CT: When you just said, “The Episcopal church is the embodiment of much that Wesley cared about,” I think you are referring to a particular congregation and not the denomination as a whole.

SH: I say, “We’re all congregationalists now.” I don’t particularly like it, but we are. How to ensure given that reality that Eucharistic assemblies are not separate from each other is one of the great challenges before us. The role of the bishop is very important to make sure that Eucharistic assemblies are not isolated from one another. There are also other ways to do it. Certainly sending people from one congregation to another helps. But how we recover Christian unity in the world in which we find ourselves is a deep challenge. By “unity,” I don’t mean just agreement about ecclesial organization; I mean the refusal of Christians to kill one other. I think that the division of the church that has let nationalism define Christian identity is one of the great judgments against the Reformation in particular.

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A historic Anglican chapel damaged in Canterbury’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake was hastily deconsecrated before being torn down.

The chapel, at Christchurch’s Churchill Court aged care facility, suffered irreparable damage in Saturday’s devastating quake.

Bishop Victoria Matthews said she had almost no warning that the chapel had to be demolished.

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Here’s a bank holiday quiz question. As we congratulate David Cameron and Samantha on the birth of their beautiful baby girl, is our joy at such events “secular” or “religious”? You may think that what matters is the joy – and the baby – and not what category we put our feelings in.

But it does relate to an issue we are going to hear more about in the next few weeks. Will the state visit of Pope Benedict XVI, just over two weeks away, amount to a dramatic confrontation with Britain’s secular society? Indeed, is that a correct – or even useful – description?

A Vatican spokesman, trying to set the stage for the papal visit, said that from Rome Britain seemed a very secular society. But not long ago the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, took a rather different tack. He described British society as a lot less secular than people supposed. Many who did not go to church nevertheless prayed to God when things got difficult – or, indeed, joyful.

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Households and corporations alike are refinancing their loans in droves to take advantage of interest rates that seem impossibly cheap. But those same low rates come with a flip side, driving down the income of retirees and others who live off their savings.

It is a side effect of a government policy meant to push down interest rates to a point that businesses and consumers are compelled to borrow and spend again, and yet it is hurting anyone with a savings account.

With the regulated rate that financial institutions can borrow from one another at almost zero, banks are paying savers next to nothing. The average returns on interest-bearing deposit accounts slipped to 0.99 percent in July, according to Market Rates Insight, which tracks bank rates. It is the first time its measure has dipped below 1 percent since the 1950s, when its data begins.

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At the interfaith press conference, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington, said the growth of anti-Islamic sentiment was a “powerful moment that calls for a powerful response.” Cardinal McCarrick added, “our message is a message of working together.”

The Rev. Richard Cizik, representing the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, said “shame on you” to those who would burn another religion’s sacred texts. He was referencing plans by the Christian minister of a church in Gainesville, Fla., to burn copies of the Koran. He added, “you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ.”

Opposition to the New York Islamic center is widespread in the US, even among those who would support a mosque in their own neighborhood, according to a poll released Aug. 26 by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service. Nearly 60 percent of Americans surveyed opposed building an Islamic center or mosque two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, but 76 percent of those polled would support a mosque in their own community.

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With the London Olympics less than two years away, in Southwark Diocese work has begun to engage with the mission opportunities presented by the games.

A Diocesan Olympic coordinating group was formed in 2009, with local clergy from each of the four Olympic sites (Greenwich Peninsula, Greenwich Park, Woolwich and Wimbledon), plus representatives from the Board of Education, Youth & Children’s Group, Mission Department, Southwark Cathedral, Communication and Resources – and two former Olympic athletes, Lorna Boothe from Mitcham and Shaun Lightman from Selsdon.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Rachel Goldstein and Ben Kuryk try not to let 1,055 miles come between them.

Both 26, they met as freshmen at American University in Washington, D.C. But when they graduated in 2006, Kuryk got a job with a software company in the area, while Goldstein’s job as a commercial real estate broker took her to Miami Beach.

They talk four or five times a day by phone and communicate via text messages, Twitter and Skype. They see each other every three to four weeks.

“We’re professionals at this,” Goldstein says.

