Confusion and scepticism greeted the latest plans to introduce women bishops, as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York announced another possible compromise to keep the Church together.
Ahead of July’s General Synod in York, which will be dominated by a 24-hour debate on women bishops legislation, the Archbishops have indicated that the Revision Committee’s proposed legislation will fail to keep the Church intact. The Archbishops have devised amendments which they “believe might provide a way forward”.

The Archbishops have described possible ”˜co-ordinate’ jurisdictions where the diocesan bishop would supposedly be legally entitled to exercise any episcopal function, but in practice would allow a nominated bishop to step in when requested.

This would secure the status of women bishops with no derogation of their powers while also appeasing those who do not want the oversight of someone whose authority depends on a woman bishop, the Archbishops claimed.

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[Paul] Krugman also told Handelsblatt he wouldn’t rule out sanctions against Germany if it continued to rely on its export-driven model. “If the euro falls to parity with the dollar, the Europeans are going to be surprised by the demands that will come out of the U.S. Congress, and I would support that,” he said.

That fiscal and economic policy critique probably won’t gain any more traction in Germany than his monetary policy one. Germans see their government finances and trade competitiveness as an example to be followed by Greece, Portugal and other troubled countries in Europe. And they clearly don’t see the U.S. model as one worth chasing.

Wolfgang Franz, who heads the German government’s economic advisory panel known as the Wise Men, tore into Krugman ”” and the US ”” in an op-ed in the German business daily Wednesday, titled “How about some facts, Mr. Krugman?”

“Where did the financial crisis begin? Which central bank conducted monetary policy that was too loose? Which country went down the wrong path of social policy by encouraging low income households to take on mortgage loans that they can never pay back? Who in the year 2000 weakened regulations limiting investment bank leverage ratios, let Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 and thereby tipped world financial markets into chaos?” he wrote.

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A new billboard is going up in Raleigh and five other North Carolina cities with a seemingly innocuous slogan superimposedon an image of the American flag: “OneNation Indivisible.”

It’s what the slogan doesn’t say that may bother some people.

Since 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance has split those three words to include two others: “under God.”

But this billboard was paid for by N.C. Secular Association, a coalition of nonbelievers and agnostics. Their message: We’re Americans, too.

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From here:

The Catholic Group in General Synod is grateful to the Archbishops for their suggestion of a possible way forward for the Church of England, both to enable the consecration of women bishops and to provide for those who cannot in conscience accept the ministry of women bishops. We are particularly grateful for their recognition of the need for bishops with jurisdiction in their own right to minister to us, and to all those who share our convictions.

We look forward to studying the amendments in detail when they are published. We very much hope that they will provide ‘nominated bishops’ who will be real leaders in mission and ministry. It is also be vital that the amendments provide for us to continue to hold a principled theological position, looking to the faith and order of the undivided Church. We believe that the Church will be better served by the consistency of a national scheme of provision.

The Catholic Group is wholly committed to securing provision within the Church of England.

Canon Simon Killwick

(Chairman of the Catholic Group)

Guess before you look for the answer.

In late 2008, shortly after he had helped pull Iraq back from the brink of catastrophe, Gen. David H. Petraeus prepared to turn to that other American war.

“I’ve always said that Afghanistan would be the tougher fight,” General Petraeus said at the time.

Now the burden falls to him, at perhaps the decisive moment in President Obama’s campaign to reverse the deteriorating situation on the ground here and regain the momentum in this nine-year-old war. In many ways, General Petraeus is being summoned to Afghanistan at a moment similar to the one he faced three years ago in Iraq, when the situation seemed hopeless to a growing number of Americans and their elected representatives as well.

But there is a crucial difference: In Iraq, General Petraeus was called in to reverse a failed strategy put in place by previous commanders. In Afghanistan, General Petraeus was instrumental in developing and executing the strategy in partnership with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who carried it out on the ground. Now General Petraeus will be directly responsible for its success or failure, risking the reputation he built in Iraq.

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You only needed to watch Fabio Capello’s post-match interview on the BBC to realise just how much England’s 1-0 victory over Slovenia meant to the Italian coach.

His impassioned performance in front of the cameras matched his players’ increased intensity on the Port Elizabeth pitch. Make no mistake about it, the stakes were very high not just for Capello but for the whole of English football.

