O Almighty God, who into the place of Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the Twelve: Grant that thy Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

O God, most holy, most loving, infinite in wisdom and power: Teach us to reverence thee in all the works of thy hands, and to hallow thy name both in our lives and in our worship; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

Thousands of African mercenaries and militiamen were massing on roads heading toward Tripoli on Wednesday to reinforce the stronghold of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as rebels protesting his 40-year rule claimed to have taken control of cities closer to the capital, witnesses said.

The week-old uprising that has swept Libya now appears headed for a decisive stage, with Colonel Qaddafi fortifying his bastion in Tripoli and opponents in the capital saying they were making plans for their first coordinated protest.

“A message comes to every mobile phone about a general protest on Friday in Tripoli,” one resident there said, adding that Colonel Qaddafi’s menacing speech to the country on Tuesday had increased their determination “100 percent.”

Read it all.

Read it all and follow the links.

Zion Baptist Church on Sunday was loaded and hot, nearly every pew full.

This by itself is not unusual for a Sunday, but seeing white and black worshippers sitting side by side was a little different.

“(First Baptist Church) Pastor (Tom) Bayes and I had talked about how Sunday mornings were one of the most segregated times in America,” said Pastor Samuel Duren of Zion Baptist. “We don’t feel like that has to be that way, and so we decided to join the worship services.”

Zion Baptist, a predominantly black church, and First Baptist, a predominantly white church, are separated by only a few blocks, but the two had never really come together until recently.

Read it all.

The Diocese of South Carolina’s 220th convention has revised six articles [PDF] of its constitution, distancing itself from canon-law revisions approved by General Convention in 2009.

The revisions met the required two-thirds majority for a second consecutive meeting of the diocesan convention, and the diocese’s constitution is now revised.

South Carolina was the first diocese to challenge major revisions to Title IV of the Episcopal Church’s Constitution and Canons, which regards ecclesiastical discipline.

Read it all.

Edmonton’s Anglicans are being asked for prayers, not dollars, in the aftermath of an earthquake in New Zealand that damaged the Christchurch cathedral and left hundreds of people trapped under rubble.

The disaster area is the home of Victoria Matthews, former bishop of Edmonton’s diocese who is currently the archbishop of Christchurch. Matthews and her staff are safe and working in a “surreal” situation, supporting people affected by the tragedy, said Jane Alexander, who succeeded Matthews as Edmonton’s bishop.

Read it all.

TITLE IV REVISIONS UNMASKED: REPLY TO OUR CRITICS

by C. Alan Runyan and Mark McCall

In September 2010, we published an article demonstrating that the new Title IV disciplinary canons enacted at the last General Convention are unconstitutional and unwise: unconstitutional because they infringe on the exclusive rights of dioceses to institute courts for the discipline of clergy and give the Presiding Bishop metropolitical authority over other bishops; and unwise because they deny basic due process rights to diocesan clergy. Now, five months after our article was published, three participants on the task force that drafted the new title have published a paper responding to our analysis. Our critics address only the constitutional questions in the two parts of their paper. No response is offered to our concerns about the abrogation of basic due process rights in the new canons. Those concerns remain, but this reply addresses only the arguments made by our critics.

I Clergy Discipline Is the Constitutional Prerogative of Dioceses

Our original paper demonstrated that the establishment of courts for the trial of diocesan clergy has been the exclusive prerogative of the dioceses since TEC was organized. The new Title IV eviscerates this constitutional allocation of authority by determining virtually all aspects of clergy discipline, leaving the dioceses with no responsibility other than appointing diocesan personnel to bodies defined and regulated by the general canons.

The primary argument made by our critics is that while Title IV would have been unconstitutional during the first century of TEC’s existence, the 1901 revision of TEC’s constitution “profoundly changed” the allocation of authority and “as a result of this change General Convention is now constitutionally free to legislate in the area of clergy discipline.” What was the profound change that gave the General Convention these sweeping powers for the first time? Prior to the 1901 revision the relevant article read as follows:

In every State, the mode of trying Clergymen shall be instituted by the Convention of the Church therein.

