[Scott] Pelley: How would you rate the likelihood of dipping into recession again?

[Ben] Bernanke: It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll have a double dip recession. And that’s because, among other things, some of the most cyclical parts of the economy, like housing, for example, are already very weak. And they can’t get much weaker. And so another decline is relatively unlikely. Now, that being said, I think a very high unemployment rate for a protracted period of time, which makes consumers, households less confident, more worried about the future, I think that’s the primary source of risk that we might have another slowdown in the economy.

Pelley: You seem to be saying that the recovery that we’re experiencing now is not self-sustaining.

Bernanke: It may not be. It’s very close to the border. It takes about two and a half percent growth just to keep unemployment stable. And that’s about what we’re getting. We’re not very far from the level where the economy is not self-sustaining.

The debate on Capitol Hill this week is over whether to extend the Bush tax cuts, which would likely increase the budget deficit.

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The possibility of creating a civil society on the basis of the revolution of the 1950’s no longer exists. In the presence of a multi-religious new immigrant society with a variety of cultural and ethnic roots, the presence of a significant secular minority which wants to rule out the active role of religions in the new developing Quebec society which is challenged by a plurality of those who wish to maintain its Christian roots and here I include Protestants and jews outside of the ultra orthodox the dream that French language alone is capable of creating a civil society is questionable at best.

So what does this have to with our long standing commitment to the sin business? Well, we have to acknowledge that the conversation in which we are involved is between good guys. We have to present our nation and its values in a language which is able to go beyond the terms and posturing that I want to call missionary. Those coming as immigrant[s] must be made aware that their move is not geographic but will require a re-examination of their cultural identity and practices. The church, here in the inclusive sense I just mentioned, must be prepared to step back to the extent its vision is of a multi-religious society and stated in a way which makes clear its role in the flourishing of the human enterprise. It needs to affirm the triumphant secularity of the founders of the revolution which I would add in an historical note is dramatically similar to that of the founding fathers of the United States. We need to accept that our belief in social values involves commitment and discipline that the sin business used to promulgate but can no longer deliver. We need to listen to the cries coming from multitude of quarters from those concerned that the current state of affairs is not sustainable….

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Frank Colquhoun was a much respected evangelical priest and popular author in the Church of England. He wrote or edited 26 books of prayers as well as guides to preaching, hymns, the gospels and moral problems. He was also for a time editor of The Churchman and editorial secretary of the World’s Evangelical Alliance.

His patient, gentle, conciliatory character gave him hundreds of friends in his south country and London parishes and also during his work as a cathedral canon. For six years, from 1966 to 1972, he was Principal of the Southwark Ordination Course, that radical experiment pioneered by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood and Bishop John Robinson.

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I was recently in America. It’s a country I love but it was depressing. All the energy for legislating on climate change has drained away. Those once leading the debate are now silent, the deniers have turned up the volume. The Administration has stalled on this vital subject. The President said in his State of the Union speech “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy”. If that’s true (and I believe it is) then America has already begun to cede its premier place in the world economy.

The Chinese are already talking about the economic downturn as “the North Atlantic Crisis”. And according to the Pew Centre Research “China is emerging as the world’s cleanest energy powerhouse”. It has already become the world’s leading investor in renewables aiming for 15% of its energy to be generated through renewables by 2020. It has designated 5 provinces and 8 cities as China’s Low Carbon Pilots, representing 350 million people, 27% of the population and one third of the economy. The centre of gravity is shifting from West to East not just for the World Economy but for the Green Economy.

Future historians will ponder long and hard on why the North Atlantic nations fell so easily on their swords and pressed the self-destruct button.

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Almighty God, who in thy love didst give to thy servant Nicholas of Myra a perpetual name for deeds of kindness on land and sea: Grant, we pray thee, that thy Church may never cease to work for the happiness of children, the safety of sailors, the relief of the poor, and the help of those tossed by tempests of doubt or grief; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

O great and glorious God, holy and immortal, who searches out the policies of nations and tries the hearts of men: Come, we pray thee, in judgment, upon the nations of the world; come and bring to destruction all that is contrary to thy holy will for mankind, and cause the counsels of the wicked to perish. Come, O Lord, into our hearts, and root out from them that thou seest, and we cannot see, to be unlike the Spirit of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Harold Anson

But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

–1 Thessalonians 5:8-11

The Rev. Rayford Ray was elected Dec. 4 as the 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan, pending required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church.

