[BOB] ABERNETHY: The last U.S. troops from Iraq have been coming back. What do you make, what do you all make of the welcome that they’ve received and people’s feelings generally about the end of the Iraq War?

[KIM] LAWTON: I’ve been surprised at the fact that prior to our entry into the Iraq War in the religious community this was a huge debate. Is this a just war? Should we be doing this? There were protests in the streets and now that’s it’s winding down I haven’t heard as much moral conversation from ethicists and religious leaders about what did it all mean now that it’s done and what did we leave behind? People were talking about do we have an ethical responsibility to that country and I don’t hear it being framed in that way and I found that interesting.

[KEVIN] ECKSTROM: And I think it’s a very different reception of the troops coming home from Vietnam obviously got and I think a lot of people are happy about that. They’re proud that their veterans are coming home, but I’ve been surprised at how muted the reaction has been.

Read it all.

Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Alan Harper:

A personal culture of kindness needs to be reclaimed in modern society. A kind word and a kind gesture can go a long way to making the lives of hard-pressed people bearable. It can light up a life and it says: “I’m someone, not no one.

“I count in the eyes of someone else….”

Read it all.

…the U.S. Supreme Court has already upheld a similar strict photo voter ID law in Indiana, according to S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson. Because of that, Wilson said he plans to ask the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to overrule the Justice Department’s decision.“Nothing in this act stops people from voting, and I think the court will rule in South Carolina’s favor,” Wilson said in a prepared statement.

Supporters of the law, including Haley, have said the purpose of South Carolina’s voter ID law is to prevent voter fraud, such as someone who lives in another state claiming to be a voter in South Carolina.But in his letter to the S.C. Attorney General’s Office, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez noted that “the state’s submission did not include any evidence or instance of either in-person voter impersonation or any other type of fraud that is not already addressed by the state’s existing voter identification requirement and that arguably could be deterred by requiring voters to present only photo identification at the polls…..”

Read it all.

O God our heavenly Father, who by the birth of thy Son Jesus Christ has visited us with thy salvation: Grant that as we welcome our Redeemer his presence may be shed abroad in our hearts and homes with the light of heavenly joy and peace; and in all our preparations for this holy season help us to think more of others than of ourselves, and to show forth our gratitude to thee for thine unspeakable gift, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

–Galatians 3:23-29

Go here and download or listen to it from the December 22nd morning show. I found it very helpful–KSH.

Every few years Christmas is on a Sunday and suddenly believers face a dilemma: Stay home hanging stockings and opening gifts, or upend those cherished domestic traditions and go to Sunday church services. That is, if their church is even open.

Nearly 10% of Protestant churches will be closed on Christmas Sunday this year, according to LifeWay Research, and most pastors who are opening up say they expect far fewer people than on other Sundays. Other reports suggest that churches across the board are scaling down their services in anticipation of fewer worshipers.

“We have to face the reality of families who don’t want to struggle to get kids dressed and come to church,” Brad Jernberg of Dallas’s Cliff Temple Baptist Church told the Associated Baptist Press. Similarly, Beth Car Baptist Church in Halifax, Va., is planning a short service featuring bluegrass riffs on Christmas music. “I’ll do a brief sermon, and then we’re going home,” said Pastor Mike Parnell.

Read it all.

As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.

—Disturbing the Peace : A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala (Vintage, 1991 paperback ed. of the 1986 original trnslated by Paul Wilson, 1990), p.11

A United States military investigation has concluded that checks and balances devised to prevent cross-border mishaps with Pakistan failed to avert a deadly NATO airstrike last month in part because American officials did not trust Pakistan enough to give it detailed information about American troop locations in Afghanistan.

A report by the inquiry concluded that mistakes by both American and Pakistani troops led to airstrikes against two Pakistani posts on the Afghan border that killed 26 Pakistani troops. But two crucial findings ”” that the Pakistanis fired first at a joint Afghan-American patrol and that they kept firing even after the Americans tried to warn them that they were shooting at allied troops ”” were likely to further anger Pakistan and plunge the already tattered relationship between the United States and Pakistan to new depths.

