In a kind of high-level pen pal relationship, theologians from six African dioceses are now exchanging essays about sexuality with theologians from four Canadian dioceses. Dr. Kawuki (Isaac) Mukasa, General Synod’s coordinator for dialogue, paired up dioceses during two trips to Africa, including visits to South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda from July 31 to Aug. 21.

Mr. Mukasa, a native Ugandan, considers this work essential to improving communication within the Anglican Communion, which is divided over the place of gays and lesbians in the church.

In Canada, the dioceses of Niagara and New Westminster have agreed to bless same-sex unions, and several other Canadian dioceses are considering following suit. Most African Anglican churches are conservative on the issue.

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Norman Borlaug arguably the greatest American of the 20th century died late Saturday after 95 richly accomplished years. The very personification of human goodness, Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived. He was America’s Albert Schweitzer: a brilliant man who forsook privilege and riches in order to help the dispossessed of distant lands. That this great man and benefactor to humanity died little-known in his own country speaks volumes about the superficiality of modern American culture.

Born in 1914 in rural Cresco, Iowa, where he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse, Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work ending the India-Pakistan food shortage of the mid-1960s. He spent most of his life in impoverished nations, patiently teaching poor farmers in India, Mexico, South America, Africa and elsewhere the Green Revolution agricultural techniques that have prevented the global famines widely predicted when the world population began to skyrocket following World War II.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury says that bankers should repent over their mistakes which led to a global financial crisis, but he fears that the financial industry is returning to business as usual.

Archbishop Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, said in an interview Tuesday that he senses a feeling of “diffused resentment” against bankers for failing to accept responsibility and that the government should act to cap bonus payments.

“There hasn’t been a feeling of closure about what happened last year,” Williams said in an interview on BBC television.

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Everything that starts out as a cultural revolution ends up as capitalist routine. Before long, self-exposure and self-love became ways to win shares in the competition for attention. Muhammad Ali would tell all cameras that he was the greatest of all time. Norman Mailer wrote a book called “Advertisements for Myself.”

Today, immodesty is as ubiquitous as advertising, and for the same reasons. To scoop up just a few examples of self-indulgent expression from the past few days, there is Joe Wilson using the House floor as his own private “Crossfire”; there is Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards to give us his opinion that the wrong person won; there is Michael Jordan’s egomaniacal and self-indulgent Hall of Fame speech. Baseball and football games are now so routinely interrupted by self-celebration, you don’t even notice it anymore.

This isn’t the death of civilization. It’s just the culture in which we live. And from this vantage point, a display of mass modesty, like the kind represented on the V-J Day “Command Performance,” comes as something of a refreshing shock, a glimpse into another world. It’s funny how the nation’s mood was at its most humble when its actual achievements were at their most extraordinary.

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Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh attended the famous Immanuel College of Theology Ibadan Oyo State between 1976 and 1979. He was made deacon in 1979 preferred a Canon in 1987, collated Archdeacon in 1991 and was elected Bishop of Asaba in 2001.

On the 22nd of July 2005 the Primate elect was elected Archbishop of Bendel Province at St Matthew’s Cathedral Benin. He was in the Army and fought the civil war. He retired as a Lt Col in 2001 after his election as Bishop of Asaba.

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From here:

Archbishop Dr Peter Jensen, general secretary of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) welcomed the news “Nicholas Okoh was present at the foundation of GAFCON and has played a leading part in the movement. Archbishop Okoh has made a significant contribution as the Chairman of the Theological Resource group. He is an able and committed Christian leader and we warmly welcome his appointment.”

The out-going Primate, His Grace Akinola, while commenting on the election, said that the new Primate would be sworn in, in Abuja, next year, stressing that the way the election was conducted was an indication that the Church of Nigeria was moving forward.

“Let us just say God has been leading and guiding us and we have been following His leading. This election has taken us five hours of serious prayer to come to the stage we are. It is not a child’s play and we should see it as what God has done and I feel it is coming with a lot of blessings”, he said.

Akinola said he was happy he was leaving the headship of the Anglican Communion when the ovation was loudest, stressing that he was convinced that the new Primate would take the Anglican Communion to greater heights.

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The headline above is from the print edition–KSH.