Ray, 54, a member of the Episcopal Ministry Support Team in the Diocese of Northern Michigan, was elected on the second ballot of a special convention from a field of three nominees. A fourth nominee, the Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, rector of St. Augustine’s in-the-Woods Episcopal Church, Freeland, Washington, had earlier asked that his name be withdrawn from consideration.

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The global advertising market should continue to recover steadily over the next three years driven by markets such as China, which is expected to overtake Germany as the world’s third-largest ad market in 2011, according to the latest forecast from Publicis Group SA’S (PUB.FR) ZenithOptimedia.

Advertising spending in China is expected to grow 51% over the next three years to reach $34.24 billion in 2013, said Zenith.

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Professor Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, immediate past Rector of Sunyani Polytechnic, on Saturday said sacrifice, financial and material resources and total devotion were necessary to improve on the dwindling membership of the Sunyani diocese of the Anglican Church. He said structural reform, unity, patriotism and commitment constituted the requisite essentials of the Anglican Church “to propagate the gospel, rescue the perishing and win souls for Christ”. Prof. Nsiah-Gyabaah was speaking on the theme: “Let Us Rise and Build,” to climax a five-day programme and fund-raising to mark the first anniversary of Rt. Rev. Dr. Festus Yeboah Asuamah, third Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Sunyani.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned last year in a leaked classified memo that donors in Saudi Arabia were the “most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”.

She said it was “an ongoing challenge” to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority.

The groups funded include al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, she added.

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Although baptised a Presbyterian, from his early twenties MacIntyre abandoned religion for a quarter of a century. He appears to have shared for a time AJ Ayer’s assertion that the only significant propositions are those that can be empirically or scientifically verified. MacIntyre’s conversion to Catholicism in his fifties, he tells me, occurred as a result of being convinced of Thomism while attempting to disabuse his students of its authenticity. Aquinas combined Aristotle’s account of a universe knowable through observation with Christian philosophy, arguing that such a world still required God’s existence as its sustaining creator. An Aristotelian-Thomistic view of society and the world, as set out in After Virtue, offered the best philosophical underpinning for human flourishing, and the only alternative to the fragmentation of modern moral philosophy.

MacIntyre argues that those committed to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of the common good must begin again. This involves “capturing the double aspect of the globalising economy and its financial sector, so that we understand it both as an engine of growth and as such a source of benefits, but equally as a perpetrator of great harms and continuing injustices.” Apologists for globalisation, he argues, treat it as a source of benefits, and only accidentally and incidentally a source of harms. Hence, the view that “to be for or against globalisation is in some ways like being for or against the weather.”

MacIntyre maintains, however, that the system must be understood in terms of its vices””in particular debt. The owners and managers of capital always want to keep wages and other costs as low as possible. “But, insofar as they succeed, they create a recurrent problem for themselves. For workers are also consumers and capitalism requires consumers with the purchasing power to buy its products. So there is tension between the need to keep wages low and the need to keep consumption high.” Capitalism has solved this dilemma, MacIntyre says, by bringing future consumption into the present by dramatic extensions of credit.

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Rachael Kohn: It’s good to have you back on again. You’ve been researching Australia’s religious profile for more than two decades now with a special focus on Christianity. Where would you put Australia compared to other historically Christian societies in the West?

Philip Hughes: Certainly I think that the Christian significance and Christian part of Australia’s identity has been in decline for the last 40 years. Now approximately half of all Australians identify themselves as being Christian. I think there are certainly a lot of Christian faiths still very much influencing our education, influencing our social welfare, influencing our values, but it’s become less explicit.

Rachael Kohn: Tom Frame has famously said that Australia is not a Christian country. Do you agree with his terminology or is it your observation more that Australians don’t champion a strong national story that is Christian?

Philip Hughes: I certainly think that the national Australian identity is not explicitly Christian. On the other hand, the Christian faith is still a choice being made by large numbers of Australians.

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A good technical case could, it is true, be made for this on the grounds of the Bishop Graham Leonard precedent. But, in his case, the CDF considered the orthodoxy or otherwise of every ‘link’ in the ordinations which led from the Dutchmen to the Bishop who ordained him priest. It cannot be anything other than a profound mistake in practical terms to attempt to clutter up the beginning of an Ordinariate with the sort of paper chases and delays which would be involved. And it would create an invidious divide between most of us and a few worthy priests who, because of age or because they were ordained in other parts of the Anglican Communion, were priested by bishops who had not contracted the Dutch Touch. So, my strong conviction is: NO … just don’t go there….

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The US is worried that Qatar, which last week won the right to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, and Kuwait are not doing enough to combat the financing of al-Qaeda, say officials and leaked diplomatic cables.