In a statement and at a news conference here on Thursday, the Defense Department said that “inadequate coordination by U.S. and Pakistani military officers” and “incorrect mapping information” that NATO had provided to the Pakistani authorities capped a chain of errors that caused the debacle.

Read it all.

We welcome the protection of the core hours of local broadcasting, namely the breakfast and mid-morning shows along with the drive time programmes, some sport and the Sunday morning faith programming. But what we hear back from the dioceses in their local consultations is a deep concern that these programmes themselves will not be maintained with their current quality (requiring voices from the whole area which the local radio station serves) with significantly fewer staff.

We ask the BBC Trust to recognise local radio as one of the ‘Crown Jewels’ of the BBC. We do not argue that there should be no cuts in budget at all but we believe that the total protection from cuts given to BBC1, Radio 4 and the Proms is disproportionate in relation to what is proposed for BBC local radio.

Read it all.

What’s an average day like for you these days?

Busy, busy, busy. Stretching at 6:30 a.m. Up at 7 a.m. Breakfast and read the Arizona Daily Star, Arizona Republic and New York Times. Drive to rehab at 8 a.m. Physical, occupational and speech therapy for most of the day. Home, dinner and watch The Daily Show. Then off to bed.

Are you religious? If so, did that help you through this experience?

Yes, I am. Of course it did.

Read it all.Is there any other sphere of life where the latter interaction would qualify as sufficient? It’s personal, its private, we don’t go into those things. As ever, it speaks volumes about cultural assumptions–KSH.

The elaborate Nativity scenes rose in a city park along the oceanfront here every December for nearly six decades. More than a dozen life-size dioramas depicted the Annunciation, Mary and Joseph being turned away at the inn and, of course, the manger.

This always angered Damon Vix, who worked off and on in Santa Monica and considers himself a devout atheist, so to speak. How could it be, he asked himself each year, that the city could condone such an overtly religious message?

So, a few years ago, he petitioned the city and received his own space, using it to put up a sign offering “Reason’s Greetings.” But this year, he wanted more. Mr. Vix gathered a few supporters and applied for dozens of spaces in Palisades Park, a patch of green on a bluff overlooking the sandy beaches that this city is famous for.

Read it all.

Read it all.

A Berliner and longtime member of St. Mary’s church choir, Christian Beier attempts to explain the mystique and tradition behind this piece of music….

“It makes Christmas Christmas,” he adds with a chuckle.

But as gorgeous as the music is for Beier, the core of this yearly event is something deeper.

“It is getting into some dialogue with God. It is being moved by whatever is around us,” he says.

Read or listen to it all (audio for this highly encouraged).

Iraq’s Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi has said Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is to blame for a sudden surge of violence in the country.

Dozens of people were killed in a string of blasts across the capital, Baghdad, on Thursday.

Mr Hashemi, who is subject to an arrest warrant on terror charges, said that Mr Maliki should be focusing on security not “chasing patriotic politicians”.

Read it all.

La Provincia Anglicana del Cono Sur ”“ the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone ”“ has endorsed the Anglican Covenant.

Meeting in Asunción, Paraguay from 3-11 November 2011, the provincial executive committee and the province’s House of Bishops endorsed the inter-Anglican agreement that sets the parameters of doctrine and discipline for the Anglican Communion.

In a statement released on 20 Dec 2011, Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia stated the province believed the covenant was a “way forward” in the midst of a difficult time when “certain provinces” were proposing “novel ways of Christian living” that rejected “Biblical norms.”

Read it all.

A chill wind snapped around the base of the massive concrete statue of Christ, arms outstretched, that rises more than 118 feet into the sky above this small town in western Poland.

“It gives you a very religious feeling, especially because it’s Christmastime,” said Waldemar Kierzkowski, who this week visited the towering year-old image that has become a lightning rod in Poland’s culture war.

Mr. Kierzkowski, a 55-year-old car dealer, and his wife, Alina, drove from their home in Goleniow, more than 150 miles away, to shoot a few photos with the gray monument””whose builders say it is the tallest Jesus in the world””soaring behind them.

Read it all.

St.Margaret’s C of E Primary School in Toppes­field, Essex ”” a Victorian village school with just 63 pupils ”” was ranked first in this year’s primary-school league tables, announced on Thursday of last week. The tables are compiled from the results of the annual Year 6 attainment tests.

