O Lord, who in a time of turmoil and confusion didst raise up thy servant William White, and didst endow him with wisdom, patience, and a reconciling temper, that he might lead thy Church into ways of stability and peace: Hear our prayer, we beseech thee, and give us wise and faithful leaders, that through their ministry thy people may be blessed and thy will be done; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

–Matthew 26:26-29

When asked by the American Anglican Council for the minutes of this December meeting, Anglican Communion Office officials told us that they were not yet available as they needed to be approved at next week’s meeting. For now, we are left to guess why Janet Trisk, a white priest and lawyer, was chosen to replace a black laywoman on the SCAC if their intent was to promote diversity. Are we to understand that there was really no other qualified lay representative from Africa who could replace Ms.Walaza? And was there not even another qualified clergy representative from Africa who could take her place until such a lay representative could be found? (See the ACC roster here) Is it merely a coincidence that Janet Trisk played a major role at ACC-14 in delaying and bottling up Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, as documented on video by Anglican TV and live-blogged on Stand Firm in Faith by AAC Communications Officer Robert Lundy, and that her participation on the SCAC will almost certainly further the agenda of those who would weaken an already-weakened Anglican Covenant?

And what about those new “proposed bylaws” of the SCAC – can we have a look at them? Again, in the words of Mr. Butter from the Anglican Communion Office (ACO):

Asked if copies of the proposed new bylaws were available for review, the ACO responded that “discussions about the Articles are still ongoing between the legal advisor and the Charity Commission, so they are not yet available.”

Is it any wonder that the majority of the Anglicans in the Global South, and the GAFCON Primates, have concluded that the ACC, the SCAC and its unpublished bylaws are simply a tool for the West to continue to exercise colonial hegemony over the rest of the Anglican Communion?

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In his message, which will be broadcast Sept. 12 over our 200-station network, President [Jimmy] Carter had this to say:

All people of faith who take the Bible seriously — both the New Testament and the Hebrew text–very much agree that God’s heart is with the poor and the vulnerable. Jesus proclaimed at the beginning of his early ministry that he had come to “bring good news to the poor.” The Bible includes several thousand verses on the poor and on God’s response to injustice.

This eminent Sunday school teacher (he still teaches two or three Sundays a month at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga.) is the special capstone speaker for our “Day 1” series on “Faith & Global Hunger.” The first four episodes in the series aired on consecutive Sundays from June 13-July 4 (for transcripts, audio, and video of the series, visit http://hunger.day1.org).

This series features notable church leaders discussing the issue of global poverty and how the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MGD) can address that issue….

The Right Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, issued a passionate call to serve the poor individually and corporately in his sermon “Can I Get a Witness?” …

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Who is a Jew? It’s an age-old inquiry, one that has for decades (if not centuries) provoked debate, discussion and too many punch lines to count ”” all inspired by what many assumed was the question’s essential unanswerability. But if developments this week are any indication, the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, might soon offer an official, surprising answer: almost no one.

On Monday, a Knesset committee approved a bill sponsored by David Rotem, a member of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, that would give the Orthodox rabbinate control of all conversions in Israel. If passed, this legislation would place authority over all Jewish births, marriages and deaths ”” and, through them, the fundamental questions of Jewish identity ”” in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis.

The move has set in motion a sectarian battle that is not only dividing Israeli society but threatening to sever the vital connection between Israel and the American Jewish diaspora.

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The huge black billboard is hard to miss, looming over a stretch of Route 22 like a harbinger of death, or at least the right to die: “My Life, My Death, My Choice, FinalExitNetwork.org”

The 15-by-49-foot billboard went up June 28, paid for by Final Exit Network, a nationwide group that provides guidance to adults seeking to end a life of constant pain from incurable illness.

The billboard, along with one in San Francisco and another planned for Florida, anchors a national campaign by the network to raise awareness of itself and its mission. Members say the locations were chosen for their reputations as being socially progressive and, in Florida’s case, for its elderly population.

“What we’re trying to do is let people know that Final Exit Network exists, and that we’re here, and if they spend a little time trying to find out what we do, they might actually support us,” said Bob Levine, 88, of Princeton, who founded the group’s New Jersey chapter after his first wife died of cancer.

