The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said.

While it is far too soon to write the final chapter on the uprisings’ impact, Iran has already benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said. This week Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since its revolution in 1979, and Egypt’s new military leaders allowed them to pass.

Saudi Arabia, an American ally and a Sunni nation that jousts with Shiite Iran for regional influence, has been shaken. King Abdullah on Wednesday signaled his concern by announcing a $10 billion increase in welfare spending to help young people marry, buy homes and open businesses, a gesture seen as trying to head off the kind of unrest that fueled protests around the region.

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Iranian authorities have released about half of the Christians arrested for their faith across the country in December and January, as well as one held in Shiraz since June, sources said.

In December and January authorities arrested up to 120 believers after Iranian religious and political figures acknowledged the existence of home fellowships and condemned them as a threat to the state. Sources estimate at least 62 of those arrested during late December and January have been released, some on bail. A typical bail amount in Iran can range between a few thousand dollars and the deed on a house.

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Church leaders in Christchurch, New Zealand, are ministering to the population of the city after the fatal earthquake on Tuesday, which left hundreds of people trapped under rubble, and caused the spire of the Anglican Cathedral to collapse.

This morning, the number of deaths stood at 113, with more than 200 people reported missing. It was the second earthquake to hit Christchurch in six months (News, 10 September). It measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, less than the 7.1-magnitude tremor in September last year, which happened at night, without loss of life. This week’s earthquake was more devastating, as it occurred at 1 p.m., when many people were out and about.
The Bishop of Christchurch, the Rt Revd Victoria Matthews, has called on Christchurch residents to “be calm, be sensible, be compassionate, be a good neighbour” in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake.

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In London, The Times opened its story by claiming: “Roman Catholic bishops have approved a new iPhone and iPad app that allows users to make confession with a virtual ‘priest’ over the Internet.”

The Economic Times report was even more blunt. The headline noted, “No time to visit church? Confess via iPhone.” Then the opening lines went further still, stating: “Users of iPhone can now perform contrition and other religious rituals without visiting church, thanks to a new online application.”

The problem is that these statements were just plain wrong. There is no such thing as a “virtual” priest or a “virtual” sacrament. How could electronic devices allow believers to “perform … other religious rituals”?

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Not so much by words but by example, I internalized a respect for the material at hand. The material could be a pork loin, or a mahogany plank, or a lump of clay, or the will of God, or a soul, but when the work is done well, there is a kind of submission of will to the conditions at hand, a cultivation of what I would later learn to call humility. It is a noticeable feature in all skilled workers””woodworkers, potters, poets, pray-ers and pastors. I learned it in the butcher shop [of my Father].

Years later I came upon the phrase negative capability and recognized that it was something very much like submission to the material, the humility, that I had had so much practice in on the butcher block. The poet John Keats coined the term to refer to this quality in the worker. He was impressed by William Shakespeare’s work in creating such a variety of characters in his plays, none of which seemed to be a projection of Shakespeare’s ego. Each had an independent life of his or her own. Keats wrote, “A poet has no identity . . . he is continually . . . filling some other Body.” He believed that the only way that real creative will matured was in a person who was not hell-bent on imposing his or her will on another person or thing but “was capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable searching after fact and reason.” Interesting: Shakespeare, the poet from whom we know the most about other people, is the poet about whom we know next to nothing.

–Eugene Peterson, “My Father’s Butcher Shop” (Christian Century, February 22, 1001), p. 29

It is one of the most difficult, yet important conversations that needs to take place in family life ”“and potentially one of the most embarrassing. It’s the sex and relationships discussion between parents and teenagers. But now a novel approach to ease the awkwardness of these conversations has just been developed by a joint Church and Health Trust group looking at young people and sexual health.

The Faith sub-group of the Belfast Area Sexual Health Project Board has recently produced a relationships resource, entitled ”˜Unique’, for both young people and their parents that is user-friendly and easy to work through. However it is how this resource is used that will give a new approach to conversations on difficult issues.

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“Bittersweet is not a strong enough word for what I’m feeling,” the Rev. Tommy Tipton told parishioners who packed Holy Cross-Faith Memorial Episcopal Church for his sermon on Sunday.