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An aging population and the need for more workers have prompted China’s Communist Party to consider relaxing the decades-long ban that restricts most couples to one child, a harsh policy marked by forced abortions, sterilizations and fines for those who have more than one.

In 2011, China will start pilot projects in five provinces, all of which have low birth rates, to allow a second birth if at least one spouse is an only child, says He Yafu, an independent demographer who is in close contact with policymakers.

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You can find the current members here.

Mary and I are settling into our new home in Columbia and our new life in Upper South Carolina, and we have been honored and humbled by the warm welcomes we continue to receive from our new diocesan family. In the space of three months since my consecration, I have celebrated many Confirmations, several baptisms, and we have had the moving experience of our first visit to our brothers and sisters in Haiti, about which I wrote earlier. We are blessed to be among you.

I have also been blessed to come into a diocesan staff of dedicated and hard working Christians who have been extremely supportive of me in the beginnings of my transition into the role of your bishop. Since my election, I have been in prayerful thought and conversation about how best to structure our diocesan staff. My focus has been on responsive service to the congregations, institutions and leadership of our diocese through leadership development, training and procedural simplifications. My goal is that everything we do contribute in ways large and small to the development of healthy, growing and vibrant congregations throughout the diocese. To that end, the responsibilities of canon staff will include more direct availability to congregations for training and support””in communications, leadership development, congregational development, administration, finance, and, if and when the economic environment improves, Christian formation among all ages. Quality of support to congregations and skilled ability as trainers will be high values for my canon staff. Furthermore, we will be working toward high levels of responsiveness and hospitality among office staff. It will take time for us to put these processes in place, but with these as primary goals, we will be making a number of organizational and personnel changes in the coming weeks and months….

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We give thee thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and the dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death. Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever.

O God, whose love we cannot measure, nor even number thy blessings: We bless and praise thee for all thy goodness, who in our weakness art our strength, in our darkness, light, in our sorrows, comfort and peace, and from everlasting to everlasting art our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, world without end.

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoeni’cia and Sama’ria, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and they gave great joy to all the brethren. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them.

–Acts 15:1-4

The members of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Standing Committee have asked the leaders of the House of Bishops for their “support and assistance in constructing a way to go forward in this diocese and to secure Bishop [Charles] Bennison’s retirement or resignation.”

Bennison resumed his role as diocesan bishop Aug. 16, some 11 days after the church’s Court of Review for the Trial of a Bishop overturned a lower church court’s finding that he ought to be deposed (removed) from ordained ministry because he had engaged in conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy. The review court agreed with one of the lower court’s two findings of misconduct, but said that Bennison could not be deposed because the charge was barred by the church’s statute of limitations….

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A survey conducted by the Forward has found that Jewish and Christian religious institutions appear to raise about the same amount per member, despite the fact that church giving is voluntary and synagogues charge membership dues.

The more than 20 churches and synagogues surveyed by the Forward represent a sampling from a variety of denominations in six cities across America. While there are significant regional and denominational differences, an examination of the aggregate data indicates that the amount raised per individual member is very similar between synagogues and churches. But the level of participation is quite different: While synagogues require roughly the same amount of dues from each of their members, church giving does not appear to be so evenly distributed.

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Sri Lanka’s parliament on Wednesday passed constitutional reforms enabling President Mahinda Rajapakse to seek a third term, in changes critics say point to the country’s slide into autocracy….

The bill was also condemned by lawyers, rights groups and some religious groups, who have criticised the lack of public scrutiny.

The head of the Sri Lankan Anglican church, Bishop Duleep de Chickera, said the move “will inevitably lead to a further, dangerous politicisation of our national institutions and a speedier, destructive erosion of our already fragile democratic culture.”

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Almost 100 parishes across the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne will take part in Back to Church Sunday (BTCS) on 12 September.

“The idea is that through a personal invitation to a friend or acquaintance those who have stopped attending church will return,” explained Paul White, Bishop of the Southern Region, who is co-ordinating Back to Church Sunday for the Diocese.

The theme of the day is ‘Come as you are’, designed to reassure guests that they are welcome in church without expectations and without feeling they have to measure up to a particular standard.

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