After the revision, it now reads:

Presbyters and Deacons canonically resident in a Diocese shall be tried by a Court instituted by the Convention thereof.

According to our critics, the simple change in language from “mode of trying shall be instituted” to “tried by a court instituted” completely reversed the traditional constitutional allocation of responsibility for clergy discipline. Our critics cite no evidence that such a dramatic change in constitutional governance was intended by the 1901 revision, which was not limited to this article, but was instead a comprehensive re-write of the entire constitution to add greater clarity.

If the apparently minor wording change were the profound reversal of constitutional authority claimed by our critics, one would expect legislative history articulating that significance which would otherwise be obscure. Our critics cite none, only a common dictionary. One would believe that White & Dykman, as a part of their discussion about the many rejected attempts that had been made to limit diocesan authority over the discipline of its clergy, would have noticed this “profound change” if it had been made. They did not because such a reading is simply wrong.

In fact, the legislative history points conclusively in the other direction. The joint commission initially charged with developing a proposed revision produced a draft that would have made numerous substantive revisions to TEC’s polity, including (i) introducing a supremacy clause making General Convention (which was to be renamed “General Synod”) the “supreme legislative authority in this church”; (ii) giving General Convention “exclusive power to legislate” in certain broad areas of church life, including ordinations and the creation of dioceses; and (iii) requiring that no diocesan legislation “contravene this Constitution or any Canon of the General Synod enacted in conformity therewith.” Among the provisions the joint commission proposed to change was the one on clergy discipline. It proposed giving the new “General Synod” precisely the sort of sweeping powers our critics now claim the 1901 revision granted General Convention:

Sec. 2. The General Synod shall also have power to enact Canons of Discipline, and exclusive power to enact Canons defining the offences for which Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons may be tried, and determining the penalties”¦. (Emphasis added.)

When these proposals were submitted to the following General Convention in 1898, those granting new and enhanced authority to the General Convention were rejected. In the revised constitution that passed its first reading in 1898 and was finally adopted in 1901, the proposal for a supremacy clause was rejected as was the proposal to give General Convention the authority to enact “Canons of Discipline” and exclusive power to define clergy offenses and penalties. Instead, the provision reiterating diocesan responsibility for these matters was retained and restated.

If any inference is to be drawn from the change in wording in 1901 it is that the authority of the dioceses was broadened, not narrowed. Giving the dioceses the authority to institute courts, with the system of administration of justice inherent in that concept, is the way comprehensive authority is described in constitutional language. Consider the simple provisions in Articles I and III of the United States Constitution giving Congress the authority to constitute courts””“The Congress shall have power”¦to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court” and “such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Would anyone argue that Congress does not also have the authority to determine the mode of trying, procedural matters and all other inherent aspects of judicial administration?

It must be emphasized that the new Title IV not only specifies the offenses and penalties concerning diocesan clergy””a power the 1898 convention rejected””it also specifies the nature of the diocesan courts, their names, their composition and their detailed procedures. The only role for the dioceses is to rubber stamp what the General Convention has dictated and to appoint the mandated personnel. This evacuates the constitutional language preserving the prerogative of the dioceses to “institute” courts for trying clergy of any meaning. It is tantamount to Congress sending the President the name of one and only one person it will confirm as justice to the Supreme Court while claiming it is preserving the President’s constitutional right to appoint the judiciary.

Thus, our critics’ reliance on an artificial distinction between “mode of trying ”¦shall be instituted” and “tried by a Court instituted” to carry the burden of overturning a century of well-defined constitutional jurisprudence””which even they acknowledge””is in the end misplaced. And any lingering doubt on this front is removed by considering the remainder of the current constitutional provision:

Presbyters and Deacons canonically resident in a Diocese shall be tried by a Court instituted by the Convention thereof; Presbyters and Deacons canonically resident in a Missionary Diocese shall be tried according to Canons adopted by the Bishop and Convocation thereof, with the approval of the House of Bishops; Provided, that the General Convention in each case may prescribe by Canon for a change of venue.