It was his last at the church after 12 years as rector, and it drew tears from church members who said they will dearly miss him.

Tipton, who was assistant rector at Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church in Georgetown before coming to Holy Cross, is moving to Columbia to be the bishop’s assistant in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.

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Is sending a secret informant into a mosque in search of terrorists proactive policing, or a violation of worshippers’ civil rights?

That’s the question a federal judge will have to answer after the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council of American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit Tuesday (Feb. 22) in Los Angeles against the FBI.

The suit charges the nation’s top law enforcement agency targeted Muslims for surveillance based solely on their religious affiliation, violating their constitutional rights.

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Public opinion cannot be relied on as a source of moral authority. The consensus at any time may favour the restoration of capital punishment; not so long ago it wanted homosexuals locked up; nineteenth-century public opinion did not think women should have the vote; eighteenth-century public opinion supported slavery. There were Christian voices involved in the reform of all those positions, but they were voices of protest grounded in Scripture, tradition and natural law, not of conformity to prevailing social norms.

The time may have come to accept that there will have to be at least two understandings of marriage side by side, and that each should go its own way. As in Europe, it is perfectly viable to have church marriage validated by religious authorities and secular marriage validated by state authorities, and for a couple that wishes to, to undergo both forms. Then there would no longer be any suggestion that the secular form of marriage is part of the Christian legacy. There are grounds, indeed, for doubting whether it has been so for some time.

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Almighty and everlasting God, who in days of old didst cause thy Word to grow mightily and to prevail: We praise and magnify thy holy name for the manifestation of thy Spirit’s power in this our day and for all who are labouring to spread the gospel of thy salvation throughout the world; and we pray thee so to prosper and bless their endeavours that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

—2 Corinthians 4:1-2; Bishop Nazir-Ali preached in part on this at the Friday night service of the South Carolina Diocesan Convention a week ago–KSH

The monumental changes taking place in Egypt should be a clarion call for Western Christians to “run toward Egypt” and take advantage of an opportunity decades in the making, said a Christian worker deeply familiar with the country.

“How long have we been asking the church around the world to pray for the [unreached parts of the world]?” Ron Robinson* asked. “I know for 29 years I’ve been asking American churches, churches in the United Kingdom, Korean Christians to pray for Egypt — that doors would open” to share the Gospel.

“Our prayers are being answered right now…. This is God’s hand at work.”

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Ministers have identified billions of pounds that Col Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan regime have deposited in London, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

The funds are expected to be seized within days. The Treasury is understood to have set up a unit to trace Col Gaddafi’s assets in Britain, which are thought to include billions of dollars in bank accounts, commercial property and a £10 million mansion in London.

In total, the Libyan regime is said to have around £20 billion in liquid assets, mostly in London. These are expected to be frozen as part of an international effort to force the dictator from power. A Whitehall source said: “The first priority is to get British nationals out of Libya. But then we are ready to move in on Gaddafi’s assets, the work is under way. This is definitely on the radar at the highest levels.”

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He was ordained in 1956, and during a four-year curacy at St Mary Abbots Church in Kensington completed an Oxford BLitt on the revival of Anglican religious orders in the 19th century. This was subsequently published as The Silent Rebellion (1958) and remains the standard work on its subject.

From 1960 to 1969 Allchin was at Pusey House, Oxford, as a member of a chapter of priests, known as Librarians, who provide a centre of Anglo-Catholic worship and spirituality for the university. During this time he co-wrote The Rediscovery of Newman (1967), heralding a revived interest in one of the great figures of the 19th-century Church.

On one of his many visits to the United States he met Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk whose writings on spirituality, combined with a radical political outlook, had made him internationally famous. A strong friendship ensued, and after Merton’s death in 1968 their exchanges of letters were published. Allchin became the first president of a Thomas Merton Society formed in Britain.

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While analysts agree that global oil and gas supplies are hardly at risk, as Libya accounts for only 2 percent of world oil output, countries like Italy, France, and Spain relied on Libya in 2010 for as much as 22 percent, 16 percent, and 13 percent of total crude consumption, respectively ”“ a supply not easily replaced on short notice. Europe receives over 85 percent of Libya’s crude exports.