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Polyandry has been practiced here for centuries, but in a single generation it has all but vanished. That is a remarkably swift change in a country where social change, despite rapid economic growth, leaping technological advances and the relentless march of globalization, happens with aching slowness, if at all.

After centuries of static isolation, so much has changed here in the Lahaul Valley in the past half-century ”” first roads and cars, then telephones and satellite television dishes, and now cellphones and broadband Internet connections ”” that a complete social revolution has taken place. Not one of Ms. Devi’s five children lives in a polyandrous family.

“Times have changed,” Ms. Devi said. “Now nobody marries like this.”

Polyandry has never been common in India, but pockets have persisted, especially among the Hindu and Buddhist communities of the Himalayas, where India abuts Tibet.

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The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has received a $404,000 grant for its work on gathering and developing rites to bless same-sex couples.

The grant, which is just over 16 times the $25,000 approved by General Convention for developing such blessing rites, will help the SCLM gather comments more thoroughly from across the church.

The money has been granted by the Arcus Foundation, which is based in Kalamazoo, Mich. Arcus describes its mission as achieving “social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes.”

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Muslim-American organizations have launched what they say will be the most comprehensive survey of mosques in the United States in a decade.

“This is the biggest mosque survey since 9/11,” said Ihsan Bagby, an Islamic Studies professor at the University of Kentucky, who is leading this survey and worked on the last one in 2000.

Like that survey, the new one will provide figures for the number of U.S. mosques, the number of Muslims associated with those mosques, and attempt to ascertain the status of women in mosques.

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After a bitter vote, the Church of England decided Monday that women can be consecrated as bishops. But the secretary of the Vatican’s unity council says ecumenical dialogue will continue as before.

The synodal decision must be put to a referendum within a year by another similar synod; nevertheless it is a vote that marks an important point within the history of the Church of England.

The vote was noteworthy in another regard: a conciliatory amendment proposed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, Rowan Williams and John Sentamu, was rejected.

Bishop Brian Farrell, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told ZENIT that the Anglican decision does represent an “enormous obstacle.” Nevertheless, he said, the effects of this vote must be kept in a proper perspective.

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Not long ago, books with titles like “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” warned that theologically conservative Protestants are bent on taking over the country. It may be more nefarious than critics had originally supposed. The evangelicals’ latest strategy””Veritas Riff””involves getting staid Christian scholars to do improvisational comedy.

Veritas Riff is the brainchild of four evangelical leaders in their 30s and early 40s who are highly connected in the Christian world but less well known outside””precisely the types, in other words, that conspiracy theorists might suspect as the ringleaders of a Christian cabal. Curtis Chang, the former pastor of a Silicon Valley church, runs a consulting firm that advises nonprofits and governmental entities; Andy Crouch is an editor of Christianity Today and author of the book “Culture Making”; D. Michael Lindsay teaches sociology at Rice University and is the author of “Faith in the Halls of Power”; and Dan Cho is the executive editor of Veritas Forum, which organizes popular conferences on faith and the life of ideas at universities around the country and sponsors Veritas Riff.

If the organizers have conspiracy in mind, theirs is an unlikely one. The applicants””young and midcareer Christian scholars””were asked a series of questions related to their expertise and their desire to become “Christian thought leaders” who “can speak in a culturally influential manner to a broad audience.” The 13 inaugural fellows include an astrophysicist at NASA; an art historian; a newly tenured professor in Harvard’s African and African American Studies department; a geonomic medicine resident; a historian; a law professor (me); and Michael Gerson, the Washington Post columnist and former Bush speechwriter.

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For Senior Pastor Marc Robertson the Christ Church sanctuary is his sanctuary to talk to God. It’s where he spends a lot of time after losing the latest appeal to house his congregation. “It was a blow, not unexpected, but a blow,” explained Pastor Robertson. “We are concerned about the message of the Episcopal Church, and sense that it is not consonant with the historic Christian faith. We would rather not see that take root in this particular venue,” he said.