The provision making the disciplinary canons of Missionary Dioceses subject to the approval of the House of Bishops underscores the unconstrained authority of regular dioceses in this area. And if the constitution permits the General Convention to make detailed provisions for the establishment and procedures of diocesan courts, an explicit proviso on change of venue would not be necessary.

A second argument made by our critics is that the constitutional objection was waived in any event when no objection was made to the former Title IV following its passage by General Convention in 1994. But the constitutional analyses made then, if any, are legally irrelevant now for two reasons. First, South Carolina and other dioceses consented to the 1994 canon by voluntarily enacting it as part of diocesan canon law. Any diocese is constitutionally free to adopt disciplinary canons proposed by the General Convention. To decide whether or not to do so is the constitutional prerogative of the diocese. It can exercise that prerogative either by acceptance, as South Carolina did in 1994, or by refusal, as it has just done now.

In any event, the failure previously to make a constitutional objection, even if true, is utterly irrelevant legally to the issue of a statute’s constitutionality. There is often a significant period of time when the unconstitutionality of a statute goes unrecognized. Indeed, whenever a court finds a legislative act unconstitutional it is true by definition that a majority of the legislators themselves had previously thought the act constitutional. And there are well known cases in which the Supreme Court itself had previously upheld the constitutionality of statutes it was later to strike down. As everyone knows, Brown v. Board of Education overruled a similar case, Plessy v. Ferguson, that sixty years earlier had found segregation statutes constitutional. Similarly, Lawrence v. Texas overruled a Supreme Court case decided only seventeen years earlier when it ruled state sodomy statutes unconstitutional. So whether a constitutional objection has been raised to a prior canon is totally irrelevant to the legal analysis of the new Title IV. It is settled law that unconstitutional acts are void ab initio (“as if the law had never been passed”) and it does not matter when that conclusion is first reached.

II The Authority of the Presiding Bishop

The second part of our critics’ paper is devoted to defending the unprecedented expansion of authority the new Title IV would grant to the Presiding Bishop. For the first time in TEC’s history the Presiding Bishop would be able to exercise archiepiscopal or metropolitical authority over other bishops. As we pointed out in our original paper, this was accomplished by a seemingly technical definition near the end of a detailed set of canons, the effect of which was not publicly recognized until after General Convention had passed the new Title IV. In a very precise way, the Presiding Bishop is made the bishop of other bishops with the same disciplinary authority over those bishops that they have over their clergy.

Our critics do not deny that this provision would give the Presiding Bishop authority to issue pastoral direction to another bishop, to suspend or inhibit a diocesan bishop “at any time” without consent from the Ecclesiastical Authority of the diocese, and to become the primary authority in determining whether disciplinary charges should be brought and prosecuted against other bishops. None of these powers has ever been given to the Presiding Bishop in TEC’s two centuries of existence.

Our critics do not dispute this fact, but argue that the new powers are constitutional because the Presiding Bishop’s authority is essentially unlimited under the constitution: “None of these provisions [referring to the Presiding Bishop] contain any language limiting the authority of the Presiding Bishop.” Their argument is twofold: first, that the constitutional limitation in Article II.3 on bishops acting within the jurisdiction of dioceses without the consent of the Ecclesiastical Authority does not apply to the Presiding Bishop; and second, that the constitution permits additional “duties” to be given to the Presiding Bishop by canon.

The prohibition on acting in any diocese without the consent of its Ecclesiastical Authority has been part of TEC’s constitutional governance in almost identical language since its first constitution was adopted in 1789. It now reads as follows:

A Bishop shall confine the exercise of such office to the Diocese in which elected, unless requested to perform episcopal acts in another Diocese by the Ecclesiastical Authority thereof, or unless authorized by the House of Bishops, or by the Presiding Bishop by its direction, to act temporarily in case of need within any territory not yet organized into Dioceses of this Church.

