Did you hear about the Protestant minister who said that Haiti “has been in bondage to the devil for four generations”? No, it wasn’t Pat Robertson but Chavannes Jeune, a popular Evangelical pastor in Haiti who has long crusaded to cleanse his nation of what he believes is an ancestral voodoo curse. It turns out that more than a few Haitians agree with Jeune and Robertson that their nation’s crushing problems are caused by, yes, voodoo.

I know this not because I read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV, but because of a blog. University of Tennessee-Knoxville cultural anthropologist Bertin M. Louis Jr., an expert on Haitian Protestantism, posted an essay exploring this viewpoint on The Immanent Frame, a social scientist group blog devoted to religion, secularism and the public sphere.

Elsewhere on The Immanent Frame, there’s a fascinating piece by Wesleyan University religion professor Elizabeth McAlister touching on how the voodoo worldview affects Haiti’s cultural and political economy. She writes that the widespread belief that events happen because of secret pacts with gods and spirits perpetuates “the idea that real, causal power operates in a hidden realm, and that invisible powers explain material conditions and events.” Though McAlister is largely sympathetic to voodoo practitioners, she acknowledges that any effective attempt to relieve and rebuild Haiti will contend with that social reality.

Read it all.

Did you hear about the Protestant minister who said that Haiti “has been in bondage to the devil for four generations”? No, it wasn’t Pat Robertson but Chavannes Jeune, a popular Evangelical pastor in Haiti who has long crusaded to cleanse his nation of what he believes is an ancestral voodoo curse. It turns out that more than a few Haitians agree with Jeune and Robertson that their nation’s crushing problems are caused by, yes, voodoo.

I know this not because I read it in a newspaper or saw it on TV, but because of a blog. University of Tennessee-Knoxville cultural anthropologist Bertin M. Louis Jr., an expert on Haitian Protestantism, posted an essay exploring this viewpoint on The Immanent Frame, a social scientist group blog devoted to religion, secularism and the public sphere.

Elsewhere on The Immanent Frame, there’s a fascinating piece by Wesleyan University religion professor Elizabeth McAlister touching on how the voodoo worldview affects Haiti’s cultural and political economy. She writes that the widespread belief that events happen because of secret pacts with gods and spirits perpetuates “the idea that real, causal power operates in a hidden realm, and that invisible powers explain material conditions and events.” Though McAlister is largely sympathetic to voodoo practitioners, she acknowledges that any effective attempt to relieve and rebuild Haiti will contend with that social reality.

Read it all.

If boomers were always looking to shock, millennials are eager to share.

But they are also unconventionally conventional. They are, for example, the least officially religious of any modern generation, and fully 1 in 4 has no religious affiliation at all. On the other hand, they are just as spiritual, just as likely to believe in miracles and hell and angels as earlier generations were. They pray about as much as their elders did when they were young–all of which suggests that they have not lost faith in God, only in the institutions that claim to speak for him.

The greatest divide of all has to do with hope and heart. In any age, young folk tend to be more cheerful than old folk, but the hope gap has never been greater than it is now. Despite two wars and a nasty recession that has hit young people hardest, the Pew survey found that 41% of millennials are satisfied with how things are going, compared with 26% of older people. Less than a third of those with jobs earn enough to lead the kind of life they want–but 88% are confident that they will one day.

“Youth is easily deceived,” Aristotle said, “because it is quick to hope.” But I’d rather think that the millennials know something we don’t about the inventions that will emerge from their networked brains, the solutions that might arise from a generation so determined to bridge gaps and work as a team. In that event, their vision would be vindicated, not only for themselves but for those of us who will one day follow their lead.

Read it all.

If boomers were always looking to shock, millennials are eager to share.

But they are also unconventionally conventional. They are, for example, the least officially religious of any modern generation, and fully 1 in 4 has no religious affiliation at all. On the other hand, they are just as spiritual, just as likely to believe in miracles and hell and angels as earlier generations were. They pray about as much as their elders did when they were young–all of which suggests that they have not lost faith in God, only in the institutions that claim to speak for him.

