Read it all (3 page pdf).

Three years ago, the Taliban’s control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness ”“ although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control. As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast. In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word “Republic” and insert “Emirate”, the emir in question being the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Omar.

The most astonishing thing about this rebel district ”“ and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one ”“ is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul. Nato commanders have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban are on the back foot following this year’s US troop surge. Mid-level insurgency commanders, they say, have been removed from the battlefield in “industrial” quantities since the 2010 campaign began. And yet Abdullah, operating within Katyusha rocket range of the capital ”“ and with a $500,000 bounty on his head ”“ has managed to evade coalition forces for almost four years. If Chak is in any way typical of developments in other rural districts ”“ and Afghanistan has hundreds of isolated valley communities just like this one ”“ then Nato’s military strategy could be in serious difficulty.

Read it all.

The new head of Britain’s armed forces, Gen Sir David Richards, has warned that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam.

He said defeating Islamist militancy was “unnecessary and would never be achieved”.

However, he argued that it could be “contained” to allow Britons to lead secure lives.

Gen Richards, 58, said the threat posed by “al-Qaeda and its affiliates” meant Britain’s national security would be at risk for at least 30 years.

Read it all.

Russell Long, of the famous Louisiana political dynasty, loved to tell how his Uncle Earl, the governor, advised a city slicker politician, hit by redistricting, how to successfully court rural voters.

He should rumple up the fancy white suit, loosen the tie, toss dirt on those shiny shoes, and reach into his pocket, bring out that big wad of bills and “spread the joy.”

That is the mirror opposite of what the fiscal deficit commission, Congress and the White House should do if they want to seriously address long-term budget deficits. They have to spread the pain.

Read it all.

“Haiti has had a rough go of it with hurricanes in 2008, then the earthquake and now cholera,” said Dave Drachlis, a deacon at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Huntsville who has made two trips to Haiti this year. The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, which has a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, has sent five medical mission teams to Haiti this year and a sixth is on its way.

The Rev. John Fritschner, rector of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Auburn, and doctors Keith Adkins and Will Meadows from that parish were scheduled to leave for Haiti this weekend.

Last month, the diocese sent a team of clergy wives on a mission trip. They worked at a remote mountain school setting up a lunch program.

Read it all.

As regards the Primates Meeting hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury due to take place early next year, we shall be able to express ourselves but the decision to attend rests solely on the individual Archbishop.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has invited me in my capacity of CAPA Chairman to be part of a preparatory committee. He is also anxious that a small group of primates meet with him. I would like to have your opinion and thoughts about it. I wish here on behalf of all CAPA Primates to thank the Most Rev Emmanuel Kolini for supporting me during these past 3 years as CAPA Vice-Chairman. We should value his great contribution made towards CAPA. Archbishop Kolini, I will certainly miss you wise insights but you will remain for a long time in my heart as a mentor and a committed and loyal servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May I also thank the CAPA General Secretary and the secretariat for enabling this meeting to happen.

The Bishops have given to us a mandate when we met at AABCII. I hope that as CAPA we can bring this mandate to concrete terms. We need your support as Primates. We need your involvement so that the information can reach the grassroots. Talking about grassroots, it would be unfair for us not to take into consideration the voice of the Laity. We have a women core group but it is time that our young men and women share with us their vision for the future. I therefore ask of your support to my intention in organizing a youth gathering for 2011. I intend to invite 3 young people from each Province. Giving them a voice will strengthen our role and asking them of their vision of the Church in Africa should be part of our responsibility as leaders of this present generation. I hope that we can discuss about it and take a decision.

Read it all.

Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has told the BBC she is ready for talks with all groups to achieve national reconciliation.

A day after her release from house arrest, she said it was time to “sort out our differences across the table”.

Ms Suu Kyi also said she intended to listen to what the Burmese people and her international supporters wanted as she planned her next steps.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention.

World leaders and human rights groups have welcomed her release.

Read it all.

As the grey light of morning came again to Mordor, Sam woke and looked about the hollow where he and Gulible had taken refuge the previous night. A foul sump of oily water ringed with lurid algae lay at its bottom, and as he slept Sam had slid down nearly to its edge. Gulible was nowhere to be seen.

Unwilling yet to move, Sam thought through the whirlwind of events that had landed him in this unhappy place. Affection, revenge, and simple inertia had carried him this far, but weariness at last led him to frankly consider the task that lay ahead.

“Was this the job I was hired to do when I started?” Sam asked himself. “To help Mr. Frodo into his inheritance and then die with him? Well, that is my job, but I’m nowt but a ninnyhammer if I go through with it. I would dearly like to see Bywater again, with Rosie leading the Revolution at my side. Much as I’d like to see Mr. Frodo draw his last breath, this quest is useless; it’s high time I cut my losses and head home.

