Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans”” a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That’s when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17% on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

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If anyone still doubts that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were the closest of allies, the text of a July 2002 note from the U.K. Premier to the U.S. President, revealed in a new book, should dispel any lingering skepticism. “You know, George, whatever you decide to do [about Iraq], I’m with you,” Blair assured his friend.

The End of the Party, an account by British political commentator Andrew Rawnsley of how Britain’s Labour government came to squander a huge popular mandate to face possible defeat in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, identifies a multiplicity of contributory factors. Blair’s unwavering determination to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with a martial U.S. is prominent among them.

The damage may be permanent. On March 28 an influential cross-party committee of MPs in Britain weighed in on the wider impact of that policy. “The perception that the British Government was a subservient ‘poodle’ to the U.S. Administration leading up to the period of the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath is widespread both among the British public and overseas,” states a report from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. “This perception, whatever its relation to reality, is deeply damaging to the reputation and interests of the U.K.”

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And so his question to all those who have the freedom to speak in the Church and for the Church is ‘who do you really speak for?’ But if we take seriously the underlying theme of his words and witness, that question is also, ‘who do you really feel with?’ Are you immersed in the real life of the Body, or is your life in Christ seen only as having the same sentiments as the powerful? Sentir con la Iglesia in the sense in which the mature Romero learned those words is what will teach you how to speak on behalf of the Body. And we must make no mistake about what this can entail: Romero knew that this kind of ‘feeling with the Church’ could only mean taking risks with and for the Body of Christ ”“ so that, as he later put it, in words that are still shocking and sobering, it would be ‘sad’ if priests in such a context were not being killed alongside their flock. As of course they were in El Salvador, again and again in those nightmare years.

But he never suggests that speaking on behalf of the Body is the responsibility of a spiritual elite. He never dramatised the role of the priest so as to play down the responsibility of the people. If every priest and bishop were silenced, he said, ‘each of you will have to be God’s microphone. Each of you will have to be a messenger, a prophet. The Church will always exist as long as even one baptized person is alive.’ Each part of the Body, because it shares the sufferings of the whole ”“ and the hope and radiance of the whole ”“ has authority to speak out of that common life in the crucified and risen Jesus.

So Romero’s question and challenge is addressed to all of us, not only those who have the privilege of some sort of public megaphone for their voices. The Church is maintained in truth; and the whole Church has to be a community where truth is told about the abuses of power and the cries of the vulnerable. Once again, if we are serious about sentir con la Iglesia, we ask not only who we are speaking for but whose voice still needs to be heard, in the Church and in society at large. The questions here are as grave as they were thirty years ago. In Salvador itself, the methods of repression familiar in Romero’s day were still common until very recently. We can at least celebrate the fact that the present head of state there has not only apologized for government collusion in Romero’s murder but has also spoken boldly on behalf of those whose environment and livelihood are threatened by the rapacity of the mining companies, who are set on a new round of exploitation in Salvador and whose critics have been abducted and butchered just as so many were three decades back. The skies are not clear: our own Anglican bishop in Salvador was attacked ten days ago by unknown enemies; but the signs of hope are there, and the will to defend the poor and heal the wounds.

Read it all (there is an audio link for those who wish to listen also).

I am aware that several heads of churches in Jerusalem have tried to intervene as concerned leaders between Bishop Riah and the Diocese of Jerusalem, but sadly all such amicable attempts have ended in failure. The Diocese of Jerusalem believes that the only way forward is to wait for the court’s judgment.

This dispute is breaking the heart of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and has been exceptionally painful to all. We would love to see this conflict ended. I do know that Bishop Suheil and the Diocese of Jerusalem, too, would love to see this ended. I understand that the Diocese of Jerusalem’s Standing Committee is insisting that Bishop Riah has the obligation to return Funds kept in his possession that rightly belong to the Diocese and the return of such funds is a condition to settling this most unfortunate matter. If Bishop Riah does not think that the claims of the Diocese of Jerusalem in regards to these funds are true, he should present the evidence of this.

May I request from all of you to pray that this dispute would come to an end.

Makes the heart sad–read it all.

“It’s the context of people’s lives that determines their health,” said a World Health Organization report on health disparities. “So blaming individuals for poor health or crediting them for good health is inappropriate.”