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Over and over, everything seemed to go against them.

A referee took away a win last week, and a linesman disallowed another goal Wednesday.

Now there was just 3 1/2 minutes left in their World Cup, just that much remaining until all the doubts about American soccer would rise again.

But then, in one of the most stunning turnarounds in World Cup history, Landon Donovan scored on a lightning fast counterattack 45 seconds into 4 minutes of injury time. With the most amazing late-game moment in American soccer, the United States beat Algeria, 1-0, and reached the World Cup’s second round.

“This team embodies what the American spirit is about,” Donovan said. “We had a goal disallowed the other night, We had another good goal disallowed tonight. But we just keep going. And I think that’s what people admire so much about Americans. And I’m damn proud.”

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Update: Sally Jenkins (Washington Post): U.S. soccer victory unleashes the happiest fans, bar none

Money line:

Nevada Smith’s pub on Third Avenue is such a home for devout fans from all over the world that its nickname among the hard core is “The Church.”

Read it all: Part one is here and part two is there (many thanks to Christian book dot com).

“Freedom of worship” has recently replaced the phrase “freedom of religion” in public pronouncements from the Obama administration. Experts are concerned that the new rhetoric may signal a policy change.

“Freedom of worship” first appeared in President Obama’s November remarks at the memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shooting. Days later, he referred to worship rather than religion in speeches in Japan and China.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the shift in language. In a December speech at Georgetown University, she used “freedom of worship” three times but “freedom of religion” not at all. While addressing senators in January, she referred to “freedom of worship” four times and “freedom of religion” once when quoting an earlier Obama speech.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted the shift in its 2010 annual report. “This change in phraseology could well be viewed by human rights defenders and officials in other countries as having concrete policy implications,” the report said.

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Check it out and see what you make of it.

We don’t yet know with certainty whether testosterone strongly influences business decision-making. But the perception of the ideal business leader is starting to shift. The old model of command and control, with one leader holding all the decision-making power, is considered hidebound. The new model is sometimes called “post-heroic,” or “transformational” in the words of the historian and leadership expert James MacGregor Burns. The aim is to behave like a good coach, and channel your charisma to motivate others to be hardworking and creative. The model is not explicitly defined as feminist, but it echoes literature about male-female differences. A program at Columbia Business School, for example, teaches sensitive leadership and social intelligence, including better reading of facial expressions and body language. “We never explicitly say, ”˜Develop your feminine side,’ but it’s clear that’s what we’re advocating,” says Jamie Ladge.

A 2008 study attempted to quantify the effect of this more-feminine management style. Researchers at Columbia Business School and the University of Maryland analyzed data on the top 1,500 U.S. companies from 1992 to 2006 to determine the relationship between firm performance and female participation in senior management. Firms that had women in top positions performed better, and this was especially true if the firm pursued what the researchers called an “innovation intensive strategy,” in which, they argued, “creativity and collaboration may be especially important”””an apt description of the future economy.

It could be that women boost corporate performance, or it could be that better-performing firms have the luxury of recruiting and keeping high-potential women. But the association is clear: innovative, successful firms are the ones that promote women. The same Columbia-Maryland study ranked America’s industries by the proportion of firms that employed female executives, and the bottom of the list reads like the ghosts of the economy past: shipbuilding, real estate, coal, steelworks, machinery.

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Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Savior by preaching repentance: Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man–though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

–Romans 5:6-8

Into thy hands, O Lord, we commend ourselves this day. Let thy presence be with us to its close. Strengthen us to remember that in whatsoever good work we do we are serving thee. Give us a diligent and watchful spirit, that we may seek in all things to know thy will, and knowing it, gladly to perform it, to the honour and glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Gelasian Sacramentary

Most days after work, Diane Werle can be found hunkered down and reading her Bible, often at a neighborhood coffee shop.

A devout Christian, Werle covers at least a chapter a day. And she takes detailed notes, often flipping from book to book researching and double-checking passages.

There was a time when Werle carried her leather-bound and dog-eared Bible everywhere she went, scribbling in the margins as she read. These days she accesses the word and makes her notes on her iPod Touch.