“Still,” he thought, “I can’t think somehow that Gandalf and Elrond would have sent Mr. Frodo on this errand if there hadn’t a’ been any hope of his coming back with more money for them to take. What do I have to show for all the work I’ve done these past months? A deed signed over that nobody will believe, Mr. Frodo gone so I can’t bring him back to the Shire to set off the Revolution, and a lot o’ wasted blackmail that won’t do no good either way. If I’m to get anything out of this at all, the Ring must go into the Fire and Frodo’s got to live through it… for a little while. Why am I left all alone to make up my mind?”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Chapter 3

From here:

The chill from the language of destruction, evil, and suffering that Jesus uses in…[Luke’s] Gospel will confront us in other vivid ways, as we stop to remember those from our own time, our own land, and perhaps our own family and neighbourhood, who have died in the context of war. We shall gather at war memorials, stand in silence, and confront our own need for the hope and vision of peace.

Remembrance Sunday is not the moment to attempt a prophecy about the future, or apportion blame for the past. Rather, it is the opportunity to be silent and to reflect on the sum of wartime grief and loss, military and civilian, knowing that of ourselves we cannot restore life that has been lost: that belongs to God.

But we can commit ourselves to shaping a world of justice and of peace. And if the words we speak in making that solemn commitment do not have the whole truth within them, may the memorials to our dead sting us into shame and repentance.

Veterans’ Day in 2010 falls on Thursday, November 11. In most years and most times, Veterans’ Day passes in our churches with little or no mention. Historically and traditionally, Veterans’ Day has been more a civic than a sacred observance. As with New Years Day, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and others, Veterans’ Day is not a part of the liturgical calendar ”” although sometimes local congregations will observe these days in some manner in Sunday congregational worship.

Check it out and note especially the Litany from The Book of Worship for United States Forces (1974) at the bottom.

The oracle of God which Habak’kuk the prophet saw. O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and thou wilt not hear? Or cry to thee “Violence!” and thou wilt not save? Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is slacked and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.

–Habakkuk 1:1-4

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, will reveal on Friday the Vatican’s plans to welcome the departing priests – including five bishops – who are expected to be received into the Catholic Church early in the new year.

Hundreds of Anglican churchgoers will join them in the Ordinariate – a structure introduced by Pope Benedict XVI to provide refuge for those diaffected with the Church of England.

The number of worshippers who leave the Church is predicted to double as the new arrangement finally begins to take shape.

Read it all.

To repeat the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury: “But again ”˜pastoral response’ has been interpreted very differently and there are those [”¦] who would say: ”˜Well, pastoral response means rites of blessing’, and I’m not very happy about that.” The Archbishop is not alone in his feelings. But the bishops of the Diocese of Toronto have decided to pour more fuel upon the smoldering flames of that unhappiness.

Interestingly, the Toronto Guidelines tell us that parishes can go forward with requesting to be designated as places where same-sex blessings can be performed only when some kind of “consensus” within it has been found on the matter. This is further explained as follows: “Consensus is not total agreement; however, every effort should be made to reach a decision where everyone feels heard and is willing to live with the wider body’s decision.” This is explicitly qualified in this manner: “The way forward should not be achieved or prevented by a few taking an opposing view to the vast majority”.

An obvious question arises in the face of this definition of consensus and its requirements: is there in fact a “consensus” of this kind in the Diocese of Toronto around the motives, meaning, and substance of the new Guidelines? The process for putting the Guidelines together precluded such a consensus, and the implementation of the Guidelines moves forward without it. How should those within, but also those outside of the diocese interpret this failure to discern consensus? For we should also ask another and related question: where do the bishops of the Diocese of Toronto stand vis a vis the “consensus” of the Communion’s bishops and her “consultative organs”, a consensus that in fact is equivalent in this case to a unanimity? Do they stand with the “vast majority”? Or do they stand with “a very few taking an opposing view” that is thereby seeking to “prevent” a “way forward” towards the healing of the Communion? Does this matter to them?

Read it all.

“It seems difficult for Ireland to avoid tapping the fund unless they have new rabbits to pull out their hat,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London.

It is very likely Ireland will seek support from the 750- billion-euro ($1 trillion) fund, Reuters reported, citing euro- zone sources it didn’t name. The Finance Ministry in Dublin denied talks were under way. Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, called the report “pure speculation.”

Read it all.

Watch it all.

Exorcism is as old as Christianity itself. The New Testament has accounts of Jesus casting out demons, and it is cited in the Catholic Church’s catechism. But it is now far more popular in Europe, Africa and Latin America than in the United States.

Most exorcisms are not as dramatic as the bloody scenes in films. The ritual is based on a prayer in which the priest invokes the name of Jesus. The priest also uses holy water and a cross, and can alter the prayer depending on the reaction he gets from the possessed person, said Matt Baglio, a journalist in Rome who wrote the book “The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist” (Doubleday, 2009).

“The prayer comes from the power of Jesus’ name and the church. It doesn’t come from the power of the exorcist. The priest doesn’t have the magic power,” said Mr. Baglio, whose book has been made into a movie to be released in January, starring Anthony Hopkins.

Read it all.

Update: PZ Meyers is upset that the NY Times is taking such “madness” seriously:

Now if only we had media that dared to point out that angels and demons don’t exist.

British churches have criticized a government plan to remove unemployment benefits from people who refuse to accept jobs offered by labor officers.

“There is a serious danger that people living in poverty will be stigmatized by government announcements that they are lazy or work shy,” said the Rev. Alison Tomlin, president of the Methodist church in Scotland.