And that’s causing energy planners to reassess the wisdom of counting on North Africa, where southern European governments have invested significantly to decrease dependence on supplies from Russia and Iran, even if Libya’s civil unrest ends with a peaceful resignation of Qadaffi.

“Europe has to choose between becoming more dependent on Russia or the Middle East, or both,” says Herman Franssen, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former chief economist of the International Energy Agency.

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While The United Methodist Church’s U.S. membership has continued to shrink, its growth elsewhere in the world has put it over the 12 million-member mark for the first time, newly released statistics show.

The church’s membership in Africa, Europe and Asia grew from 3.5 million to 4.4 million in the five years ending in 2009, according to the United Methodist Council on Finance and Administration.

In that time, worldwide membership increased from almost 11.6 million to nearly 12.1 million.

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The words came up on Alicia Duerson’s cellphone as blithely as text messages typically do, but this one was different: her former husband, the former Chicago Bears star Dave Duerson, asked her to donate his brain for research.

She texted back and heard nothing, then called their son, Tregg, who was just ending his workday as a bank analyst in Chicago. They called again and got voice mail.

The next and last message they received from Dave Duerson was meant for them, their family and perhaps all of professional football. It was written in his hurried hand, repeating his text message in case it had not been received, and found in the South Florida condominium where he placed a gun to his chest and shot himself to death last Thursday.

“Please, see that my brain is given to the N.F.L.’s brain bank.”

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Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of Lubbock, Texas, was arrested late yesterday by FBI agents in Texas on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary to make an improvised explosive device (IED) and his research of potential U.S. targets.

The arrest and the criminal complaint, which was unsealed in the Northern District of Texas, were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; James T. Jacks, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas; and Robert E. Casey Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Dallas Field Division.

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An Anglican priest, the Reverend Wally Behan, who normally lives in Christchurch but is caretaking a Sydney church for six months, said he had been shocked by television footage from inside the cathedral.

”The whole place is like a bomb hit it but when you look up to the steeple now, you see the sky, and all that’s come down.

”[Before the quake] you’d look across the skyline of Christchurch and there’d always be the cathedral, always the steeple of the cathedral sticking up wherever you’d look. Now, that’s gone.”

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Spy author John le Carre is to give his literary archive to the world famous library at Oxford University, his “spiritual home”, it was announced on Thursday.

The collection contains family papers, photographs, letters and manuscripts, including drafts of one of le Carre’s best known novels, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”.

The author said he wanted to give the material to the Bodleian Library at the prestigious university where he studied, rather than sending it to an American institution.

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Christian clergy in Libya said they have no intention of leaving the country, where several days of protests and retaliation by government armed forces have left hundreds of people dead.

“We feel we belong here with our sisters who are giving their services in social centres. Their work is so much appreciated by the Libyans here and often finds support and appreciation,” Rev. Daniel Farrugia, a senior Roman Catholic priest at the St. Francis Catholic Church in Tripoli told ENInews on 22 February.

He said the leaders were safe as well as the church structures, with the church’s life in the mornings being almost normal, although many foreigners were leaving the country.

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The Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, the Primate of Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), says the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), is no longer under the jurisdiction of Nigeria….

“We are not interested in territorial ambition; our main reason for going to America was to provide for those who were no longer finding it possible to worship in the Episcopal church.

“A new structure has been put up in the U.S. which is ACNA.

“CANA now belongs to ACNA even though they still relate to us;but essentially it now belongs to Anglican province of North America,” he said.

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Huge quake damage to the landmark Christ Church Cathedral was particularly shocking for one Queenstowner.

Local Anglican vicar David Coles was the cathedral dean for six years before an 18-year stint as Bishop of Christchurch.

“I spent good years of my life in there ”“ Joy and I were married there in 2001, I was ordained as a bishop there, so it’s a pretty important place for us.

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Watching the price of oil go up these days is a little like watching a river rise. At what point do we need to get the sandbags? When should we sound the warning horns? What is flood stage?