“It’s nice to have a portable and easily accessible copy with you when you’re out and about,” said Werle, who attends the nondenominational New Day Church in Greendale. “You never know when you might get into a discussion with a friend about what it does or doesn’t say, or run into someone who has questions.”

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Religion may provide a “buffer” allowing the devout to feel less anxiety when they make mistakes, compared with non-believers, according to new scientific research.

Researchers at the University of Toronto measured “error-related negativity” — people’s defensive response to errors — and compared it to religious belief. Their findings were published in the journal Psychological Science.

In the experiments, participants had electrodes measuring their brain activity as they performed cognitive tests. One test of 40 students involved making a grammatically-correct sentence out of jumbled words; some of the sentences contained words with religious connotations, like “sacred” or “divine.”

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It is not foolish to have faith in God, on the contrary it is reasonable, because, as St Thomas Aquinas taught, human intelligence is limited and cannot know everything. For a third week Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his Wednesday audience to the Angelic Doctor, in particular to his master work in theology, the “Summa Theologiae”.

In comments in Italian the Pope said : “To those who object that faith is foolish because it makes us believe something that does not enter into the experience of the senses, St. Thomas offers a very detailed response, claiming that this is an inconsistent objection because human intelligence is limited and cannot know everything”.

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BP’s effort to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico suffered another setback Wednesday, when a discharge of liquid and gases forced the company to remove the containment cap that for three weeks had been able to capture much of the oil gushing from its damaged well.

Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, at a briefing in Washington, said a remote-controlled submersible operating a mile beneath the surface had most likely bumped a vent and compromised the system. Live video from the seafloor showed oil and gas storming out of the well unrestricted.

This was yet another complication in BP’s two-month-old struggle to contain the tens of thousands of barrels of oil spewing into the gulf.

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The Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut is so improbable, so thoroughly preposterous, one searches for comparisons. Suffice it to say that the fifth set of last year’s classic Wimbledon final — Roger Federer over Andy Roddick, 16-14 — looks rather paltry just now.

Try 59-59 in the fifth — and that’s right, it’s still not over.

Isner and Mahut strolled onto Court 18 this afternoon at the All England Club to resume a first-round match that had been suspended by darkness Tuesday evening, tied at two sets apiece. They spent seven hours and six minutes trying to finish — and failed. Around 9:10 p.m., pretty much the cutoff point for any Wimbledon match, it was suspended once again — tied at two sets apiece.

In case your eyes glazed over the first time, you read it correctly: 59-59. That doesn’t even register in tennis; it sounds like halftime of an NBA game.

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International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a Pakistani Christian was imprisoned on June 19 and faces the death penalty after a Muslim man accused him of blasphemy in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Sajid Hameed Bajwa accused Rehmat Masih of blaspheming the prophet Muhammad. According to article 295 C of Pakistan’s penal code, blaspheming Muhammad is punishable by death.

Rehmat’s son, Boota Masih, told ICC that the family is fearful of attacks by Muslim mobs. Female members of the family and their children have already left their homes and moved to other areas because of safety concerns.

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(ENS) The Rev. Thomas Ferguson has been named as ecumenical and interreligious relations officer for the Episcopal Church, according to a June 23 announcement from the Office of Public Affairs.

Ferguson will develop strategies and actions supporting Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s ministry as chief ecumenical officer of the Episcopal Church, the release said. “Working with colleagues, Ferguson will seek to foster ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and cooperation with other Christian communions and world religions.”

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Nearly 1,300 prison inmates wrongly received more than $9 million in tax credits for homebuyers despite being locked up when they claimed they bought a home, a government investigator reported Wednesday.

The investigator said 241 of the inmates were serving life sentences.

In all, more than 14,100 taxpayers wrongly received at least $26.7 million in tax credits that were meant to boost the nation’s slumping housing markets, said the report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.

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Sales of new homes collapsed in May, sinking 33 percent to the lowest level on record as potential buyers stopped shopping for homes once they could no longer receive government tax credits.

The bleak report from the Commerce Department is the first sign of how the end of federal tax credits could weigh on the nation’s housing market.

The credits expired April 30. That’s when a new-home buyer would have had to sign a contract to qualify.

“We fear that the appetite to buy a home has disappeared alongside the tax credit,” Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics,” wrote in a note. “After all, unemployment remains high, job security is low and credit conditions are tight.”

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