The Obama administration expresses fears that the two countries are in effect allowing al-Qaeda to circumvent tighter controls in Saudi Arabia and that pilgrims on the annual Hajj to Mecca also play a big role in funding the group.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States was left as the world’s only superpower. But the “unipolar moment” did not last long. By the time Barack Obama entered the White House in January 2009, it was already clear that the era of untrammelled American confidence and power had come to a close. Two major events have undermined the swagger and self-confidence of US foreign policy. The first was the failure to secure clear victories in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second was the financial and economic crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September, 2008. These three new books all respond, in different ways, to this new environment:

Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, by Andrew Bacevich

How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle, by Gideon Rose

The Frugal Superpower: America’s Global Leadership in a Cash-strapped Era, by Michael Mandelbaum….

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This is hysterical and well worth the time–listen to it all (just over 12 minutes).

Tell us how this service got started.

The service as we know it started in 1918 in King’s College Chapel, and it was started by the chaplain, Eric Milner-White. He had taken a concept that had been used in 1880 in Truro by Ezra Benson, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, so it wasn’t a new idea, but he made it what it is today. You have to visualize December 1918 in Cambridge. This is a university where somewhere in the area of half of all of the undergraduates had gone off to war, and a third of them never came back. On December 24, 1918, six weeks after the end of the war that was going to end all wars, you’ve got a congregation which is probably largely made up of widows, girlfriends””in those days they would’ve been called fiancées””children there to somehow deal with this horror that they’d just been through. Most Americans, because we weren’t as deeply involved in the First World War, don’t understand the impact that war had on Europe. I grew up, we all grew up, really, being talked to about appeasement and how we gave Hitler too much and blaming [Prime Minister Neville] Chamberlain, but in fact if you look at what the British had gone through less than twenty years before you can understand. I mean, 900,000 Britons were killed in that war compared with only 300,000 in the Second World War, even with the Blitz and everything else. The war had taken the best and the brightest, and [Eric Milner-White] put together a service of what he called Nine Lessons and Carols, and the nine lessons were things from the Scriptures in, at that point, of course, the King James Bible. There were four from the Old Testament foretelling the birth of Christ, four from the New Testament telling the Nativity story, and one from the Book of John, “In the beginning was the Word,” and so on, and he interspersed them with carols.

What do you think he wanted to do? How would this Christmas service have had an impact on those who had suffered so much?….

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Social networking is changing the American political scene and helping South Carolina politicians stay directly connected to the voters. Media experts say those who aren’t using such sites as Facebook and Twitter are missing out.

Gary Karr, a Washington, D.C-based public relations executive, one-time S.C. political reporter and press secretary for former Gov. David Beasley, said in the 1990s the political realm depended on snail mail, e-mails and media outlets to deliver messages. Today, officials can shape their reputations, control their message and get the word out to a big audience in real time.

“Everybody is their own media channel now,” Karr said.

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Drape the stage with purple, and also the footlights. It is antiquities’ color for royalty, and preparing for royalty is what Advent is all about (though some troupes these days are using a blue tint). It is not just that we prepare the audience during this season for an annual celebration of Christ’s birth, of course we do that.

What is often forgotten, however, or altogether missed by the secular stage and many non-liturgical playhouses as well, is that the first movement of Advent is to put us in mind of the Second Coming of Christ. Consequently the background music should have mystical qualities now and then. As I’ve mentioned on previous occasions, Advent begins with the end in mind. Therefore the opening scene trumpets Jesus’ promise that he shall come again in glory at the close of the age. Wisely we begin with this reminder of how it all shall end. It’s like this, if you’re going to move a piano the first thing you should know before setting your shoulder to the upright is where you’re going to move it. Similarly, when you begin afresh a new theatrical year the pertinent question to ask is where or at least how things are going to end up. If you know in advance the denouement of all performances and the plot of every play will climax in the reign of Christ and his kingdom on earth then it is helpful to take reconnaissance of that before writing a script for how you’re going to spend your time. You don’t want to miss the final curtain call because you decided to take a coffee break or made a wrong turn….

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In Jesus’ parable, the wise bridesmaids were responsible in a relatively simple task: having enough oil on hand. Our baptismal task is more complex: Jesus commands us to love one another as he has loved us (John 15:12). Paul exhorts us “through love [to] become slaves to one another (Galatians 5:13). The task is clear, memorable, hopeful ”“ and challenging. Imagine the chaos of the foolish bridesmaids after their lamps ran out””racing around the village in all directions trying to find more oil. Arguing with each other about who was to blame for their negligence. Furious about being locked out. Imagine, also, the celebrations of the wise bridesmaids””mouths filled with laughter and shouts of joy in fellowship and song.

