An Anglican church in Canada has caused an outcry after a dog was given holy communion. The Revd Marguerite Rea gave a consecrated wafer to an Alsatian-cross breed named Trapper, at St Peter’s, Toronto, last month.

It was the first time the dog and his owner, Donald Keith, had attended a service there. The Bishop of York Scarborough, the Rt Revd Patrick Yu, who oversees St Peter’s, emphasised that it was against the policy of the Anglican Church of Canada. “I can see why people would be offended. It is a strange and shocking thing, and I have never heard of it happening before.”

He said he believed Ms Rea was overcome by “a misguided gesture of welcoming”. He has received assurances from her that it will never happen again. The matter was now closed, he said, as “we are, after all, in the forgiveness-and-repair business.”

On Sunday, Ms Rea apologised for her action, which had been a “simple act of reaching out”.

Read it all.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

RG: Something endures, I believe, whether it endures in a physical form as scripture suggests, or as a contribution of some little intelligence to the universe or whether there’s memory, I’m not really sure. I’m pretty faithful to preach what scripture teaches, but as far as how that is actually going to be manifest for us, I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t really care. Whatever it is, I’m confident that God is good, and if it’s to be nothing, so be it”¦. One of the best metaphors for articulating what I think is from C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Hell is a state of continuing refusal toward God, which one can leave at any time. In his telling of the story, the torment is more from the consequence of continuing disconnection from the brightness and reality and graciousness of God. One gets stuck in one’s own narcissism or selfishness or fear or dread or some kind of addictive pattern of refusal, and that is the hell.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Nightmares have fascinated and perplexed people for centuries, their meaning debated by therapists and analysts of all schools of thought, their effects so powerful that one terrifying nightmare can affect a person for a lifetime.

A nightmare is “a disturbing dream experience which rubs, bites and sickens our soul, and has an undercurrent of horsepower, lewd demons, aggressive orality and death,” Dr. White-Lewis wrote in “In Defense of Nightmares,” her contribution to a 1993 book of essays about dreams.

From 4 to 8 percent of adults report experiencing nightmares, perhaps as often as once per week or more, according to sleep researchers. But the rate is as high as 90 percent among groups like combat veterans and rape victims, Dr. [Barry ] Krakow said. He said treatment for post-traumatic stress needed to deal much more actively with nightmares.

He and other clinicians are increasingly using imagery rehearsal therapy, or I.R.T., to treat veterans and active-duty troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Last month, Dr. Krakow conducted a workshop on imagery rehearsal and other sleep treatments for 65 therapists, sleep doctors and psychiatrists, including many working with the military. And the technique has drawn more attention from other researchers in the last several years. Anne Germain, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is comparing two treatments ”” behavioral therapy, including imagery rehearsal, and the blood-pressure drug prazosin, which has been found to reduce nightmares.

Read it all.

Henry Kerr and Valerie Berkowitz Kerr speak of their courtship

At the age of 97, Henry Kerr has married 87-year-old Valerie Berkowitz after wooing her for four years.

The pair, who met at a residential home in Golders Green, north London, tied the knot in a ceremony at the home on Sunday followed by high tea for 80 guests.

Mr Kerr said when he asked the now Mrs Berkowitz Kerr to marry him she “burst into a hysterical laugh”.

She agreed after Mr Kerr said he would not ask her again.

Read it all.

Read it all (pdf) or if you cannot do that format you can find the full text there.

The Education Secretary said he would be “interested” to look at proposals for non-religious schools from figures such Professor Richard Dawkins.

Prof Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said last month that he approved of the idea of setting up a “free-thinking” school.

The comments follow the publication of Coalition plans to give parents’ groups, teachers and charities powers to open their own schools at taxpayers’ expense.

Read it all.