Iain Duncan Smith, the government minister for work and pensions, on Thursday (Nov. 11) laid out a new “contract” with unemployed people that would include removing benefits for up to three years from people who refuse to take work opportunities.

Read it all.

You can find the 2009 numbers here and the 2002 numbers there. Before you click on the link, guess the percentage decline in Average Sunday Attendance for domestic missions and parishes of The Episcopal Church over this time frame–KSH.

This is the topic for the 2011 Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, South Carolina in January.

Consider coming and make plans now.

In particular, the leaders were unable to reach a consensus on how to identify when global imbalances pose a threat to economic stability, merely committing themselves to a discussion of a range of indicators in the first half of 2011.

Tim Condon, head of research at ING Financial Markets in Singapore said it was “hard to disagree” with the vows of the leaders but they had fallen short of the progress hoped for going into the summit.

“They decided just to put down a lot of laudable objectives as the conclusion of the meeting and hope that they can do better, that more can be accomplished in future meetings,” he said.

The G20 has fragmented since a synchronized global recession gave way to a multi-speed recovery.

Read it all.

The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted observation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.

And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.

It is also part of a pervasive ethos that eschews facts in favor of an idealized reality. The fashion industry has apparently known this for years: Esquire magazine recently found that men’s jeans from a variety of name-brand manufacturers are cut large but labeled small. The actual waist sizes are anywhere from three to six inches roomier than their labels insist.

Read it all.

This is very enjoyable–check it out.

Guess before you check the answer.

On one of his periodic visits from New York to his father in Georgia, the Rev. David K. Brawley realized he was having trouble making out the older man’s words. For the previous four years, ever since cancer was found in his chest, Don Brawley Jr. had gone through periods when his voice weakened, when its baritone clenched into a hoarse rasp.

But this fading, labored tone, his son believed, was something different. And because doctors had recently found his father’s cancer returning, even after the years of chemotherapy and the presumption of being cured, different meant ominous. It also meant humiliating. David couldn’t bear to ask his father to keep repeating and explaining.

David’s brother, Don Brawley III, concurred. He lived near their father in the Atlanta suburbs; their father served as deacon and administrator of the church Don III pastored, Canaan Land International. They were accustomed to speaking several times a week, and in a sneaky, gradual way, his father’s voice had grown so faint that Don III was depending on reading lips and interpreting body language.

So he and his sons, his two minister sons, went in search of his voice, or something that could replace it.

Read it all.

By proposing to curtail the tax deduction for mortgage interest, the president’s deficit commission is sounding an alarm.

The home mortgage deduction is one of the most widely used and expensive tax subsidies. More than 35 million Americans claim it, and the federal government estimates it will cost the Treasury $131 billion in forgone revenue in 2012. Its size, popularity and link to the emotionally charged American notion of homeownership has made it so politically sacrosanct that there are serious doubts whether Congress will even entertain the idea.

But by raising the specter of ending one of the most cherished tax breaks, the commission is trying to jar the public into recognizing the magnitude of the nation’s budget deficit and some of the drastic steps that might be needed to close it.

Read it all.

Dr. Cleveland L. Sellers Jr., president of Voorhees College, was recently elected chairman of the Association of Episcopal Colleges, the U.S. chapter of the Colleges and Universities of the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

There are arguments to be made for why the Christian tradition (and all other traditions for that matter) is wrong to treat male-female sexual reciprocity as normative. I don’t find these arguments persuasive, but they’re not stupid.

But I’ve always thought it disastrous to use the “God loves you just the way your are” and “God doesn’t want you to change” slogans, along with the closely related “God doesn’t make mistakes” shibboleth.

Why? Because it turns Christianity into bourgeois religion, and the church into an affirming chaplaincy for the status quo. There’s no salt in a message that tells people that they’re basically good and don’t need to change.

Read it all.

President Obama departed Friday from a summit of world leaders here with an agreement that major economies would abide by common standards that could, for example, reverse some of China’s export dominance and help put Americans back to work.

But the deal, backed by the United States and adopted by the Group of 20, is not the detailed code of behavior Obama had sought; instead it’s a statement of principle. Its impact won’t be known until a group of finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund complete what could be months of haggling over the specifics. And if the G-20 meeting proved anything, it is the difficulty of wresting meaningful consensus from nations with increasingly divergent economic interests.

“You are seeing a situation where a host of other countries are doing well and coming into their own and they are going to be more assertive in terms of their interests and ideas,” Obama said at a news conference. “The question was whether our countries can work together to keep the global economy growing. The fact is that 20 major economies gathered here are in broad agreement on the way forward.”

Read it all.

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy; yet mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 2:10-13

Read it all will not cut it on this one, you need to listen to it all.

The one section that you absolutely must not miss is this one:

One person who was very moved by Gorecki’s third symphony was a 14-year old girl from Sweden ”” a burn victim who wrote a letter to the composer, telling him that his music was the only thing that kept her alive. Gorecki reads from the letter in his interview.

There is an audio link where Gorecki reads the letter through a translator–it made me cry–KSH. (Hat tip: Elizabeth)