The battle begins, and ends, at Christ Church off of Johnson Square on Bull Street. On the outside, the church, built in 1830’s, looks strong and stately. But on the inside, the building was once wrought with turmoil. Three years ago, members split from the Episcopal Diocese over fundamental differences in the teaching of the gospel, as well as its stance on homosexuality. Christ Church now aligns with the Anglican Diocese. “The congregation there was never asked to change beliefs or practice,” explained Reverend Frank Logue with the Episcopal Diocese. “They just believe they could not, with integrity, within the Episcopal Church. We didn’t share that feeling. In fact, we wanted them within Episcopal Church,” Reverend Logue said.

Read the whole thing.

(By George Conger)

Observance of the Anglican Consultative Council’s bylaws are discretionary, a spokesman for the organization tells The Church of England

ACC spokesman Jan Butter told CEN the future membership rules of the organization which seek to promote gender parity take precedence over its existing rules.

However, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s press spokesman tells The Church of England Newspaper, the ACC staff’s views are not the final word on the matter, as the appointment of Bishop Ian Douglas and Canon Janet Trisk to the ACC Standing Committee are under legal review.

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After two emotional days of debate on women bishops, Synod members’ reactions ranged from joy to deep disappointment.

Owing to the number of amend­ments to the draft legislation, its re­vision stage was a long haul last week­end. But every bid to give opponents bishops with their own jurisdiction ”” even “co-ordinate”, as proposed by the two Archbishops ”” fell.

Though supported by a majority of Synod members, the Archbishops’ amendment lost by five votes among the Clergy when a vote by Houses was required. An amendment for hard­ship provision for clergy resigning office also fell. Traditionalists are left with a code of practice (as yet unseen), which they have repeatedly said “will not do”.

Writing to his clergy, however, the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres, said that it was “emphatically not true to say that the Measure as it stands contains no provisions”. But he recognised there was anxiety among traditionalists because the contents of the code had not yet been worked out.

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New cuts may be coming to the Philadelphia Fire Department and they could include rolling closures of firehouses.

What if you stopped by your local firehouse and found the firefighters who would normally be first to answer your call weren’t there at all that day?

It could happen.

The city announced as many as four units each day may be taken out of service in neighborhoods city wide in hopes of saving more than $3.5 million in overtime to ease the city’s budget crunch.

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The president, focused like a laser on the nation’s top problem, decided to give a nationally broadcast speech.

“On the basis of this simple principle of doing everything together, we are starting out on this nationwide attack on unemployment,” he said. “It will succeed if our people understand it ”” in the big industries, in the little shops, in the great cities and the small villages.”

It is time, he added, “for patience and understanding and cooperation.”

Barack Obama?

No, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 77 years ago this month, in one of the most important “fireside chats” of his presidency.

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But I trust in thee, O LORD, I say, “Thou art my God.” My times are in thy hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors! Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love!

–Psalm 31:14-16

In Army culture, especially in the elite unit filled with rangers and paratroopers in which I served, asking for help was showing weakness. My two Bronze Stars, my tours in Airborne and Special Operations units, none of these would matter. To ask for help would be seen as breaking.

But, finally, when in the middle of the day I was forced to hide, shaking and crying in a concrete bunker, railing against the noise and the images in my head, and when I understood that to continue was to endanger the soldiers I was sent to Afghanistan to lead, I asked for help.

Today, right now, we need to get more soldiers to ask for help. Reducing the stigma attached to mental health issues is the first step. When soldiers see their peers ridiculed, accused of malingering or cowardice, they don’t seek the help they need.

Maybe that’s why, in the first half of 2009, more American soldiers committed suicide than died in combat.

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The bracelet is both simple and a bit strange, since it consists of six or seven fishing lures connected end to end.

Some people look at this piece of silver or gold jewelry in the James Avery line and they see fishing lures — period.

But other shoppers see the same item and they think of these words of Jesus: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This is especially true if they have completed a United Methodist Walk to Emmaus weekend, or some other renewal program inspired by the Catholic Cursillo movement.

“Most of our customers purchase and wear that for the religious symbolism,” said Paul Avery, executive vice president of the company that his father started in a garage. “But there is a group that has no clue what it means. … They just happen to like it. They like to fish or whatever.”

