry after financial regulators barred him from selling securities. The regulators acted because Warnky failed to pay a former parishioner, D.R. Marshall, $50,000 for stock fraud.

RayJennison.JPGDiocesan leaders are now weighing whether to also suspend the Rev. Raymond Jennison (right). He runs First Canterbury Securities, a northeast Dallas firm where Warnky worked, and is priest in charge of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Garland.

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From here:

Dallas Episcopal Bishop James Stanton today announced new policies regarding clergy conduct and accountability. The stronger guidelines include specific restrictions on the clergy from engaging in financial and business dealings with members of their congregations. The new policies and guidelines are effective immediately.

Under these guidelines, the clergy will be barred from soliciting, providing or selling secular products or services to parishioners. This includes the sale of stocks, financial services or other investments. Diocesan officials will review existing business relationships involving clergy and determine appropriate resolution on a case by case basis.

“We have good and faithful clergy in our diocese who care deeply for their people, and we want our clergy to focus on the spiritual and pastoral needs of their congregations,” said Bishop Stanton. “This new policy is designed to eliminate any conflicts of interest, and we hope these changes will raise the level of confidence in our clergy and that of the people under their care,” Stanton added.

The new policy amplifies the long-standing policy of the Diocese, as stated in the Customary (or policy manual) of the Diocese, that reads: “The relationship of members of the clergy with fellow clergy and with members of the laity must be of the highest moral and professional character.”

In addition to the new guidelines, all clergy of the Diocese of Dallas are required to undergo training every five years in “Safeguarding God’s People”, a program that focuses on issues regarding relationships between clergy and those under their care. Failure to comply will result in suspension of all spiritual duties until retraining is completed.

Diocesan officials will continue to evaluate clergy conduct guidelines and make additional changes when necessary.

Giant engineering schemes to reflect sunlight or suck carbon dioxide from the air could be the only way to save the Earth from runaway global warming, according to a group of leading scientists. But they say that these schemes could have their own catastrophic consequences, such as disrupting rainfall patterns, and should be deployed only as a last resort if attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail.

The Royal Society, a fellowship of 1,400 of the world’s most eminent scientists, published a report yesterday on the feasibility and possible dangers of technologies for cooling down the Earth, known as geoengineering. The ideas include artificial trees that draw CO2 from the air and mimicking volcanoes by spraying sulphate particles a few miles above the Earth to deflect the Sun’s rays. The most far-fetched would would be to launch trillions of small mirrors into space to act as a sunshield.

A far cheaper solution would be a fleet of 1,500 ships that would suck up seawater and spray it out of tall funnels to create sun-reflecting clouds. However, the report said that these clouds could disrupt rainfall patterns and result in mass starvation in countries dependent on the monsoon.

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The television commercials were disturbing: Traditional-looking churches barring or physically ejecting racial and ethnic minorities, gay couples–and people with disabilities. One tag line was “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” The national campaign, which aired several years ago, was sponsored by the liberal United Church of Christ. “We included people with physical disabilities in these commercials–in a wheelchair or with a walker–as an extension of the call and hope that churches would be intentionally inclusive of ‘all the people,'” said the Rev. Gregg Brekke, a spokesman for the denomination.

Instead, the imagery provoked grumbling from some denominations because of its implied critique of other church traditions. But at least when it came to the physically handicapped, the criticism had more than a grain of truth. Churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are places where people with disabilities might not expect to feel excluded, isolated or patronized. Yet that has often been the norm. For years congregations have effectively excluded the disabled from worship–by steps, narrow doorways and straitened attitudes–or segregated them in “special” services. Houses of worship (except those with more than 15 employees) were excluded from the 1992 Americans with Disabilities Act, which, among other things, bars discrimination against people with physical or intellectual disabilities–including access and architectural barriers–in public accommodations and transportation.

Most faiths’ scriptures mandate corrective steps, and pragmatism may soon require them. The U.S. Census in 2000 counted 54 million disabled individuals–one in six Americans–and that number is probably growing. Wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are swelling this population. Thanks to neonatal care and technology advances, at-risk infants with severe disabilities now survive into adulthood. Most significantly, the boomer generation is aging and getting ill. Many of them may develop disabilities but still want to pray at houses of worship.