The greatest divide of all has to do with hope and heart. In any age, young folk tend to be more cheerful than old folk, but the hope gap has never been greater than it is now. Despite two wars and a nasty recession that has hit young people hardest, the Pew survey found that 41% of millennials are satisfied with how things are going, compared with 26% of older people. Less than a third of those with jobs earn enough to lead the kind of life they want–but 88% are confident that they will one day.

“Youth is easily deceived,” Aristotle said, “because it is quick to hope.” But I’d rather think that the millennials know something we don’t about the inventions that will emerge from their networked brains, the solutions that might arise from a generation so determined to bridge gaps and work as a team. In that event, their vision would be vindicated, not only for themselves but for those of us who will one day follow their lead.

Read it all.

Like more than 100 churches nationwide, Christ Church broke with TEC over its well-documented liberalized faith (“Other Abrahamic faiths have access to God the Father without consciously going through Jesus,” presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said). The church’s vestry voted unanimously to disaffiliate over “departure from doctrine” and to place the church under the Anglican Province of Uganda. The congregation approved, with 87 percent voting in favor out of over 300 ballots cast.

Division “happened over time,” rector Marc Robertson told me, and 30-40 disaffected members set up a congregation downriver calling itself “Christ Church Episcopal.” Last May TEC filed legal action against Robertson and the vestry, seeking to acquire the property on Johnson Square in Savannah’s historic district. TEC has filed similar actions against churches in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This case turns on state trust laws and laws of incorporation, and is complex given that Christ Church predates the existence of the state of Georgia. TEC asserts that church property should be subject to denominational “discipline,” which Christ Church forfeited when it quit the denomination, it says.

Funny things happen when a church takes a stand for the gospel. Sunday attendance at Christ Church is up and it accepted 28 new families””a record””for membership this past year. “We have a corporate sense of galvanization,” said Robertson, “and are doing well spiritually. Our biblical literacy has increased because we are driven back to understanding why we believe what we believe.”

Read it all.

Like more than 100 churches nationwide, Christ Church broke with TEC over its well-documented liberalized faith (“Other Abrahamic faiths have access to God the Father without consciously going through Jesus,” presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has said). The church’s vestry voted unanimously to disaffiliate over “departure from doctrine” and to place the church under the Anglican Province of Uganda. The congregation approved, with 87 percent voting in favor out of over 300 ballots cast.

Division “happened over time,” rector Marc Robertson told me, and 30-40 disaffected members set up a congregation downriver calling itself “Christ Church Episcopal.” Last May TEC filed legal action against Robertson and the vestry, seeking to acquire the property on Johnson Square in Savannah’s historic district. TEC has filed similar actions against churches in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. This case turns on state trust laws and laws of incorporation, and is complex given that Christ Church predates the existence of the state of Georgia. TEC asserts that church property should be subject to denominational “discipline,” which Christ Church forfeited when it quit the denomination, it says.

Funny things happen when a church takes a stand for the gospel. Sunday attendance at Christ Church is up and it accepted 28 new families””a record””for membership this past year. “We have a corporate sense of galvanization,” said Robertson, “and are doing well spiritually. Our biblical literacy has increased because we are driven back to understanding why we believe what we believe.”

Read it all.

Follow all the links and peruse it all.

Follow all the links and peruse it all.

One fast-growing American industry has become a conspicuous beneficiary of the recession: for-profit colleges and trade schools.

At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.

But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.

“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. “They can’t generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they’re going to end up in financial distress.”

Read it all.

One fast-growing American industry has become a conspicuous beneficiary of the recession: for-profit colleges and trade schools.

At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year.

But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students.

“If these programs keep growing, you’re going to wind up with more and more students who are graduating and can’t find meaningful employment,” said Rafael I. Pardo, a professor at Seattle University School of Law and an expert on educational finance. “They can’t generate income needed to pay back their loans, and they’re going to end up in financial distress.”

Read it all.

U.S. forces have recovered a huge cache of weapons that was given to Afghan security forces but wound up in the hands of the Taliban, a U.S. military review has found.