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The Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that will resolve its lawsuit against the firm alleging that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage product, the agency announced Thursday.

The SEC sued Goldman in April, charging it with fraud in marketing of a complex financial product called Abacus 2007-AC1 that was based on mortgage-backed securities. The suit is the highest profile of a number of inquiries regulators are making into synthetic collateralized debt obligations.

In agreeing to the SEC’s largest-ever penalty paid by a Wall Street firm, Goldman also acknowledged that its marketing materials for the subprime product contained incomplete information, the SEC said.

Goldman denied any wrong doing in the SEC lawsuit but has been under pressure from shareholders to reach a settlement on the fraud lawsuit and other SEC probes.

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When the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. “Ted” Gulick, Jr., announced his decision to retire as Bishop of Kentucky, he was clear about the timing and his destination. He would leave by August 2010 and move back to Virginia, where he was a rector in Newport News for 11 years before being elected a bishop.

Bishop Gulick will not pause from episcopal duties for long. He will begin visiting parishes Sept. 12 as one of five “guest bishops” who agreed to assist the Rt. Rev. Shannon Johnston, Bishop of Virginia, during 2010. On New Year’s Day in 2011 he will become assistant bishop.

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Injustice is all around us: oil spews into the ocean, and people live in poverty around the world and in our own backyard. It seems like everything we buy is built at someone else’s expense. Where is truth found? Often, it’s in the most unlikely places. Young Anglicans will explore that quest for truth at this year’s Outreach Conference youth program, taking place Oct. 16.

The youth will listen to hip hop and read children’s stories, hear from each other, and connect their reflections to the parable of the talents. They will then learn about practical ways of responding to issues such as poverty, environmental destruction and corporate responsibility.

Meanwhile, the regular conference program will be highlighted by a keynote address by Ched Myers, a gifted author, theologian and justice advocate. Re-reading the Bible in light of concrete struggles against violence and oppression is a key focus for Mr. Myers. “I believe that the Judeo-Christian sacred story is the older, deeper and wiser tradition that has the power to transform our lives and our history ”“ but only if we can overcome its domestication under the dominant culture,” he says.

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The Very Rev. Philip C. Linder, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, was suspended today by the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina, apparently over a leadership dispute between Linder and the vestry of the downtown Columbia church.

Bishop W. Andrew Waldo issued the suspension after Linder violated ground rules for the mediation process, according to a statement circulated to lay leaders of the church.

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From here:

Like you, I was very disappointed at the outcome of last weekend’s debate at General Synod in York and appalled at the intransigence of some feminist clergy and their supporters. What kind of a church is it that is willing to ignore the leadership of its Archbishops and to renege on a solemn promise given to Parliament about an honoured and permanent place for us?

We now face a most serious situation, made all the worse by the refusal of the Synod to pass the Archbishops’ amendment. Resolutions A & B – which provide the basis in law on which the ordination of women can be opposed – are to be removed. This means that any opposition which might be tolerated will be based on the recognition of supposed prejudice rather than the respect of theological principle. Further, the abolition of the PEVs is proposed, which will leave our constituency in an intolerable position. All we would be allowed under the draft Measure as it now stands is access to a male bishop, whose own beliefs need not coincide with ours. That is sexism writ large.

Despite the dreadful result in York, we owe a debt of gratitude to the Catholic Group in General Synod, along with all those who supported them in the debate. In the coming weeks, a new Synod is to be elected and it is vital we all do all we can to ensure the return of as many orthodox candidates as possible, in order that a Catholic presence on the Synod can be there to continue to represent the interests of Catholic Anglicans throughout this divisive and unnecessary process.

That these are very difficult times for all of us goes without saying; we need, above all, to take time to pray, to consult together and to support one another, as we try to discern our respective ways forward ”“ not just in faith, but also of course in hope and in love.

–(The Rt. Rev.) John Broadhurst, Bishop of Fulham

A Gallup Poll has found that Americans’ self-reported church attendance has increased slightly since 2008. But sociologists of religion are quick to caution churches about the reliability of such figures.