Our critics’ argument is that this prohibition is inapplicable to the Presiding Bishop. Citing no authority, they claim that “it is apparent that the original intent of Article II, Section 3 was not to apply to the Presiding Bishop.” They then argue that because she is not elected “in a diocese” and therefore has no jurisdiction, her jurisdiction must be unlimited. But our critics leap to the wrong conclusion that lack of a jurisdiction means that the Presiding Bishop must instead have unlimited or universal episcopal jurisdiction. As the remainder of Article II.3 makes clear, the more sensible reading of the constitution conforms to TEC’s historical understanding of its polity: the lack of diocesan jurisdiction means that the Presiding Bishop cannot act in any diocese without the consent of its Ecclesiastical Authority. See Dawley (the Presiding Bishop “exercises no direct pastoral oversight of a diocese of his own, nor does he possess visitorial or juridical powers within the independent dioceses of the Episcopal Church”).

Read as a whole Article II.3 indicates that the Presiding Bishop is in fact explicitly bound by this prohibition on acting within a diocese without consent. Bishops, including the Presiding Bishop (at the “direction” of the House of Bishops), can act outside their own jurisdiction even when authorized by the House of Bishops only in “territory not yet organized into Dioceses of this Church.” (Emphasis added.) If the Presiding Bishop can constitutionally act in unorganized territory only at the direction of the House of Bishops, she can hardly be constitutionally authorized to act “at any time” in a duly constituted diocese with a recognized Ecclesiastical Authority, which the logic of our critics’ argument requires. The effect of making this article inapplicable to the Presiding Bishop would be to create an office with universal episcopal jurisdiction. No reading of Article II.3 or TEC’s history permits this conclusion.

Our critics’ second argument is that the Presiding Bishop’s authority is constitutionally unlimited because Article I.3 permits the General Convention to prescribe new “duties”:

The term and tenure of office and duties and particulars of the election not inconsistent with the preceding provisions shall be prescribed by the Canons of the General Convention.

But this provision quite precisely permits the specification of “duties” by canon, not the creation of additional authority, a distinction that is well recognized in the law but not by our critics, who move seamlessly in their discussion between the concepts of “authority” and “duties.” As the earlier discussion of the proposed but rejected 1901 revision makes clear””in its proposal for new “powers” for General Convention””TEC’s canonical jurisprudence follows the law generally in drawing a distinction between “duties” and “powers” or “authority.” A primary legal duty of an officer such as the Presiding Bishop is to take action only within the scope of her actual authority. And the General Convention would be constitutionally prohibited from specifying duties for that office if there were no constitutional authority to perform them. Had the drafters of the constitution intended the surprising result that additional authority going beyond that specified in the constitution could be created by canon they would have said so, but they did not do that when referring to duties.

Even if the dividing line between duties and authority could be blurred in some circumstances, it would be unreasonable to so in an attempt to make such a significant change as to give the Presiding Bishop what amounts to metropolitical authority. Under the constitution, the basic provisions for the government of the Church belong in the constitution, not the canons.

Nor does the title “Chief Pastor and Primate” added by canon in the late twentieth century confer any such authority. Indeed, when the language “and Primate” was added in 1982, the legislative history indicates that this change was titular in nature with no intention to expand authority or confer archiepiscopal jurisdiction. In fact, the original proposal before the 1982 General Convention was to substitute “Archbishop” for Presiding Bishop. According to recent commentary prepared at the request of the current Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies, the rejection of the original proposal demonstrated that there was “no inclination to even bestow the image of metropolitical authority on a Presiding Bishop.” Even adding the title “Primate” was controversial in the House of Deputies, which eventually concurred, “but only after considerable debate as to whether or not ”˜Primate’ was a slippery slope towards a feared and unwanted metropolitical authority in the Office of Presiding Bishop.”