In light of these developments, we draw the following conclusions:

* It is not appropriate for one of the Communion’s four Instruments to be an English company regulated by UK and EU law like any other UK company. To repeat what we said above, we do not question the need for the proper and efficient management of the Communion’s charitable assets by fiduciaries complying with all relevant laws. We are not convinced, however, that this role should be confused with the historic role of the Instruments of Communion in “the discernment, articulation and exercise of our shared faith and common life and mission” and in particular with the role of the Communion’s Primatial leadership, which bears special responsibility for “doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters that have Communion-wide implications.” (Covenant 3.1.4.)
* We urge the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates not to cede their independent authority to the corporate charter of the ACC, but to insist that their authority cannot be infringed by the ACC.
* It is now beyond doubt that the newly transformed and empowered ACC Standing Committee cannot function as the committee required by Section 4 of the Covenant.
* The Covenant remains the only hope for preserving the traditional faith and order of the Anglican Communion. We call upon member churches of the Anglican Communion to adopt the Covenant with all deliberate speed and, having done so, to make proper arrangements for the responsibilities assigned to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion in Section 4 to be undertaken by a body that has both the competence and ability to assess threats to the Communion and recommend appropriate action.

Read it carefully and read it all.

The next Anglican Consultative Council will debate a recommendation to increase the number of primates on the standing committee to eight, to equal ACC representatives. Some ACC members are wary of increasing the role of the primates.

Skirmishes over details are relatively minor compared to constitutional issues now beginning to emerge.

Ahead of the meeting the Anglican Communion Office announced that the old, unincorporated constitution had been replaced by new ACC articles of association following registration with the U.K. Charity Commission.

This change poses a raft of new questions. Is it right for a key instrument of the Anglican Communion to be enshrined in U.K. law in this way? Are there latent conflicts with the proposed Anglican Covenant, the role of the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting? Does the new arrangement partly disenfranchise ordinary ACC members?

As he has done before, Archbishop Williams questioned whether the Communion’s structures are adequate for the 21st century.

Read it all.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency over the state’s finances on Wednesday, raising pressure on lawmakers to negotiate a state budget that is more than a month overdue and will need to close a $19 billion shortfall.

The deficit is 22 percent of the $85 billion general fund budget the governor signed last July for the fiscal year that ended in June, highlighting how the steep drop in California’s revenue due to recession, the housing slump, financial market turmoil and high unemployment have slashed its all-important personal income tax collection.

In the declaration, Schwarzenegger ordered three days off without pay per month beginning in August for tens of thousands of state employees to preserve the state’s cash to pay its debt, and for essential services.

Read it all.

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.

Read it all.

Update: NPR did a whole segment on this story which is very worthwhile also.

….these macroeconomic arguments between policy-makers and intellectuals are blind to obstacles to growth faced on a micro level by real, live entrepreneurs and managers. Confronted with incredible uncertainty about the future business climate brought about by massive regulatory and tax changes, they are sitting on cash instead of investing in capital equipment and, especially, hiring new workers.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said never let a crisis go to waste. But the policy changes on health-care and financial services that have emerged from the current crisis, plus the largest tax increase in history that will hit Jan. 1 without Congressional action, are restraining companies, especially mid-to-small-sized ones.

Atlas didn’t shrug; he’s sitting on his hands””and his wallet.

That is the message heard repeatedly from entrepreneurs, their private-equity investors and their wealth managers. And it is becoming increasingly apparent, not so much in the parade of stronger-than-expected second-quarter earnings numbers from Standard & Poor’s 500 companies, but in regional Federal Reserve Bank reports.

Read it all.

Lord Chris Patten, named by the British Prime Minister to be in charge of Benedict XVI’s trip to the United Kingdom, said that the visit will be “an incredible success.”

He told Vatican Radio on Monday that those who criticized the Pope’s Sept. 16-19 trip will be surprised to discover its importance.

“I am absolutely certain that all the preparations undertaken by the government, local governments, the episcopal conferences of Scotland and England, will make the Pope’s visit an incredible success,” Patten affirmed.

He acknowledged that the preparation of the Papal visit has been more complex than expected, above all because the organizers underestimated the “complexity involved in fitting together the State visit aspects and the pastoral aspects, so that they were a seamless whole.”

Read it all.

Generous God, whose Son Jesus Christ enjoyed the friendship and hospitality of Mary, Martha and Lazarus of Bethany: Open our hearts to love thee, our ears to hear thee, and our hands to welcome and serve thee in others, through Jesus Christ our risen Lord; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathe’a, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body, and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed.

–Matthew 27: 57-60

So much for transparency.