Perhaps the deepest Advent practice””and life discipline””is to learn where it’s hardest to love and to begin your prayer right there. Perhaps the deepest Advent experience is to serve someone, in love, with whom you disagree. Christ is coming, and we need our lamps to be lit and reservoirs to be filled. Christ is coming, and our common life needs to be painted on the canvas he gave us. For in us, in his disciples, he is indeed already here.

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It is clear that establishment Christianity – better labelled ‘churchianity’ because of its close identification with the institutional church – does not have the influence it once did, even in living memory. The difficulty the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, had in negotiating a slot with New Labour at the Millennium celebrations at the Dome was indicative of the waning influence of the established church.

He got a platform – just – but arguably he could have made more of a gospel opportunity of it had he had less of a sense that he was entitled to it.

A good case can be made that the waning influence of establishment churchianity is to be welcomed. When has it ever spoken with a prophetic voice? The centre-left thrust of archiepiscopal political pronouncements does not challenge UK establishment thinking with a distinctively Christian edge in any significant sense.

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The ballroom of the Grand Hyatt on Beijing’s East Chang An Avenue was packed. The occasion: the first-ever China International Nuclear Symposium, a gathering of China’s top nuclear players and the world’s nuclear power companies, including Westinghouse, Areva SA, and Hitachi-GE.

What brought the Chinese to the Hyatt on Nov. 24 and 25 was a hunger for the latest technology, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Dec. 6 issue. What brought the foreigners was money: According to Michael Kruse, consultant on nuclear systems for Arthur D. Little, the Chinese are ready to spend $511 billion to build up to 245 reactors.

“The market is being driven by the construction of new reactors, and it is no secret that most of those are right here in China,” says Fletcher T. Newton, an executive vice-president of Uranium One, a mining company.

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O Gracious God and most merciful Father, who has vouchsafed us the rich and precious jewel of thy holy Word: Assist us with thy Spirit that it may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to thine own image, to build us up into the perfect building of thy Christ, and to increase us in all heavenly virtues. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the same Jesus Christ’s sake.

–The Geneva Bible

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

–Luke 7:33-35

Most civil lawsuits are about the money, even when the issues raised are serious ones. So it is refreshing that a federal lawsuit brought by a Franklin Park couple against Google Inc. was settled for $1 in Pittsburgh this week. The issue raised in this case was unusually interesting, pitting the right to privacy against the abundant data available online and the purposes to which it may be put.

The lawsuit was filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, who objected to an image of their house being posted on the Internet by Google as part of its Street View feature. According to their attorney, Gregg R. Zegarelli, the issue was the implication that Google can assemble unlimited data on people.

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Utah’s Catholic bishop is putting the brakes on Christmas.

In his first pastoral letter to Utah’s 300,000 Catholics since becoming their shepherd in 2007, Bishop John C. Wester asks that members hold off celebrating Christmas until the season actually begins Dec. 24.

Catholics, Wester says, ought not have early parties in their homes or churches, light up their trees or decorate their schools with more than simple wreaths and boughs of green.

Instead, the bishop writes, Catholics should remain faithful to Advent, a four-week season that began Sunday and focuses on prayer, reflection and the joyful expectation both of Christ’s birth and his return at the end of time.

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The U.S. Senate on Saturday defeated two attempts by Democrats to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle classes permanently, in rare weekend votes that likely had little effect on wider negotiations to reach a compromise about extending the tax cuts.

The Senate voted 53-36 to reject an attempt to initiate debate in the chamber on a measure that would have extended lower tax rates for individuals who earn less than $200,000 and couples earning less than $250,000.

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After years of debate, the Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with controversial rules intended to preserve the open Internet. The FCC chairman outlined the proposals this week and criticism came quickly, from all parts of the ideological spectrum.

Ever since he took the job, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has been promising new rules of the road for the phone and cable companies that provide broadband access, as well as the companies and consumers who depend on it.

“It is the Internet’s openness and freedom ”” the ability to speak, innovate and engage in commerce without having to ask anyone’s permission ”” that has enabled the Internet’s unparalleled success,” he said.

In a brief appearance Wednesday, Genachowski sketched out the rules that he said would ensure that broadband providers treat all of the data on their networks equally ”” an idea known as net neutrality. But some public interest groups have seen a few more details than Genachowski announced. They say the proposed rules are net neutrality in name only.

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