There are challenges to accessibility and inclusion, even for people with the best intentions. The elderly and people with disabilities provide uncomfortable reminders of life’s fragility and of death. Those with mental disabilities can distract during solemn moments. Religious people generally want to be sincere, welcoming and open, but, like everyone else, they often lack the experience to respond the right way.

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The Federal Housing Administration, hit by increasing mortgage-related losses, is in danger of seeing its reserves fall below the level demanded by Congress, according to government officials, in a development that could raise concerns about whether the agency needs a taxpayer bailout….

In the past two years, the number of loans insured by the FHA has soared and its market share reached 23% in the second quarter, up from 2.7% in 2006, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. FHA-backed loans outstanding totaled $429 billion in fiscal 2008, a number projected to hit $627 billion this year.

Rising defaults have eaten through the FHA’s cushion. Some 7.8% of FHA loans at the end of the second quarter were 90 days late or more, or in foreclosure, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, a figure roughly equal to the national average for all loans. That is up from 5.4% a year ago.

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Q: What was the most important aspect of your visit?

A: The learning for me was to see how the church witnesses to the Gospel in a situation that’s highly politicized, in a situation that always has the potential to be volatile and in a situation where Christians are clearly in the minority. The number of Christians in the Holy Land is diminishing year by year. As Bishop Suheil said, “We, Episcopalians and Anglicans are a minority within a minority.”

You learn pretty quickly there that a first principle in the diocese is faith in action. (It is) a diocese that has a huge commitment to education, healthcare, hospitality, housing and peace and reconciliation. Because of a diminishing number of Christians in the Holy Land, the bishop and the diocese have a huge focus on education and so they have several schools that they oversee and operate. The idea is to enable Palestinians, especially, to get an education”¦and to encourage them to stay in the Holy Land. The diocese is very committed to healthcare ”“ ”˜irrespective of one’s religion, one’s ability to pay whatever, we’re here to provide healthcare for you.’ Most of the people who visit the hospital doors are not Christians”¦.People who aren’t Christians recognize in the church a real commitment to their well-being, their health. Likewise with housing, Bishop Suheil and the diocese have been involved in housing projects, not just for elderly people but for young couples ”“ helping them to get established so that they can remain there.

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Check it out–an interesting piece of history.

THE MUSIC was fine, and the weather was reasonably fine; but many visitors to the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham last weekend were talking more about two transatlantic speakers ”” the Rt Revd Gene Robinson and Rob Bell.

Both were appearing there for the first time. Although they come from different points on the Christian spectrum ”” one the Bishop of New Hampshire, the other the founding pastor of Mars Hill, a large inde­pendent church in Michigan ”” the Greenbelt crowds took them to their hearts. By all appearances, they were quite taken with Greenbelt, too.

Whether it was their presence, or the state of the economy, or some of the music acts, the numbers were up again on previous years. The organisers reckoned that, over the Bank Holiday weekend, 21,000 people attended. About three-quarters had bought weekend tickets and camped or stayed near by; the rest came on day tickets.

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The job market continued its long, steep decline in August, with the jobless rate soaring to 9.7 percent and employers continuing to shed jobs, albeit at a slower rate than expected.

Analysts generally believe that economic output began rising by late summer. But new Labor Department data released Friday morning shows that that improvement isn’t yet flowing through to the job market, as employers remain highly reluctant to add staff.

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Christian parents who objected to their children being taught about other religions in a mandatory new Quebec school course have suffered a serious setback with a ruling this week that the teachings do not infringe their religious freedoms.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Jean-Guy Dubois dismissed a bid by parents in Drummondville, Que., who said the course on ethics and religious culture introduced across the province last year was undermining their efforts to instill Christian faith in their children.

“In light of all the evidence presented, the court does not see how the … course limits the plaintiff’s freedom of conscience and of religion for the children when it provides an overall presentation of various religions without obliging the children to adhere to them,” Judge Dubois wrote.

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On Saturday, as on every Saturday in recent weeks, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered before dusk on the terraces above the Carta parking lot just outside the Old City walls. In black silk Sabbath robes and fur hats, they lined up in rows, perched and waiting.

Suddenly their foot soldiers arrived on the street below, protesters who surged past the newly opened luxury Mamilla Hotel. Police officers mounted on horses rushed to meet them as hotel guests looked on, bewildered, from windows on the upper floors.