I must admit I often feel like my colleagues who grouse about spending all day treating patients who do not seem to care about their health and then demand a quick fix. I do not relish paying more taxes to treat patients who engage in unhealthy habits. But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send text messages when I drive.

The whole point of insurance is to reduce risk. When people inveigh against the lack of personal responsibility in health care, they are really demanding a different model, one based on actual risk, not just on spreading costs evenly through society. Sick people, they are really saying, should pay more. Which model we eventually adopt in this country will say a lot about the kind of society we want to live in.

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Some 21 percent of all adults””and a quarter of all Christians””consider themselves Pentecostal or charismatic, according to a new Barna Group poll.

The study found that the demographic crosses denominational, geographic and political lines, with 20 percent of Catholics and 26 percent of Protestants stating that they have been filled with the Holy Spirit and operate in at least one charismatic gift, such as tongues, prophecy or healing. Nearly a quarter of Republicans, 23 percent of Democrats and 21 percent of Independent voters identify themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic.

But the national telephone survey of 1,005 adults found striking generational differences among the group. Baby busters, or those ages 26 to 44, were the most likely to describe themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic, with 29 percent embracing that label. Some 26 percent of Mosaics, or 18- to 25-year-olds, and 25 percent of Christians aged 64 and older described themselves as Pentecostal-charismatic. Only 20 percent of baby boomers, or those between the ages of 45 and 63, described themselves as Pentecostal or charismatic.

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In the scramble to find something, anything, to generate more revenue, states are considering new taxes on virtually everything: garbage pickup, dating services, bowling night, haircuts, even clowns.

“It’s hard enough doing what we do,” grumbled John Luke, a plumber in the Philadelphia suburbs. His services would, for the first time, come with an added tax if the governor has his way.

Opponents of imposing taxes on services like funerals, legal advice, helicopter rides and dry cleaning argue that this push comes as businesses are barely clinging to life and can ill afford to see customers further put off by new taxes. This is especially true, they say, in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where some of the most sweeping proposals are being considered this spring.

But this is also a period of economic gloom for states. Pension funds are in the red, federal stimulus help will soon vanish, and revenues from traditional sources like income and property taxes are slumping ever lower, with few elected officials willing to risk voter wrath by raising them.

“This is born out of necessity,” said Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat. His proposed budget, being debated in Harrisburg, would tax services including accounting, advertising and data processing.

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

For 25 years, the Rev. Deborah Jackson guided insurers in competing for the hearts and minds of people looking to protect the financial security of their loved ones.

Then she decided that she wanted to guide people toward assuring themselves more fruitful lives.

“I enjoyed doing marketing research,” said Jackson, who spent more than two decades at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. “But for years, when I was still in the insurance industry, I felt that still, small voice from God saying, ‘Do more to make a difference.’ ”

In 2007, Jackson got a chance to heed that voice – in a big way.

She earned a master of divinity degree from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., and began her ministry at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Jacksonville – the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Northeast Florida.

Read it all.

O LORD, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor chasten me in thy wrath. Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is sorely troubled. But thou, O LORD–how long? Turn, O LORD, save my life; deliver me for the sake of thy steadfast love.

–Psalm 6:1-4

Lord God, whose blessed Son, our Saviour, gave his back to the smiters, and hid not his face from shame: Grant us grace to take joyfully the sufferings of the present time, in full assurance of the glory that shall be revealed; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

A South Carolina diocese has declared itself “sovereign” within the Episcopal Church, the latest salvo in a long-running skirmish between the conservative diocese and the denomination.

The Diocese of South Carolina, which covers 47 parishes in the eastern and coastal parts of the state, voted on Friday (March 26) to assert the local authority of Bishop Mark Lawrence, particularly in dealing with breakaway parishes.

Concerned that Lawrence would not fight to keep conservatives from seceding with church property, the Episcopal Church hired its own lawyer earlier this year. The 2.2 million-member denomination maintains that local parish property is held in trust for the regional diocese and the national church.