Under a little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation, the Securities and Exchange Commission
no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities.” Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.

Read it all.

Meeting others who were sexually abused by clergy can help victims heal, says a leader of a support group for survivors.

“We hope they will try and talk with others and find they are not alone. They didn’t do anything wrong,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She didn’t know whether victims of a local Episcopal bishop had contacted S.N.A.P., but said they would be just as welcome by the Chicago-based nonprofit as the more highly publicized victims of Roman Catholic priests.

Read it all.

Every church in the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire will receive a visit from a motorcycle gang with a message: Don’t forget Haiti.

The Rev. George Stamm, a retired minister who led both Christ Episcopal Church and St. Simeon’s Episcopal Church in Chippewa Falls, is one of about 15 bikers who will ride from Superior to La Crosse for four days beginning Thursday ”” stopping at all 22 churches in the diocese to benefit Haiti.

Riders prepare to head out from St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Superior at 8 a.m. Thursday and the public is invited to cheer on the riders and pledge their support for the people of Haiti.

Read it all.

The Rev. Stockton Wulsin, pastor of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Evanston, resigned effective Sept. 30.

He told his congregation in a letter dated July 19 – the same day the church’s Vestry issued a letter to church members confirming that it had accepted the resignation.

In his letter, which Wulsin said was not intended for the public, the priest cited two reasons for his decision. “The Anglican Communion has been in a state of crisis for several years over the choice of the American Episcopal Church to ordain bishops living in openly homosexual relationships and to pronounce liturgical blessings on people living in same sex relationships.”

As agreed, the Committee revisited Saturday’s discussion. Dato’ Stanley Isaacs delivered a frank and passionate presentation about the distress felt by some parts of the Communion about The Episcopal Church’s decision to breach one of the moratoria. He concluded by proposing that rights to participate in discussions of matters of faith and order at the Standing Committee and the ACC be withdrawn from The Episcopal Church.

In the subsequent discussion Archbishop Philip Aspinall reiterated that the Standing Committee did not have the power to undertake such an action. He reminded the Committee that the Covenant had been drawn up to address just these kinds of points of disagreement. It was also stated that the Standing Committee did not have all the powers of the ACC, especially when it came to the Membership Schedule.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori questioned why the proposal was singling out The Episcopal Church. Bishop Ian Douglas stressed he was present in his role as an elected representative of the ACC, not a member of The Episcopal Church and he desired to always be responsible to the Council. He thanked Dato’ Stanley Isaacs for attending the Standing Committee meeting despite his [Isaacs’] feelings about recent events in the Communion. He said that having other elected representatives present who represented a genuine segment of the ACC helped him [Bp Douglas] to be a better member. He added that he missed having Bp Azad’s voice at the meeting….

Read it all.

My grandfather was the Reverend Calvin Titus Perkins, known by all as C.T. He was a Southern Baptist evangelist””a traveling preacher in Oklahoma, the former Indian Territory. He arrived, when he was a very young boy and it was a very young state, in a covered wagon. That famous dry Oklahoma dust seems embedded in the few black-and-white photos I’ve seen of him and his unkempt, unsmiling siblings. Several of them went on to drink and divorce. He was a man of passion but also a lover of order, a believer in rules. The bare bones Calvinism that flourished on the frontier offered him not only a faith but a way beyond the chaos and poverty he knew as a child.

When I left home at 18 for Brown University””in part because it was farther from Oklahoma than any other school that accepted me””my grandfather epitomized what I felt I had to escape from. His was a small, closed world defined by judgment. I was throwing myself toward possibility, toward life with a liberating small “l.” The Eternal Life that all his theology drove toward was really about the avoidance of death and damnation. As I grew older, this threat utterly lost its sense for me. How could every Catholic and Jew, every atheist in China and every northern Baptist in Chicago, for that matter””every non-Southern Baptist””be damned? Could God be so petty, and heaven so small?

The meanness of the God C.T. preached was contradicted, more poi gnantly, in his own person, though he would never have seen this in himself, nor did I have the words for many years to describe it. He was funny and smart and large-hearted.

Read it all.