To their credit, our critics do not flinch from acknowledging the remarkable authority the new Title IV would give to the Presiding Bishop. On their reading of the constitution the Presiding Bishop already has the power “to intervene in matters within a Diocese without the consent of, and in some cases over the objection of, the Bishop Diocesan. This is not new Constitutional ground.” There is no effort to downplay or mask the sweeping nature of the new powers. They freely embrace the bestowal of broad metropolitical powers on the Presiding Bishop when even the “image” of such authority has been unthinkable until now. The question presented to the bishops and dioceses of the Church is whether they will ratify not merely the image but the fact of metropolitical authority inserted not through a proper constitutional amendment but through a technical definition buried at the end of a complex new title and thereby overturn the settled polity under which TEC has operated since its inception.

Footnotes:

C. Alan Runyan and Mark McCall, “Title IV Revisions: Unmasked,” Anglican Communion Institute, September 2008. http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2010/09/title-iv-revisions-unmasked/
Duncan A. Bayne, Stephen F. Hutchinson, and Joseph L. Delafield III, “Title IV: Constitutional Issues,” Feb. 15, 2011.
As to those issues, the authors state, “We hope ta [sic] address those issues with which we disagree in a later paper.” Id. at 2, n. 13.
Id. at 3.
Journals of General Conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, William Stevens Perry, ed., vol. I, p. 100, Claremont, N.H.: The Claremont Mfg. Co. (1874).
Constitution and Canons (2009), Article IX.
Indeed one such attempt to limit diocesan authority over clergy discipline in 1874 was rejected “because it would diminish the “full and exclusive jurisdiction of the separate Dioceses” over their own courts.” White & Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons (1981) at 121 quoting Journal of the General Convention, 1874 at 155.
White & Dykman list the chief differences made to Article IX by the convention of 1901. The interpretation advanced by our critics of a wording change that our critics believe “profoundly changed [the] Constitutional scheme” is not listed. Id. at 122.
Journal (General Convention 1895), 648.
Allan S. Haley, Constitutional Changes, (Anglican Curmudgeon, November 2010) http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/11/constitutional-changes-more-on-church.html http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2010/11/constitutional-changes-opposing.html (accessed Feb.21, 2011); Journal of 1895 General Convention (1896) App. XVI; Journal of the 1898 General Convention, (1899) App. XIV.
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S.483 (1954); Plessy v.Ferguson, 163 U.S.537 (1896).
Lawrence v.Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003); Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).
As noted by Dawley, “ecclesiastical autocracy was often associated with archbishops. Neither the name nor the function was given the presiding officer of the House of Bishops.” Dawley, Powell Mills. The Episcopal Church and Its Work, 1955 at 107.
P. 5.
P. 7.
Dawley and others have noted that the essential element of Episcopal polity is the Diocese and its Bishop: it is the “chief unit of church life”. Id. at 114. Dioceses preceded the formation of the Episcopal Church; “Diocesan participation in any national program or effort, for example, must be voluntarily given; it cannot be forced.” Id. at 116. While the Bishop Diocesan’s independence within the diocese may be restricted by the share in church governance possessed by the Diocesan Convention or the Standing Committee, his independence in respect to the rest of the church is almost complete.” Id. It is therefore astounding for our critics to state that the Presiding Bishop already has the power that would now be usurped from Dioceses and their Bishops through these changes to Title IV.
Restatement (Third) of Agency § 8.09(1) (American Law Institute 2006). See Mike Watson, “Litigation against Disaffiliating Dioceses: Is It Authorized and what Does Fiduciary Duty Require?”, Anglican Communion Institute, September 2009, 3-4.
See Edwin A. White and Jackson A. Dykman, 1991 Supplement to Annotated Constitution and Canons 21-22 (Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society 1991). See Watson, supra, n. 17, at 6.
Robert C. Royce, Esq., The Roles, Duties and Responsibilities of the Executive Council, Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies in the Governance of the Episcopal Church 10 (May 31, 2008).
http://www.episcopalarchives.org/AR2009-011-4_Roles_by_Royce.pdf p.8.