The Gallup data, released in late June, were primarily based on the question: “How often do you attend church, synagogue, or mosque?” Exactly 43.1 percent of Americans in 2010 said they attended a house of worship “at least once a week” or “almost every week.” That’s up from 42.8 percent in 2009 and 42.1 percent in 2008.

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In a hearing…[yesterday] Judge Ralph Walton granted three motions favoring St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Fort Worth, as well as the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Corporation of the Diocese. At issue in the case is payment of a bequest made to St. Andrew’s in 2002 by a longtime parishioner. As he had done in past hearings on earlier motions, Judge Walton dismissed attempts by representatives of the national leadership of The Episcopal Church (TEC) to bring issues from a case pending in Tarrant County into the trust case before the Hood County court.

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Evangelicals care more than mainline Protestants about keeping their young people in the faith. This is the striking conclusion James Wellman reaches in his fascinating book, “Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest” (Oxford). Based on observations, interviews, and focus group discussions with people from 24 evangelical and 10 mainline churches, all vital churches with stable or growing memberships, this lively book compares these two religious cultures in many ways. How people think about youth and youth ministry emerges as a key difference: “For evangelicals, if children and youth are not enjoying church, it is the church’s fault and evangelical parents either find a new church or try to improve their youth ministry. For liberals, the tendency is the reverse; if youth do not find church interesting it is their problem. Evangelicals are simply more interested and invested in reproducing the faith in their children and youth and their churches reflect this priority.”

Even though evangelical and mainline churches both lose many young people to the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated, and even though both groups lose more young people than they did before, evangelical churches still lose fewer young people than liberal churches lose. Evangelical families emphasize religion more than mainline families do, and evangelical churches involve young people in a denser social web of youth groups, church camps, and church-based socializing, all of which increase the chances that a young person will remain in the fold as an adult. This is one reason that evangelical denominations have not suffered the same membership declines in recent decades that more liberal, mainline denominations have suffered.

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About halfway through Sunday service at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, as worshipers passed around the collection plate, a chorus of screams pierced the air.

Chunks of the ceiling in the 52-year-old church near Hickory came crashing down on the crowd of 200 or so, striking about 14, who were later treated and released from nearby hospitals. A jagged piece of the ceiling, roughly 10 feet by 10 feet, dangled from exposed wires over the back pews as deacons struggled to guide panicking worshipers from the building.

“My jaw just dropped,” the Rev. Antonio Logan said. “I thought, ‘This can’t be real.'”

Caring for old church facilities is an increasingly acute problem, particularly for mainline Protestant denominations. As membership declines and budgets shrink, the beautiful edifices of American Christianity can feel like weights dragging down churches that are forced to spend money on maintenance and repairs instead of ministry, charity and other Gospel-derived imperatives.

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There’s another side of the story, however ”” a deliberate and concerted counteroffensive that has gone largely unremarked. Over the last decade, abortion-rights advocates have quietly worked to reverse the marginalization encouraged by activists like Randall Terry. Abortion-rights proponents are fighting back on precisely the same turf that Terry demarcated: the place of abortion within mainstream medicine. This abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women ”” embraced rather than shunned.

This is the future. Or rather, one possible future. There’s a long way to go from here to there. Between 2000 and 2005, the last year that statistics are available, the number of abortion facilities in the U.S. dropped 2 percent ”” a smaller dip than those in the preceding five-year periods, but a decline nonetheless. “The ’90s were about getting abortion back into residency training and medical schools,” says Jody Steinauer, an OB-GYN professor at the University of California at San Francisco, the hub of the abortion-rights countermovement in medicine. “Now it’s about getting abortion into our practices.”

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The Vatican issued a new set of norms Thursday to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal, cracking down on priests who rape and molest minors and the mentally disabled.

The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.

But the document made no mention of the need for bishops to report abuse to police and doesn’t include any “one-strike and you’re out” policy as demanded by some victims’ groups.

The document also listed the attempted ordination of a woman as a “grave crime” to be handled by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, just as sex abuse is. Critics have complained that including both in the same document implied equating them.

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