Even for a nation that is, by now, used to drinking in political news through a fire hose, election night on Tuesday could be a difficult one to absorb.

More than 500 House, Senate and governor’s races will be decided, if not by the end of the night, then over the course of the nail-biting days ahead as write-in ballots are counted and recounts are requested.

Beyond the individual results, the nation will be looking at the returns for answers to bigger questions: Was this election about President Obama? How powerful a phenomenon is the Tea Party movement? How will the new Congress address the still-weak economy? What will it mean for the crop of likely 2012 Republican presidential candidates? Did anonymous campaign money sway the outcome?

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Blood still smeared the walls of Our Lady of Salvation Church on Monday. Scraps of flesh remained between the pews. It was the worst massacre of Iraqi Christians since the war began here in 2003.

But for survivors, the tragedy went deeper than the toll of the human wreckage: A fusillade of grenades, bullets and suicide vests had unraveled yet another thread of the country’s once eclectic fabric.

“We’ve lost part of our soul now,” said Rudy Khalid, a 16-year-old Christian who lived across the street. He shook his head. “Our destiny, no one knows what to say of it.”

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The first big hint of what’s to come will be at around 5:45 p.m., when media outlets begin reporting partial exit-poll data about the makeup of the electorate. These news organizations actually receive all the exit-poll data that is available around the country at 5:00 p.m., but they don’t use it to call races until polls close in the relevant states. Yet they are willing to report the non-candidate data from the exits earlier in the evening–and, if you read it right, that information can tell you a lot about who’s going to win. Here’s what to look for:

”¢Partisan/ideological composition of the electorate: In terms of self-identification by voters, if Republicans outnumber independents, it will be a very good sign for the GOP. If voters are divided into Republicans and Democrats plus “leaners,” any plurality by Republicans will be significant. Similarly, if conservatives outnumber moderates, and/or if conservatives exceed 45 percent of the electorate, look for big GOP gains.

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The Rev Canon Ken McReynolds, rector of Lambeg Parish, Connor Diocese, preached a record-breaking five hour 50 minute sermon on Saturday October 30.

This successful attempt to reclaim the record Mr McReynolds held five years ago has also raised more than £3,000 for the Church Army Evangelist Training Fund.

Eight of Mr McReynolds’ faithful flock remained in church for the duration of the sermon, and others dropped in for sections of it. “At no time were there less than 40 people listening which was a relief as I was dreading ending up preaching to just one person,” said Mr McReynolds.

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Tell us where you voted and what the experience and atmosphere was like–the more detail and color the more those who weren’t there can participate.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a California case testing whether states may ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

There is a certain irony in the dispute. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who made tens of millions of dollars portraying the Terminator, the Predator and Conan the Barbarian, is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a ban on selling minors similar violent portrayals in video games.

And California is not alone. Such bans have been enacted in eight states. But so far, they’ve all been struck down by the federal courts.

The Supreme Court does not usually review disputes where there is no conflict in the lower courts, so the fact that the justices have agreed to hear this case suggests at least some of them may be ready to reconsider the way the First Amendment applies to depictions of violence, at least when sold to children.

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A US official has told the BBC that suspect packages from Yemen were intercepted in September, in what may have been a dry run for last week’s foiled parcel bomb plot.

The shipments from Yemen to Chicago are reported to have contained literature and other materials, but no explosives.

The idea was to test how long it would take for the packages to reach their destination, US officials suspect.

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Her Majesty The Queen will inaugurate the Ninth General Synod of the Church of England in Church House, Westminster on Tuesday 23 November. The Inauguration ceremony will follow the Eucharist in Westminster Abbey, at which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will preside and Dame Mary Tanner (a President of the World Council of Churches) will preach.

This Synod will reflect some significant changes amongst its membership: 35% of the elected members of the General Synod are starting their first ever five-year term; the proportion of elected clergy who are female has increased from 21% to 28%; and women now make up 46% of the elected laity membership (up from 40%).

The November group of sessions will continue with regular business for the afternoon of Tuesday, 22 November, until late afternoon on Wednesday, 23 November. There will be a Presidential Address from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Other key features are indicated below….

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While much about what prompted Chesser’s transformation remains a mystery, he illustrates a growing phenomenon in the United States: young converts who embrace the most extreme interpretation of Islam.

Of the nearly 200 U.S. citizens arrested in the past nine years for terrorism-related activity, 20 to 25 percent have been converts, said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. More than a quarter have been arrested in the past 20 months. The center provided The Washington Post with saved copies of Chesser’s postings, most no longer available on the Web.