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During the period when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was being considered, arguments were made by both supporters and detractors that the Private Health Insurance Markets would be changed drastically by Reform. Those on the left indicated that the Bill was unfair, because it passed a mandate that forced Americans to purchase health insurance and left private coverage as the only option, thus putting American’s at the mercy of “Greedy, villainous Health Insurance Executives (Nancy Pelosi, August 2009 House Testimony). In addition, the Progressive Coalition in the House of Representatives, 71 members strong, signed a statement that said that without a “public option” (a private insurance entity run by the federal government as an alternative to for-profit or private not-for-profit coverage) the Senate Bill was a boon for insurance companies, offering up 46 million new customers with federal subsidies to boot.

On the right, and in alliance with the Health Insurance Companies, detractors said the bill would impose so many new government regulations on Health Insurance Companies that insurance pools would be destabilized and runaway premium costs would result. Thus in the end, the federal government would be ordered to step in anyway, thus creating a Single Payer, or Federally Controlled Health Insurance plan that would interpose itself between patient and doctor and eventually ration the care Americans received through that entity.

Both arguments are compelling and both outcomes undesirable. In this article I would like to examine the realities from a “boots on the ground” perspective as a Chief Forecaster and Senior Healthcare Policy/Intelligence Analyst in the health insurance business. To be clear, I am not an attorney, accountant, or actuary. I am not qualified to comment on regulatory issues as to their specific effects on employer groups. What I am called upon daily to do, is to coordinate the projections for all the moving parts of the PPACA Bill and its changes and to forecast its effects on the Plan that employs me (The not-for-profit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana) and communicate these changes and potential effects in a meaningful way to a whole bunch of smart, experienced stakeholders in the healthcare industry so they can incorporate my projections and background fact and data into their decision making going forward.

Let’s examine the arguments one at a time.

Read it carefully and read it all.

After more than a year when the spotlight remained on the doctor’s office and the hospital room, attention switches this week to the classrooms of America. On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will announce the first-round winners of Race to the Top, the $4 billion competition he set up to reward the states with the most ambitious plans for improving their public schools.

When I asked Duncan last week what he hoped people would say about this unprecedented contest, he responded: “So many were skeptical when we announced this a year ago as part of the stimulus package. I hope they realize now that a very high bar has been set.”

Because the winning plans are so good? I asked. “So good, and so few,” he said.

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Thousands of years after Moses led his people out of Egypt, the Passover story is going digital.

At Monday’s Seder meal, dozens of families will be reading the traditional tableside ceremony from a Haggadah, a text guiding the Seder, that they have personalized by uploading family photos to replace stock illustrations of Pharaoh and the slaves.

Behrman House, a Jewish educational publisher in Springfield, N.J., has sold more than 100 sets of the cyber-assisted version of its Family Haggadah.

The personalized Haggadah — the Hebrew word means “telling” or “narrative” — recounts the biblical Exodus story and instructs families to relate it to their children as though they were along on the journey.

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Our Bishop will be The Rt. Rev’d John Guernsey. Bishop Guernsey is the long-time Rector of All Saints Church in Dale City, Virginia and will be well known to several within St. Andrew’s. I have known +John for over 20 years, dating back to my time at Virginia Seminary. You will discover that he shares many of the priorities that we have as a parish; from our commitment to missions (the Bishop is the Chairman of the Board for SOMA ”“ a well known mission agency) to our passion to see every member equipped for ministry with both Word and Spirit. I have made arrangements for Bishop Guernsey to visit and preach at the Wednesday night service, 28 April 2010, followed by a time of healing prayer led by the Bishop. Please make plans to attend.

Lastly, the departure of this parish from the Diocese of South Carolina was not hastily made nor was it an easy decision. Indeed, this struggle has extended well beyond the past decade costing this parish one well-beloved Rector. Any sense of sadness over our separation is tempered by our joyful sense of the Lord’s forward-looking call upon our lives; by our common love for our Lord and by the common knowledge that our difficulty lay with the spiritual headship of the National Church, of which the Diocese of South Carolina remains, and intends to remain, a part, and not with the Bishop of South Carolina. And so, I must say “thank you” to Bishop Lawrence. From the day I met +Mark in the candidacy process I have spoken with him often about St. Andrew’s costly efforts to remain faithful to the gospel in the midst of the Episcopal Church’s increasing abandonment of the faith as revealed through Scripture and Tradition. These conversations have continued throughout +Mark’s episcopacy and have grown to include the Vestry of St. Andrew’s as well as the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina. I have found in Bishop Lawrence a friend and co-laborer in the ministry of the Gospel. We share a mutual desire to maintain our fraternal relationship and have committed to one another that St. Andrew’s and the Diocese of South Carolina will continue to partner in Gospel ministry as opportunity and circumstance permit. Please remember to pray for the Diocese of South Carolina as we desire nothing less than God’s best for them.