With cash in short supply but loud mandates from above to keep test scores high, principals say they are confronting some of their most challenging decisions, like small class sizes or tutors in English and math? After-school remediation or extra lunchroom monitors? Chess club or drumming class?

“It’s tough,” said Melessa Avery, principal of P.S. 273, which earned an A on its report card from the city this year. “I want to be held accountable, I’m always open to that, but you are stripping me of funds that have helped me become successful.”

At the start of school, Ms. Avery gathered her staff to tell them it would be one of the most difficult years they would face. This year, the school will have 29 students to a class, instead of 21, four fewer teachers and fewer incentives for students, such as free bicycles.

In a back-to-school slideshow, Ms. Avery told teachers they might be asked to take on multiple jobs. She suggested they scour advertisements for supplies and post cheap finds in the teachers’ lounge, and urged them to hold grant-writing get-togethers.

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

Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, plans to appoint a committee on church governance and polity “to examine and explain the history, theology, political structure and practical realities of the ways in which we believe God calls us to govern the [Episcopal] Church.”

In a September 14 letter to General Convention deputies and first alternative deputies, Anderson said that after the July 8-17 General Convention meeting “it makes little sense to speak of governance and mission as two different things.”

“Our church is able to enlist the energy and talent of every member in building God’s kingdom precisely because we make room for the Spirit-seeking wisdom of all orders of ministry in the governance of our church,” she said.

Read it all and follow the link to her full letter also.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Nearly a week after Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) interrupted President Obama’s speech on health care, Congress passed a resolution admonishing him. He’s the first member in the history of Congress to be formally chastised in a resolution for such actions.

At first, Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t seem too interested in going after him for shouting “You lie!” when the president insisted that health care subsidies would not be available to illegal immigrants under the health care overhaul bill.

“As far as I’m concerned, the episode was unfortunate, and Mr. Wilson has apologized. It’s time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson,” Pelosi said.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The example they use is particularly heartbreaking.

Deep rifts at the heart of Western policy on Afghanistan were laid bare yesterday when President Obama’s top military adviser challenged him to authorise a troop surge that his most senior congressional allies have said they will oppose.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more US troops as well as a rapid increase in the size and capability of the Afghan army were needed to carry out the President’s own strategy for prevailing in Afghanistan as the eighth anniversary of a debilitating war approaches.

His remarks to a Senate hearing came as Bob Ainsworth, the British Defence Secretary, said that the Taleban had proven a resilient enemy. “We’re far from succeeding against them yet but I reject that we’re not making progress,” he said at King’s College London.

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I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.

Only a few months after General Convention approved Resolution C056, public blessings for same-sex couples have begun emerging in dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

On Aug. 30, E. Denise Simmons, the mayor of Cambridge, Mass., exchanged marital vows with her partner, Mattie Hayes, at St. Bartholomew Church, Cambridge. The Rev. Irene Monroe wrote for the online magazine Religion Dispatches about presiding at the service with the Rev. Leslie K. Sterling, the priest in charge of St. Bartholomew’s, and Jada D. Simmons, a justice of the peace and the mayor’s eldest daughter.

“I was elated to be a part of this liturgical assembly line, helping to make a historic event [happen] within the ecclesial strictures of the church,” Ms. Monroe wrote. “Sterling did the invocation, declaration of consent to marry, and blessing of the marriage; Simmons pronounced the marriage, and I did the homily, blessing of rings and vows.”

Further south, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, Bishop of Southeast Florida, has authorized his clergy to provide pastoral blessings””but not to preside over same-sex weddings””within about a month.

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Check it out.

Sam Weigle is Crossbridge’s shaggy-haired guitar player. The 29-year-old grew up Methodist, and was attending a Methodist church when he met Lloyd.

“The first time I heard him speak I was kind of hooked,” Weigle said. “It’s not a conventional church message, but it’s really back to the roots of what I believe Jesus intended.”

Lloyd is not surprised at the Pew numbers. He’s seen a bevy of local worship options emerge since his childhood, particularly ones for those who might not be comfortable with the pat answers that traditional churches often offer to moral questions.

“We’ve tried to make religion an exact science, and it’s just not,” Lloyd said. “Good religion is full of truths, truths that are life-changing, but it’s still fuzzy. The only thing I know for sure anymore is that God loves me more than I can imagine, even when I do stupid things, and that my job is to love him back, and to love other people.”

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