One in four of all primaries are C of E foundations, and a total of 88 C of E schools were among the 194 primaries in England where all Year 6 children (aged ten and 11) achieved the expected Level 4 in English and maths. Six were among the top ten. As well as St Margaret’s, they were: Clatford, Hamp­shire; Orchard Primary, Broughton Astley; Bladon Primary, Oxfordshire; St Mary’s Primary, York; and Ashhurst Primary, West Sussex.

At St Margaret’s, the six pupils in Year 6 achieved level 5, the standard aimed at by 14-year-olds. The head teacher, Kim Hall, said that the secret of the voluntary aided school’s success was its strong Christian values and the strong support re­ceived from the local community. “We all ”” pupils and staff ”” care for each other, and we’re very much part of the community.”

Read it all.

Facebook users will enjoy tighter privacy controls after the social networking giant was ordered by the Republic of Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner to change how it handles personal data.

The company was issued with a raft of recommendations including deleting personal information sooner and allowing users better control on the use of data.

The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner yesterday published the outcome of its audit of Facebook Ireland, which was carried out over the last three months.

Read it all.

Grant, O Lord, that we who once again prepare for the commemoration of the coming of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, may so direct our hearts to the fulfillment of thy law, that he may now accept our hosannas, and in the life to come receive us in the heavenly Sion; where with thee and the Holy Ghost he liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end.

–Richard D. Acland

The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved; thy throne is established from of old; thou art from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the LORD on high is mighty! Thy decrees are very sure; holiness befits thy house, O LORD, for evermore.

–Psalm 93

Congressional leaders reached an agreement Thursday to temporarily extend a payroll-tax cut by two months and begin negotiations on a yearlong extension, aides said.

he agreement could end a political stalemate over the payroll-tax cut, which lowered Social Security taxes for 160 million Americans in 2011. Under the tentative agreement, the House will vote again on a two-month extension and the Senate will prepare to negotiate for an extension that will run through 2012.

Aides said House Speaker John Boehner (R, Ohio) has agreed to hold a new vote Friday on extending the tax cut, bowing to increasing pressure to end an impasse that threatened to leave workers with a tax increase next year.

Read it all.

A federal judge blocked several parts of South Carolina’s immigration law Thursday, saying in his ruling that the measure tramples on federal powers.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel granted a preliminary injunction, according to The Associated Press and Reuters, ruling that the federal government has the sole constitutional authority to set immigration policy and regulate enforcement. Gergel said parts of South Carolina’s law are in violation of those powers.

Read it all.

Greetings in the name of Christ for whom we wait with joy and anticipation.

We, the undersigned Bishops of the Anglican Mission, write you today at the conclusion of two very important meetings. December 18-19th, we met in Charlotte, NC to seek God’s direction for our Anglican Mission, and on December 20th, a delegation from this Council met with representative bishops from the Anglican Church in North America in Pittsburgh, PA.
Our desire is to share our hearts with you about these meetings and to confirm our support for you and our partnership in the Gospel. May this letter be a word of encouragement to each one of you that Jesus Christ is, even now, lifting a call of peace, reconciliation and vision in our midst!

We want you to know that this Council of Bishops is absolutely united. We have stood together as this whole transitional drama has unfolded and we will continue to stand together through whatever may come until unity and relationships are restored and our mission for the cause of Christ is accomplished.

We apologize for the fallout that you have felt from the collision of what may best be described as two groups of Godly leaders separated by tens of thousands of miles and substantial cultural differences, each seeking to do what they have hoped would bring about a more effective Christian witness in our land. What has happened in the past six months is certainly not reflective of, nor consistent with, the pattern of relationship and mission that has marked our relationship with Rwanda during the previous thirteen years. Nor are the attacks, in particular, against our Chairman, Bishop Chuck Murphy, true in regard to his character or leadership.

In Rwanda there has been significant change in the House of Bishops over the past two years as a result of the election of a new Primate and several new members to that House. It appears to have been their desire to transition our partnership toward a leadership model that would allow this newly constituted House to exercise much greater control over the day-to-day operations and direction of the Anglican Mission, moving in a direction that is inconsistent with anything that had been fully discussed or engaged in over the past thirteen years.