On Wednesday, the main U.S. oil contract hit $100 a barrel before retreating to $98.10. That was the highest price in more than two years.

Of course, prices could always go down. But with increasing global demand and widespread unrest in the Middle East, it’s possible that the price of fuel ”” by the barrel and by the gallon ”” will continue to rise. And when the price of oil rises, the price of just about everything else ”” driving, heating, shopping, eating and more ”” starts to move up too.

Flood level may be closer than we think.

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The proposed addition of “gender identity and expression” carries that transformation even further by suppressing the binary logic itself. Backers of these bills often make no attempt to disguise this. “One of the great myths of our culture,” insists the Canadian Labor Congress, “is that at birth each infant can be identified as distinctly ”˜male’ or ”˜female’ (biological sex), will grow up to have correspondingly ”˜masculine’ or ”˜feminine’ behavior (public gender), live as a ”˜man’ or a ”˜woman’ (social gender role), and marry a woman or a man (heterosexual affective orientation). This is not so.”

The standard notion of sex, then, must be replaced by the more malleable concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. And I do mean must. Here in Quebec a recent government white paper promises to wipe society clean of both homophobia and heterosexism””that is, of any “affirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation [and of any] social practice that conceals the diversity of sexual orientations and identities.”

What this will mean in the long run for the legal protection of women remains to be seen, of course, but we can’t have it both ways. Sex cannot serve as an effective legal marker for discrimination if its binary nature dissolves into fluid sexual subjectivities. In that sense, these bills constitute unfriendly amendments to the civil and criminal codes they purport to refine or perfect.

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Get ready for more undernourished infants, dangerously cold homes and disease-stricken communities in developing countries if proposed federal budget cuts become law.

That’s the message coming from left-leaning religious advocacy groups, who’ve been rallying supporters and blanketing Capitol Hill since budget debates kicked into high gear last week (Feb. 14-18). Declaring budgets to be “moral documents,” they’re prodding lawmakers to honor their respective faith traditions by sparing poverty-related programs from the cost-cutting axe.

But efforts to save funding are meeting resistance””not only from number crunchers, but also from others with different views of what constitutes moral budgeting.

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One of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s legacies in the new health care law, intended to allow the chronically ill and people with disabilities to continue living in their homes, is too costly to survive without major changes, Obama administration officials now say.

Republican lawmakers, who have vowed to repeal the health care law, cite the administration’s acknowledgment as yet another reason to do so. But the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, says the law gives her plenty of authority to make the necessary changes to the program without Congressional action.

To make the program viable, Ms. Sebelius said, she is considering changes in the eligibility criteria, including employment and earnings requirements, to ensure that only active workers may enroll. She also said she favored adjusting premiums to rise with inflation.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Assange has been fighting extradition since he was arrested and bailed in December. He has consistently denied the allegations, made by two women in August last year.

Howard Riddle, the chief magistrate, delivered his ruling at a hearing at Belmarsh magistrates court in London. It is unlikely to be the end of the matter, however, because an appeal is expected, which would delay the final decision until the summer at the latest.

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It is lunchtime in the cafeteria of the Henry Viscardi School in Nassau County, and two eighth graders are doing what boys their age do best: batting insults back and forth.

“Get off my case,” Jalen says.

“If you had a case, I’d get off it,” a classmate replies.

“You’re weird,” Jalen retorts. “No, you’re weird.”

It is a scene that could unfold on any given taco Tuesday in any school cafeteria, save for one crucial difference: Jalen has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak; his testy remarks come not from his mouth but from a machine called a DynaVox, mounted on his joystick-controlled wheelchair.

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Before taking up their memorandum in detail, however, I want to put some of the matters involved into a proper perspective. Some of what I will now say may come as a surprise to those who are unacquainted with how ECUSA came into being….

First proposition:

General Convention is not the “supreme” (highest) authority in the Church — it never has been, and (unless the current liberal takeover is perfected) never will be….

Second proposition:

As formed in 1789, and as continued in existence ever since, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is a voluntary confederation, and not a forever indissoluble union, of dioceses….

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