This summer, radical elements of the ultra-Orthodox community have been demonstrating and rioting against city authorities, welfare officials and the police. For Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, a secular high-tech millionaire trying to attract more business, tourism and professional types to the city, the timing has been inopportune, to say the least.

The tensions in this contested city usually run along an east-west, Jewish-Palestinian divide. But within the western, predominantly Jewish, section of the city, the cultural fault lines between religious and secular Jews run deep….

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Not many people get to travel the world. And an even fewer percentage go to countries that are conflict zones. The Rev. Cindy Howard recently took a trip to Israel and Palestine and came across an interesting fact – every Israelite and Palestinian she met wanted the same thing ”“ peace.

“There are people in every culture that make up the radical few who only want to fight,” she said. “But the vast majority of people I met wanted peace between the two countries. It didn’t matter what side of the Gaza strip they were on. They all wanted the same thing, peace for their families.”

Howard, an Episcopal priest and rector at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit, was part of an Interfaith Delegation from Kansas City that traveled to Tel Aviv last month.

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The Barna Group pollsters and the Innovating Tomorrow blog site reports that 75% of teens from Christian families stop going to church when they leave home to get a job or go to college and don’t return to church until they have are married and have children of their own. Some blogsters blame the teen walk out on a general increase in agnosticism and atheism. Some blame the parents. Some blame the internet. I don’t agree.

I blame the churches. I blame the dumbing down of the message so that many leave out of sheer boredom. The rock music and mimicking of worldly culture which was thought to appeal to teens is driving some away. However, I think the main problem is the lack of content and the metaphysical shallowness of the teachings. During one’s late teen years, one is trying to discover the meaning and purpose in life. The teens want to gain a sense of who they are and to find a place for themselves in the grand scheme of things.

Questions on meaning and purpose and questions about the grand scheme are metaphysical questions. The typical evangelical ministry behaves as though they are afraid of metaphysics. For this reason, many teens find the shallow ministries offered to them irrelevant to their needs. This is the only convincing explanation I can think of to explain the general teen walkout.

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Leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh have nominated a bishop from southern Ohio to serve as a full-time interim bishop for the next few years.

A diocesan convention will vote Oct. 17 on whether to elect Bishop Kenneth L. Price, Jr., the suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Southern Ohio, as provisional bishop of the minority who remained with the Episcopal Church after last year’s diocesan convention voted to leave the Episcopal Church. He would have the full executive authority of a diocesan bishop, but his position would be temporary.

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In administering the sacrament of confirmation, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien traced a cross on the foreheads of each candidate as he anointed them with sacred chrism oil and called on them to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. The sisters then renewed their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as some 120 worshipers looked on.

Ten of the 12 members of the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor joined the Catholic Church during the liturgy. The two nuns who have decided to remain Episcopal will continue to live, pray and work in community with their now-Catholic sisters.

Father Warren Tanghe, former chaplain to the All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor, was also confirmed and has applied to become a Catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In his homily, Archbishop O’Brien welcomed the newcomers and extolled the sisters for their dedication to the consecrated life.

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In a move that religious scholars say is unprecedented, 10 of the 12 nuns at an Episcopal convent in Catonsville left their church Thursday to become Roman Catholics, the latest defectors from a denomination divided over the ordination of gay men and women.

The members of the All Saints Sisters of the Poor were welcomed into the Catholic Church by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, who confirmed the women during a Mass in their chapel. Each vowed to continue the tradition of consecrated life, now as a religious institute within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“We know our beliefs and where we are,” said Mother Christina Christie, superior of the order that came to Baltimore in 1872. “We were drifting farther apart from the more liberal road the Episcopal Church is traveling. We are now more at home in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Also joining the church was the Rev. Warren Tanghe, the sisters’ chaplain. In a statement, Episcopal Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton wished them God’s blessings.

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North Korea said on Friday that it was in the final stage of enriching uranium, a process that would give it a second path to making a nuclear weapon.

After a series of conciliatory gestures by the North over the past month, the announcement raises the stakes in efforts by the international community to convince the reclusive state to give up its nuclear weapons programme.

“Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase,” the KCNA news agency quoted North Korea’s United Nations delegation as saying in a letter to the head of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC).

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Watch this whole great story to find the answer–but please guess first.