This past summer a process of discernment was initiated by Bishop Murphy with our Council of Bishops regarding next steps in formalizing the structures of the Anglican Mission in a manner consistent with what the Holy Spirit has led us into over the past fourteen years. The structure being considered was a Missionary Society out of the Province of Rwanda (a missionary society is an historically recognized entity within the Church). This conversation was evolving and was involving the HOB of Rwanda, our founding Archbishops, and leadership throughout the Anglican Mission. We believe that it is important for you to know that our founding archbishops, Moses Tay, Yong Ping Chung, and Emmanuel Kolini have all encouraged us to move forward toward a formalized Missionary Society. As such, a Society would build on what God has been doing with us and would also reflect what they have sensed in prayer that the Lord is calling us to do. This fall these two transitions met, and none of us could have anticipated the velocity with which they collided.

For today, we will leave the details of these past nine months to history. Things will all be made clearer as the dust settles, as relationships are restored and truth comes to light, and as we remain focused on our primary mission, starting churches and encouraging those who are doing Kingdom work. Know that we love and cherish our Rwandan friends, and they us. We will not speak further of what has happened save in the pursuit of reconciliation among our Houses. You may be assured that reconciliation remains important to us. We offer our apologies to Rwanda and to you for the missteps that we have made, and seek the forgiveness of our brothers and of Almighty God for those places where we have, by our words and actions, caused pain or confusion.

Already Bishop Murphy and Bishop Terrell Glenn have met following Bishop’s Glenn’s recent resignation from our Council. We are happy to report the good news that reconciliation has been reached between our brothers. For this we have not ceased to thank our Lord.

As we move forward we are deeply grateful for the sacrificial and ongoing leadership that our founding archbishops, Moses Tay, Yong Ping Chung, and Emmanuel Kolini have provided to our Mission. At this moment in our history, we are particularly thankful that they have stepped into an active oversight and leadership position in our Mission and in the formation process of a Missionary Society.

It may be helpful to say that an Anglican Missionary Society, by name, must have a jurisdictional connection within the Anglican Communion. We had hoped that our jurisdictional connection would have been with the Province of Rwanda, but with our resignation as bishops from that Province, we are prayerfully considering other options. Although several options have been considered and have presented themselves to us, in prayer and conversation with many of you, it became clear that a process of discernment should first be engaged with the Anglican Church in North America.

What follows is a joint statement issued by the ACNA/AM task force which came into being yesterday and which will be leading us through this discernment process. Bishop TJ Johnston and Bishop Doc Loomis will be representing the Anglican Mission in these conversations.

On December 20, 2011, Bishops Chuck Murphy, Doc Loomis and John Rodgers and representatives from the Anglican Mission in the Americas participated in a very encouraging conversation during a meeting with Archbishop Robert Duncan, Bishops Leonard Riches and Charlie Masters of the Anglican Church in North America. The joyful result of these conversations was a mutual pledge to wholeheartedly pursue a restoration of the relationship between The Anglican Mission and the Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA and AMiA have appointed four bishops to engage in a determined effort to bring about at the earliest possible time a reunion of The Anglican Mission, a founding partner of the ACNA, to full participation in the life and ministry of the Anglican Church in North America. Both parties recognize that this is the beginning of a process, which will involve a number of strategic decisions as well as the repair and restoration of relationships. We give thanks to God for the ongoing work of His Holy Spirit as He continues to draw us together to form a Biblical, united and missionary Anglican witness to North America.

Finally, during our time in Charlotte, Bishop Murphy and the Council openly engaged a number of important leadership issues and transitions that would be involved in formalizing a Missionary Society. One of the purposes of such a move is to provide a stable, sustainable, and flexible platform for our Mission for decades to come. During this conversation, the Council affirmed Bishop Murphy’s leadership as Chairman, even as all of us, including Bishop Murphy, acknowledged that in this time of transition to a Missionary Society, current positions and leadership roles are likely to change.

We also prayed through and discussed our upcoming Winter Conference, which will be a very important time for us to gather together and seek God’s presence and heart for our Mission. Along with our overseeing archbishops, we invite and encourage all of you to join us in Houston for what will be a defining moment for our Mission.