Fifteen young American religious scholars and 14 teaching assistants from Al Azhar University – one of the oldest and most influential Islamic institutions in the world – spent two weeks together this month at Georgetown University in an attempt to bridge the divide between the Muslim world and the United States.

The potpourri of young religious scholars studied the legal foundations of American democracy and religious diversity in the U.S. and met with political figures, including White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim American elected to Congress.

“I met people that I love, and I consider them as my brother, my sister, my mother,” said Ibrahim Elbaz, 30, from Mansoura, Egypt.

Read it all.

A new faction of the Anglican Church is to open today in Victoria, a third offshoot in the fractured church.

St. Mark’s Traditional Anglican Church is to have its first service at 5 p.m. today at St. Ann’s Chapel on Humboldt Street, with its own church location to be announced within the next month.

Just how many people will show up at the service and be part of the congregation isn’t known. But with several local Anglican churches in the region closing and the rift in the church over the episcopal constitution, which was announced last October, there are Anglicans looking for a home, said Canon Stanley Sinclair of St. Mark’s.

Read it all.

A new Anglican relief agency is a step closer after a Lambeth Palace summit earlier this month.

Participants from across the Anglican Communion met with the Archbishop of Canterbury from July 12-14 to plan how to turn the proposed Alliance into reality.

Professionals from five continents working on advocacy, relief and community development programmes reviewed responses to a public consultation on the foundational document and the issues arising from them, and worked together to chart a way forward for the first few years of the Alliance.

read the whole thing (subscription required).

There are occasions when only one political party can develop a particular theory successfully. These are when that theory runs counter to the party’s traditional line. This is not hard to explain: when a theory’s fiercest detractors belong to a party that suddenly adopts it, self-doubt, combined with party loyalty, mutes their criticism. As David Cameron sets out to win people over to the notion of the Big Society, he will sense behind him the Conservative creed that built up around Lady Thatcher’s most famous quotation: “They are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women, and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people, and people look to themselves first.” Although this is often quoted out of context, it is clear that Mr Cameron is departing from the appeal to self-interest (enlightened or otherwise) that drove Conservatism in the 1980s and ’90s.

But as the Prime Minister moves into uncharted territory ”” uncharted, that is, apart from Communitarianism, the stakeholder programme, perhaps even Socialism ”” he is still enough of a Conservative to know that his Big Society ideal will be made or broken by one thing: money.

Read it all.

France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network’s North African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it took hostage in April.

The declaration and attack marked a shift in strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism.

“We are at war with al-Qaida,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau.

Read it all.

“I just can’t believe it,” Mr. [Dezso] Kocs said, looking around at his current quarters, with empty cardboard boxes used as night stands. “I used to be a business owner. Now I’m a slave.”

Read it all.

A team of federal investigators known as the “BP squad” is assembling in New Orleans to conduct a wide-ranging criminal probe that will focus on at least three companies and examine whether their cozy relations with federal regulators contributed to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to law enforcement and other sources.

The squad at the FBI offices includes investigators from the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and other federal agencies, the sources said. In addition to BP, the firms at the center of the inquiry are Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig to BP, and engineering giant Halliburton, which had finished cementing the well only 20 hours before the rig exploded April 20, sources said.

While it was known that investigators are examining potential violations of environmental laws, it is now clear that they are also looking into whether company officials made false statements to regulators, obstructed justice or falsified test results for devices such as the rig’s failed blowout preventer. It is unclear whether any such evidence has surfaced.

Read it all.

South Carolina had more than 7,500 licensed gambling locations. This number was much higher than Nevada, and the city of Columbia had more licensed locations than Las Vegas. There were more than 37,000 licensed video poker machines ”” roughly one for every 100 people in the state.

The gambling industry was taking in a reported $3 billion a year.

The money came disproportionately from the poor: In a 1997 survey of video poker players, 48 percent reported making less than $20,000 per year.

The cost far outweighed the gain….

Read it all.

Unemployment in America is a national crisis. It is also a local crisis. As individuals and families struggle to find work, make ends meet, and keep their homes amid an anemic economic recovery, they increasingly turn to local services for support. Local governments provide job training and assistance, transportation, support services for individuals and families in need, health care and education and afterschool programs that support working families. In many communities, local governments are also one of the primary employers….

Read it all (8 page pdf).