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The core finding of Pew’s “Religion Among the Millennials” report is that young Americans are “less religiously affiliated” than their elders. In fact, one in four of Americans ages 18 to 29 do not affiliate with any particular religious group. This is not entirely unexpected, since it is a sociological truism that young people cultivate some distance from the religious institutions of their parents, only to return to those institutions as they marry, raise children and slouch toward retirement. According to Pew, however, “Millennials are significantly more unaffiliated than members of Generation X were at a comparable point in their life cycle … and twice as unaffiliated as Baby Boomers were as young adults.”

This is an important finding because it provides strong evidence for the loosening of religion’s grip on American life. Or does it?

Read it all.

I believe in God, I guess

well no. I am pretty sure.

I do believe in God.

I don’t know

who God is

or

what God is

or

how God is

but

I believe in God.

I guess.

Read it all.

This year, some liberal Jews will hear a new question during the ritual meals that define this weeklong season, which begins at sundown Monday:

“Why is there an orange on the Seder plate?”

The answer, in a new rite written by Rabbi Peter Schweitzer of New York, will please many unorthodox Jews.

“To remind us that all people have a legitimate place in Jewish life, no less than an orange on the Seder plate, regardless of gender or sexual identity,” states “The Liberated Haggadah,” a rite for “cultural, secular and humanistic” Jews. “And to teach us, too, how absurd it is to exclude anyone who wants to sit at our table, partake of our meal and celebrate with us the gift of life and the gift of freedom.”

The goal is to provide an enjoyable and educational Passover for Jews who are united by culture, art, music, literature, foods and folkways ”” but not faith. Nearly half of American Jews, Schweitzer says, consider themselves “secular” or “cultural” Jews, as opposed to religious Jews.

Read it all.

Read it all.

The city has had a dismal stretch, even by its standards. But harsh realities have produced radical thinking. For the first time, dramatic steps are being discussed seriously, including plans to close dozens of schools, cut services and transform the landscape. The speech was a chance for Mr Bing to chart the way forward.

Mr Bing did describe his vision, but for now it remains hazy. The most urgent tasks are to create jobs, cut crime and clean up a fiscal mess. His long-term plan is less clear. The city, he said, would demolish 3,000 homes this year and 7,000 more by the end of his term. This would be only the first step toward re-imagining Detroit. Already, however, local groups are working on plans for broad change. Their premise was once politically unthinkable: before Detroit can thrive, it must shrink. Mr Bing supports this. But executing it will be difficult.

For years, reviving Detroit meant recreating a bustling metropolis. This has changed, thanks to a string of devastating events. Detroit was ailing before the downturn, but foreclosures have weakened the city’s few healthy pockets: Rosedale Park, a lovely neighbourhood in the north-west, now has boarded-up houses beside its pretty brick ones. The collapse of America’s carmakers, meanwhile, has helped push unemployment close to 30%. Economic disaster has coincided with political chaos. In 2008 the then-mayor was indicted. Mr Bing, a 66-year-old former basketball star turned businessman, took over last May before winning a full term last November. The budget deficit is now $325m.

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[BOB] ABERNETHY: But when he sent the letter last weekend to the Irish bishops, yes, he apologized and apologized, but he also did not go nearly as far in terms of discipline as a lot of people wanted to see.

{THOMAS] REESE: I think that’s true, and the difficulty is that I think that the pope needs to be on message. In that letter he said a lot of things. He said good things. He said he was sorry, he said that this was a terrible crime and sin, he acknowledged the fact that bishops didn’t respond adequately. Those were good things that he said.

ABERNETHY: So what should he do? What should the church do, learning from what the US experience was?

REESE: Well, I think that the European bishops really need to learn from the US experience. They need to put into place a zero-tolerance policy, which means that any priest that is involved in abuse is never going to be acting as a priest again. They need to cooperate with the police in reporting these accusations. They need to have a child protection program in parishes and churches, where people are trained. They need to apologize over and over and over again.