We implore you to prayerfully consider what we have shared with you. It is our earnest desire that you will trust and join with us as we boldly step forward in our call to press on with the Mission the Lord has laid on our hearts, and to help us work through the process of establishing a Missionary Society that reflects our long held belief that we are a Mission, nothing more, nothing less.

With glad tidings for a blessed Christmas we remain,

Faithfully yours,

(signed)

(The Rt. Rev.) Sandy Greene
(The Rt. Rev.) Doc Loomis
(The Rt. Rev.) Todd Hunter
(The Rt. Rev.) T.J. Johnston
(The Rt. Rev.) Philip Jones
(The Rt. Rev.) John Miller
(The Rt. Rev.) Silas Ng

A Waukesha County judge has ruled in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee in a dispute over church property taken by an Elm Grove congregation when it broke away over theological differences in 2008.

The decision, by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis, means members of St. Edmund’s Parish who left the Episcopal Church to align with a new, more theologically conservative Anglican province must relinquish all church property and vacate the building at 14625 Watertown Plank Road.

Read it all.

If Dec. 10 had been an average day for Doctors Without Borders, the Swiss charity that sends medical help into crisis areas, its website would have logged 4,000 hits.

Instead, it was bombarded with more than 10 times that amount as atheists from the user-driven news site Reddit.com participated in a fundraiser that has so far raised more than $200,000.

“It’s amazing, what’s going on,” a DWB spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency. “The amount being raised is amazing, definitely.”

Read it all.

This is just wonderful–Watch and read it all.

Susan Lee, a divorced mother of three in New York City, is taking a drastic step this year. “No Christmas for me,” she says. “No gifts, no turkey, no tree, no kidding.”

Lee, 41, a marketing consultant, says she needs a break from the stress and spending that are integral parts of the holiday. Her kids will celebrate a traditional Christmas with their dad, but she’s ignoring all the rituals.
“I start dreading Christmas from the time the decorations go up in the stores,” she says. “It stopped being fun for me, so I’ll find out this year if I can do without it altogether. I think it will be a relief. It already is.”

Read it all.

Christmas is…a time to remember family and friends who are no longer with us. They stay with us in loving memory, and we celebrate how much richer our lives are because they were a part of us, shaping us, and making us better for knowing them….

Like many of my Christian friends, I am not overly fond of the commercialization of Christmas. I bristle at seeing decorations any time before Thanksgiving and this year I’ve been particularly annoyed with a car advert that has hijacked one of my favorite secular holiday songs. However, I let all that fall away and think about being with my family and spending time laughing, telling stories, and watching the joy of Christmas shine through the eyes of my niece Quincie.

Christmas belongs to anyone who wants it, and just because I gave up believing in a god doesn’t mean I gave up believing in the love and joy of family. I did not give up the joy of celebration with my abandonment of the absurd. So to my religious and non-religious friends, I wish them all a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah from the heart and I hope they take it with the true spirit with which I give it ”“ that of the spirt of humanity – something we can all celebrate.

Read it all.

unfortunately, there is another issue that has been made public; it is now part of the historical record: Chuck Murphy and eight AMIA bishops have removed themselves from Rwandan oversight, having done so for no particular theological or biblical reason. The issues are both personal and ecstatic. By personal, I mean personality conflicts. By ecstatic, I mean that the only spiritual reason given for the departure was Chuck Murphy’s sense that the Lord had told him personally that he was like Moses leading people out of Egypt: “I must now say ”¦ that I believe that the Lord’s present word to me (and to us) now directs me to look beyond Genesis chapters 39-45, and on into the Book of Exodus”¦. that Africa (Egypt) could no longer be viewed as [AMIA’s] lasting home”¦. Things have now been made very clear to me” [letter of Dec. 5, 2011 to Archbishop Rwaje].

I think it critical in such times that we say what a thing is”“only the truth will set us free. And this thing that happened has a name: schism. All the AMIA bishops who have resigned are schismatics.

This is a hard sentence to write and to read, because these are otherwise godly men, whose leadership we have admired. Some we call friends and colleagues. But there is no other word to describe what they’ve done other than the word schism.

Read it all.