“Many of these converts are basically white kids from the suburbs” in search of a community, said Segal, whose group has produced numerous papers on those arrested, including Chesser. They are overwhelmingly male, frequently in their 20s and eager to “become something more than they are, or be part of something greater,” he said.

Their militancy is not a product of the alienation that has sometimes prompted Muslim-born young people in the United States and elsewhere to embrace extremism, particularly in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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From the unintentionally funny headline department?

Check it out and bookmark the site for today also.

Check it out and bookmark the site for today also.

Lord of every time and place, God beyond our dreaming,
we pray for wisdom as we prepare to vote in the Midterm election.
Give us leaders committed to the priorities of your kingdom,
so that peace, compassion, truth and justice may prevail among us,
and make us a blessing to all peoples, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God, bless America,
guard our people
guide our leaders
and give us peace;
in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

–Adapted from the Anglican Church of Australia

O God, the Maker and Redeemer of all believers: Grant to the faithful departed the unsearchable benefits of the passion of thy Son; that on the day of his appearing they may be manifested as thy children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever. Amen

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!

–Psalm 61:1-4

In the first week of January 2010, Rasmussen Reports showed Republicans with a nine-point lead on the generic congressional ballot. Scott Brown delivered a stunning upset in the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election a couple of weeks later.

In the last week of October 2010, Rasmussen Reports again showed Republicans with a nine-point lead on the generic ballot. And tomorrow Republicans will send more Republicans to Congress than at any time in the past 80 years.

This isn’t a wave, it’s a tidal shift””and we’ve seen it coming for a long time. Remarkably, there have been plenty of warning signs over the past two years, but Democratic leaders ignored them. At least the captain of the Titanic tried to miss the iceberg. Congressional Democrats aimed right for it.

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So the path I ended up following was one of loyal and oblique opposition. Ironically, the documents posted by the current San Joaquin Standing Committee, if one takes the time to examine them closely, quite clearly illustrate this. When the Committee on Constitution and Canons proposed an amendment to Article II of the diocesan constitution that said, in effect, “We’re going to be Anglican, and affiliate with a province to be named later,” I cooperated with two clergy colleagues in crafting a substitute that would have been compatible with remaining within the Episcopal Church. (True, it omitted any mention of TEC, but it is worth noting that the “unqualified accession” language had already been removed some years earlier, so that concern was not at issue in 2006.) This was supplemented by a resolution that we drafted that appointed a committee to study various options for ensuring continued affiliation with the Anglican Communion, one of which would have been continued affiliation with the Episcopal Church. I did everything within my power, given the political realities in the diocese, to retard and subvert progress toward separation from the Episcopal Church. I even proposed an amendment to the constitutional change on the floor of convention that would have restored mention of the Episcopal Church to Article II, but my amendment was roundly defeated. So I failed in my efforts, but it was not for lack of trying.

Of course, from late 2006””actually, about the time of the diocesan convention that year””and on into the following year, I was involved with the search process at St Anne’s in Warsaw, Indiana, where I now serve as rector. I accepted that call in May 2007. In my experience, God’s timing usually turns out to be pretty good (!), and in this case it got me out of a situation where my opposition would have needed to turn from oblique to direct, not only with my bishop, but with my own parish, where the vestry was overwhelmingly committed to Bishop Schofield’s leadership. As the saying goes, it would not have been pretty.

Let me conclude by reiterating my intention to make my vows when I am consecrated a bishop without crossing my fingers, either physically or mentally. I will neither attempt to lead, nor cooperate with anyone else’s effort, in taking the Diocese of Springfield out of the Episcopal Church. In fact, I will oppose any such effort. I have tasted the fruit of that sort of activity, and it’s not sweet. I am committed to the Episcopal Church, and believe my specific vocation is to exercise my ministry within the Episcopal Church. My voice has been and will continue to be a minority voice on many important questions. I accept what comes with that territory. It is my call.

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The website is here.

Of interest at present, the Republicans retaking the House is priced at about 93.5, and the Democrats keeping control of the Senate has slipped to 43.5

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From here:

Citing “malicious prosecution and abuse of process” in bringing a suit which has “no factual or legal foundation,” a response filed Friday, Oct. 29, asks for sanctions on the lawyers who crafted litigation against Bishop Jack Iker on behalf of All Saints’ Episcopal Church on Crestline Road in Fort Worth.