Read or watch it all.

The terrible revelations of sexual abuse in Ireland and Germany have confirmed the reality that the abuse of children by clergy is not a phenomenon confined to the United States. Nor, as Kieran Conroy, the bishop of Arundel and Brighton in the U.K., stated recently, is the crisis a media creation. “It is real,” he said. “It is a reality.” Outrage among the Irish and German public is the predominant, natural and justified response. But buried beneath the shock and anger, especially for Catholics, however, is a searing question: How could this happen?

There is an important resource that may begin to answer this question: the detailed analysis of the roots of clerical abuse in this country, which was conducted by The National Review Board, the group of lay people who researched and reported to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2003. Some questioned the independence of the board, but I think that their situational analysis, carried out by committed and highly qualified lay Catholics, is accurate.

Looking at what the National Review Board viewed as the root causes of the crisis in this country may shed light on what happened in Ireland and Germany and elsewhere. On the whole, the board’s analysis is about the most accurate and insightful that we have about the American situation. Of course, these are presented by the board as reasons, not excuses. There are no excuses for these crimes.

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A significant drop in fundraising dollars, exacerbated by the recession’s “strong headwind” has forced the Charleston Symphony Orchestra to suspend its operations, effective immediately, board president Ted Legasey said Sunday.

It is the first time in the orchestra’s 75-year history that a performance season has been disrupted because of acute financial difficulties, and next season’s fate is far from certain.

The remaining Masterworks concert, scheduled for April 17, has been canceled. Ticket holders will be asked to donate the cost of tickets to the organization or be reimbursed, Legasey said.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Born in Augusta in 1927, Lewis Bohler Jr. has seen a lot of changes to the Garden City.

When Bohler was growing up in what is now the Laney-Walker community, clay roads were still common, segregation was pervasive and tall buildings were the exception to the rule.

“I’ve seen us go from the horse and buggy to the moon,” Bohler said.

Bohler, a retired Episcopal priest, has spent two stints living in Augusta. He left in 1944 to study accounting at Hampton Institute in Virginia before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force and serving in Guam and Japan.

He returned permanently in 1996 to take care of a sick brother and serve at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

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Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waukee is five miles down the road from Walnut Hills United Methodist Church in Urbandale.

But they have moved further apart, philosophically, since the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on April 3, 2009, to legalize same-sex marriage.

The dilemma for churches didn’t start with the court’s decision. Congregations have been praying and struggling for years. But in this last year, the debate sharpened, not only between denominations and congregations but often within individual churches.

Read it all.

Facing continued drops in membership and a shrinking budget, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is offering severance packages to about 30 employees at its Louisville headquarters ”” part of an effort to cut its budget by nearly one-fifth by 2012.

This impending round of cuts is just the latest in a series over the past decade as the denomination attempts to cope with losses in membership, congregations and, more recently, investment returns.

“We are seeking to reduce our expenses in order to come into line with our revenue projections, as a matter of good stewardship,” said a statement from Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council, which oversees most of the denomination’s programming and Louisville workforce.

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You need to see how many you can come up with by movie and (if you can) movie date–then check it out.

From here (the vote was 112-5):

Resolution on the agenda for consideration:

Whereas, this congregation believes that – the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith and life (C2.03) and as such must be our final authority in matters of faith and life, and

Whereas, the ELCA adopted at the August 2009 Churchwide Assembly the Social Statement of Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, sections of which are contrary to the orthodox understanding of Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and

Whereas, the ELCA adopted at the August 2009 Churchwide Assembly to allow congregations to make decisions about ordination of individuals who are in publically accountable lifelong monogamous same gender relationships based upon bound consciousness rather than Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, and

Whereas, those changes in doctrine will alter the understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture and The Lutheran Confessions from orthodox and Lutheran teaching as held by the former ELCA; therefore be it
Resolved, that the congregation of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of 126 West Main Street, Dallastown, Pennsylvania, hereby terminate membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lower Susquehanna Synod, thereof, effective at the time of the second congregational vote and be it further

Resolved, that the congregation of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of 126 West Main Street, Dallastown, Pennsylvania, hereby requests to be received into membership in Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

–2 Corinthians 1:3-4