The Afghan army and national police have lost 13,000 weapons, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, 80 vehicles and one pair of night vision goggles, members of a U.S. task force told USA TODAY.

All the gear was bought for the Afghans by Americans, part of $330 million in weapons purchases.

Most of the weapons have been seized from the Taliban or other insurgent forces.

Read it all.

U.S. forces have recovered a huge cache of weapons that was given to Afghan security forces but wound up in the hands of the Taliban, a U.S. military review has found.

The Afghan army and national police have lost 13,000 weapons, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, 80 vehicles and one pair of night vision goggles, members of a U.S. task force told USA TODAY.

All the gear was bought for the Afghans by Americans, part of $330 million in weapons purchases.

Most of the weapons have been seized from the Taliban or other insurgent forces.

Read it all.

Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls’ grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville’s quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are “Our Girls,” the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

Each Sunday morning, members of White Stone Church spread photos of the girls’ grinning, impish faces across a folding table in the lobby, then prayed for the day they might join them.

When the churchgoers closed their eyes and bowed their heads, it no longer mattered that 1,400 miles separated them from the girls or that they lived in a Haitian village whose dirt floors and lack of running water were unthinkable in north Knoxville’s quilt of neatly tended subdivisions and fast-food drive-thrus.

They are “Our Girls,” the worshippers told one another.

Over six years, the girls of Coq Chante had come to feel like family. Now, after trips by dozens to Haiti, thousands of dollars raised and spent, and countless hours poring over adoption paperwork, the bond with 19 children from another world felt unbreakable.

Until a Tuesday night in January.

Read it all.

OVER the past few years, a growing number of America’s parentless children have found homes. In 2008 there were 463,000 children in foster care, a system where the government places orphans and children with parents who are abusive or unable to take care of them in the care of guardians. That is 11% down since 2002, and great news. But experts worry the trend might now go into reverse.

Some welfare advocates fear that the bad economy may cause parents with frayed nerves to abuse and neglect their children, and even cause some to abandon them. Already, several hospitals across the country have reported an increase in the frequency and severity of injuries from child abuse.

The most recent national data on child welfare available dates from September 2008, before the recession was in full throttle; data from 2009 won’t be reported until later this year. But there is some question about whether the data, when reported, will even be accurate. Many states and counties, in an attempt to cope with their fiscal straits, are considering cutting down on child-welfare services, such as benefits for foster parents and the number of social workers they employ.

Read the whole article.

OVER the past few years, a growing number of America’s parentless children have found homes. In 2008 there were 463,000 children in foster care, a system where the government places orphans and children with parents who are abusive or unable to take care of them in the care of guardians. That is 11% down since 2002, and great news. But experts worry the trend might now go into reverse.

Some welfare advocates fear that the bad economy may cause parents with frayed nerves to abuse and neglect their children, and even cause some to abandon them. Already, several hospitals across the country have reported an increase in the frequency and severity of injuries from child abuse.

The most recent national data on child welfare available dates from September 2008, before the recession was in full throttle; data from 2009 won’t be reported until later this year. But there is some question about whether the data, when reported, will even be accurate. Many states and counties, in an attempt to cope with their fiscal straits, are considering cutting down on child-welfare services, such as benefits for foster parents and the number of social workers they employ.

Read the whole article.

The United States, Germany and other major economies could see their top-notch credit rating come under pressure if the recovery in the global economy stalls, Moody’s Investors Service warned Monday in a report.

The ratings of the Aaa governments ”” which also include Britain, France, Spain and “the less fiscally challenged Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden” ”” “are currently well positioned despite their stretched finances,” Moody’s said in its quarter Sovereign Monitor report.

But the agency noted that “the recovery that has taken hold across the global economy remains fragile in several of the large advanced economies, most of which have also implemented the most aggressively expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.”

Read it all.

The United States, Germany and other major economies could see their top-notch credit rating come under pressure if the recovery in the global economy stalls, Moody’s Investors Service warned Monday in a report.