Bishop Iker’s response denies the charges of harm to the Crestline Road congregation and notes that federal law provides “a remedy against counsel who unreasonably and vexatiously multiply the proceedings in a case.” The Oct. 15 complaint, filed in federal court, was intended to harass the Bishop and multiply the cost of litigation, the response explains. In addition, the federal suit multiplies the proceedings on an issue already under consideration in a Texas state court. The plaintiff and counsel are well aware of that suit, which covers the question of who owns certain church properties, including intellectual assets such as trademarks. That suit already represents the Crestline congregation’s interests.

Bishop Iker’s response asks the federal court to deny relief to the plaintiff church and to direct the plaintiff’s counsel to repay the Bishop’s legal costs.

Anglicans who defect to Rome in protest at plans to ordain women bishops could be allowed to continue worshipping in their Church of England buildings, a leading official said today.

Hundreds of priests and parishioners are expected to take up the Pope’s offer to convert to Roman Catholicism and join a new body for Anglicans who disagree with the ordination of women bishops when it is established next year.
Church authorities have insisted that defectors will not be able to retain their parish buildings when they leave the Anglican family.

But today the Church’s most senior official, William Fittall, raised the prospect of a compromise.
Mr Fittall, secretary general of the General Synod, said it would be “entirely possible” for those who convert to Roman Catholicism to be allowed to share their former churches with Anglicans who remain in the Church of England.

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Here is one:

Adopted
Resolution 158-E
Support for Our Independent Judiciary

BE IT RESOLVED, that the 158th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa express support for the state of Iowa’s system of judicial merit selection and retention of judges and for the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court in the wake of their unanimous decision upholding Iowa court case Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009). This decision has subjected them to campaigns by politicians, clergy, and lobby groups who are opposed to the decision and who are seeking to stir the electorate to vote against retaining the three justices who are up for retention election in November of 2010; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that while people have different opinions about the Court’s decision in this or any case, this resolution is to give thanks to God who inspired the founders of the United States of America to wisely entrust us with a government that includes an independent judiciary to serve as a check on the power of the state over an individual or minority group; a government where the liberties of individuals and minorities are protected by the Constitution of the United States and, here, of the State of Iowa. Where, by the founder’s design, and as was done in Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009), jurists are to be guided by law and statute. The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa supports our independent judiciary as the best way for all Americans to receive fair and impartial justice, not subject to the political pressures of politicians or lobby groups or popular majorities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Episcopal Church in Iowa is grateful for the God-given, far-seeing, wisdom of the founders; who, over 200 years ago, saw the necessity of the separation of church and state to best protect our religious freedom; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution of support be sent to each of the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court, and to the Supreme Court Administrator.

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A Church of South India (CSI) panel has concluded that a prima facie case for fraud can be laid against the Bishop in Coimbatore.

In interim report prepared by an investigatory panel given to the CSI executive committee last month concluded Bishop Manickam Dorai was likely to have committed fraud and theft of church funds. A final report will be presented to the executive committee in December, but the interim findings determined there was probable cause to dismiss Bishop Dorai, the panel concluded.

On July 2, the executive committee of the CSI’s General Synod placed Bishop Dorai on an indefinite leave of absence and dissolved the diocese’s executive council. The bishop and his cronies are accused of embezzling diocesan funds and taking kickbacks on construction projects amounting to over £500,000.

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He was the original teeny-bopper heartthrob and the harbinger of a new age of celebrity. When it snowed, one writer observed, “girls fought over his footprints, which some took home and stored in refrigerators.”

The story of Frank Sinatra’s rise and self-invention and the story of his fall and remarkable comeback had the lineaments of the most essential American myths, and their telling, Pete Hamill once argued, required a novelist, “some combination of Balzac and Raymond Chandler,” who might “come closer to the elusive truth than an autobiographer as courtly as Sinatra will ever allow himself to do.”

Now, with “Frank: The Voice,” Sinatra has that chronicler in James Kaplan, a writer of fiction and nonfiction who has produced a book that has all the emotional detail and narrative momentum of a novel.

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A deadly militant siege of a Catholic church in Baghdad, Iraq, was a “savage” act of “absurd violence,” Pope Benedict XVI said.

The pope urged international and national authorities and all people of good will to work together to end the “heinous episodes of violence that continue to ravage the people of the Middle East.”

“In a very grave attack on the Syrian Catholic cathedral of Baghdad, dozens of people were killed and injured, among them two priests and a group of faithful gathered for Sunday Mass”, the pope said of the Oct. 31 incident.