The ratings of the Aaa governments ”” which also include Britain, France, Spain and “the less fiscally challenged Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden” ”” “are currently well positioned despite their stretched finances,” Moody’s said in its quarter Sovereign Monitor report.

But the agency noted that “the recovery that has taken hold across the global economy remains fragile in several of the large advanced economies, most of which have also implemented the most aggressively expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.”

Read it all.

Premier Wen Jiabao aimed sharp words at Washington on Sunday, ceding little ground on China’s currency policy and suggesting that U.S. efforts to boost its exports by weakening the dollar amounted to “a kind of trade protectionism.”

In his once-yearly news conference, Mr. Wen blamed the recent deterioration in what he called China’s most important foreign relationship on U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama’s meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

“These moves have violated China’s territorial integrity,” Mr. Wen said. “The responsibility does not lie with the Chinese side but with the United States.” Mr. Wen said a good China-U.S. relationship “makes both sides winners while a confrontational one makes both sides losers.”

Because Mr. Wen comments so rarely in public, his annual press conferences have a magnified importance. This year’s comments were a rare opportunity to hear candidly, and in unusual depth, a Chinese leader’s perspective on the U.S.

Read it all.

Premier Wen Jiabao aimed sharp words at Washington on Sunday, ceding little ground on China’s currency policy and suggesting that U.S. efforts to boost its exports by weakening the dollar amounted to “a kind of trade protectionism.”

In his once-yearly news conference, Mr. Wen blamed the recent deterioration in what he called China’s most important foreign relationship on U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama’s meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

“These moves have violated China’s territorial integrity,” Mr. Wen said. “The responsibility does not lie with the Chinese side but with the United States.” Mr. Wen said a good China-U.S. relationship “makes both sides winners while a confrontational one makes both sides losers.”

Because Mr. Wen comments so rarely in public, his annual press conferences have a magnified importance. This year’s comments were a rare opportunity to hear candidly, and in unusual depth, a Chinese leader’s perspective on the U.S.

Read it all.

And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Eph’phatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

–Mark 7:33-35

And taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Eph’phatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

–Mark 7:33-35

O Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who art thyself the bread of life, and hast promised that he who comes to thee shall never hunger: Grant us faith truly to partake of thee through Word and Sacrament, that we may find refreshment of spirit and be strengthened for thy service; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

O Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who art thyself the bread of life, and hast promised that he who comes to thee shall never hunger: Grant us faith truly to partake of thee through Word and Sacrament, that we may find refreshment of spirit and be strengthened for thy service; who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Charleston is a place of firsts.

It was the first permanent settlement in one of the New World’s first Colonies. It fostered the earliest cohesive Jewish community in the South. It was home to two of the four South Carolina men who signed the Declaration of Independence. It was the place where the first shots of the Civil War rang out. It was the American city where Reform Judaism first took root, in 1824.

And this July, Charleston’s Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, will welcome the city’s first female rabbi: Stephanie Alexander.

Read it all.

Charleston is a place of firsts.

It was the first permanent settlement in one of the New World’s first Colonies. It fostered the earliest cohesive Jewish community in the South. It was home to two of the four South Carolina men who signed the Declaration of Independence. It was the place where the first shots of the Civil War rang out. It was the American city where Reform Judaism first took root, in 1824.

And this July, Charleston’s Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, will welcome the city’s first female rabbi: Stephanie Alexander.

Read it all.

Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months.

States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn say they have either delayed refunds or are considering doing so because of budget shortfalls.

“It’s an indicator of how bad it is,” says Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. “You know things are bad when you have to do that.”

New York, hit with a $9 billion deficit, may delay $500 million in refunds to keep the state from running out of cash, says Gov. David Paterson.

Read it all.

Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months.

States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn say they have either delayed refunds or are considering doing so because of budget shortfalls.

“It’s an indicator of how bad it is,” says Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. “You know things are bad when you have to do that.”

New York, hit with a $9 billion deficit, may delay $500 million in refunds to keep the state from running out of cash, says Gov. David Paterson.

Read it all.