“I pray for the victims of this absurd violence, which is even more savage because it struck defenseless people, gathered in God’s house, which is a house of love and reconciliation,” he said after praying the Angelus with pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square Nov. 1, the feast of All Saints.

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Only a little more than 120 miles separate Erie and Pittsburgh, but Episcopalians decided a century ago that the regions were too far and too different for one bishop to cover.

So at a convention in 1910, they created the Diocese of Erie from parts of the Pittsburgh diocese.

Now members of that newer entity, which eventually came to be known as the Episcopal Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, will celebrate its centennial. The Erie-based diocese also will hold its annual convention here.

“We are in a really hopeful time for the diocese,” administrator Vanessa Butler said.

While membership is down to about 4,700, she said, the 34 congregations in the diocese are all working toward the mission of transforming lives and attracting people to the light of Christ.

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For almost two years, home foreclosures have swept the nation, spreading misery among once-buoyant families, spattering lenders with red ink and undermining efforts to restart the economy.

But a bigger problem may turn out to be the millions of Americans who are still faithfully paying their mortgages, but on houses worth far less than before the bubble burst. It’s not that these homeowners will stop making their payments. It’s just the opposite ”” that they will keep doing it.

How could that be a source of future trouble? Because, with home prices stagnant in much of the country, payments on mortgages that are underwater could absorb billions of dollars that might be used for other forms of consumer spending ”” a drag on family finances, the housing market and the overall economy.

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Cooking oils, left behind in this year’s surge in agriculture prices, are poised to catch up with grains as record demand cuts stockpiles by the most in 17 years.

Inventories of soybean oil and palm oil, used by Nestle SA and Unilever and in everything from Hellmann’s mayonnaise to Snickers candy bars, will drop 12 percent in the coming year as China and India increase consumption 11 percent, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. Food prices climbed in September to the highest level since the crisis in 2008 that sparked riots from Haiti to Egypt, the United Nations says.

“China’s economy is growing and there’s no reason why the country will take any less food next week, next month, or next year,” said Steve Nicholson, a commodity procurement specialist at International Food Products Corp., a distributor and advisor on food ingredients in Fenton, Missouri. “We’ve been able to produce more food in the past 2,000 years, but can we do it fast enough to meet the demand from China and other emerging economies to stave off a crisis?”

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People who are unable to work need to be cared for properly and not be accused of being work-shy, the Archbishop of Wales said last night.

Dr Barry Morgan said the mark of a civilised society was the way it cared for its worst off members.

He was speaking at a service to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy Riots.

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We hear a lot of talk about being “prophetic” in the Episcopal Church these days, but should we?

On many occasions in the last several years I have heard an Episcopal Church leader say, “we are a prophetic church; we speak truth to power.” As I write this, there is an essay in circulation with the headline “Now is the time for prophetic action.”

We need to think carefully about such words.

In the Bible, a prophet was someone who brought God’s word into a situation. God spoke to them, they listened, and sought accurately to convey what they heard to God’s people. Hence we hear such Old Testament language as “Thus says the Lord,” or, in the ministry of Jesus, when we read “it was said”¦but I say to you.”

There are no prophets in the full biblical sense any more. As far as we know, the canon of Holy Scripture is closed. But it is possible, although rare, to see in a ministry a “prophetic” element. How can we discern such a thing?

For starters, prophets are not usually self-referential and are never self-authenticating. You do not find them saying, “Hi, I am a prophet.” Indeed, quite the opposite is the case. Amos answered Amazi’ah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees”¦” (Amos 7:14).

Prophets also swim upstream in the time in which they minister. WAY upstream. If people are zigging, there may be an occasional zagger, but prophets are zuggers. They come from surprising backgrounds, speak in often shocking ways, and are most of the time greeted with disdain, opposition, hostility, or even worse. As Hebrews puts it:

“They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated — of whom the world was not worthy — wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (11:37-38)

Perhaps most importantly, prophets are almost always only seen fully in retrospect. When Jeremiah was ministering, many thought him crazy, and most believed him wrong. People from his home area plotted to kill him, and those in authority lowered him at one point into a pit of miry clay. They believed the temple of the Lord was impregnable and the Babylonians were never coming; it was only much later that they could see Jeremiah’s words about both were accurate.

If we use these three measuring points, are there many today who may have prophetic elements in their ministry? Perhaps; but I would venture to say that if so none of us know or recognize them as such right now, and we will be very surprised in heaven when we see the truth of how God is using them.

In the meantime, let us be cautious about such language, remembering well Jesus’ warning: “”Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15)

–The Rev. Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina and the convenor of this blog