[Assistant Chief Hamilton County Juvenile Prosecutor Dotty] Smith is part of a group that makes presentations at schools to students and parents about the dangers in cyberspace and how to be aware and deal with them.

“The principals tell us to scare them to death,” Smith said of her audiences.

The biggest problem, Smith said, is many parents are ignorant of the access their children have – via cell phones, computers, Internet-connected gaming systems – to strangers.

Parents are “not aware of what some of these devices can do,” she said. “It’s about good choices with the huge (array) of technology choices we have out there.”

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President Obama’s budget director, Jacob Lew, said as much last week during his briefing on the president’s budget. Obama wants to find ways to “work together to find a solution to the long-term issues in Social Security,” Lew told reporters, but the program “does not contribute to the deficit in the short term.”

That would be nice if it were true. It’s not.

Social Security is a cash-in/cash-out program. It went into the red last year, when payroll tax revenue came up about $37 billion short of the benefits paid to retirees. Initially, that shortfall seemed a temporary consequence of the recession. But new projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that factors such as the payroll tax cut Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last year mean that Social Security will instead come up short every year from now on ”” at least $45 billion this year, and a staggering half a trillion dollars over the next decade.

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Before I started writing this column on why paychecks are likely to keep shrinking even if unemployment starts to inch down, I consulted Google to see if the term Marxism was trending upward. It was and has been ever since the end of December, the conclusion of a year in which workers’ share of the U.S. economic pie shrank to the smallest piece ever: 54.4% of GDP, down from about 60% in the 1970s.

No wonder Marx is back in fashion. It’s been more than 100 years since the German philosopher predicted that capitalism’s voraciousness would be its undoing ”” as bosses invest more in new technologies to make things more cheaply and efficiently and less in workers themselves, who, deprived of fair wages, would eventually rise up and revolt. That hasn’t happened, of course, though depressed wages certainly contributed to the revolution in Egypt, not to mention lots of other instances of public unrest over the past few years. But the fact that wages in the U.S. and most other rich countries have been falling since the 1970s and went off a cliff after the recent financial crisis is going to become a more pressing economic and political concern. Just think how hard it will be for Obama to sell himself in 2012 if salaries are still falling.

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As its cover story for the Dec. 15, 2008 issue, the editors of Newsweek offer readers a hopelessly distorted and one-sided propaganda piece on “gay marriage” entitled “Our Mutual Joy.” The 2800-word article is by Lisa Miller, religion editor and author of the “Belief Watch” column for the magazine (her academic credential is a B.A. in English at Oberlin College). She claims that Scripture actually provides strong support for validating homosexual unions and no valid opposition to “committed” homosexual practice. She quotes from scholars such as Neil Elliott and “the great Bible scholar” Walter Brueggemann, who are strongly supportive of “gay marriage.”

There is not the slightest effort on Miller’s part to think critically about her own line or reasoning. The lone voice that she cites against homosexual practice is not from a scholar but from a certain Rev. Richard Hunter, a United Methodist minister who offered a short comment for a “roundtable” discussion sponsored by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. From the thousand pages or so that I have written on the subject over the past decade Miller cites not a word, including my critique of Elliott’s untenable claim that Paul in Romans 1:24-27 was thinking only of the exploitative homosexual intercourse practiced by depraved emperors like Nero and Caligula; and my critique (pp. 11-12) of “Brueggemann’s” use of Gal 3:28 (“there is [in Christ] no ”˜male and female’”) as support for homosexual unions (my critique is directed at Prof. Stacy Johnson of Princeton Seminary but it applies equally to Brueggemann’s claim).
Miller’s article reminds me of the equally distorted (but thankfully much shorter) op-ed article put out in The New York Times four years ago by Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof (“God and Sex,” Oct. 23, 2004). My response to Kristof, “”˜God and Sex’ or ”˜Pants on Fire’?”, showed how bad that piece was. My response to Miller will do the same. This essay has three primary components: a discussion of Scripture apart from the witness of Jesus; a discussion of Jesus’ witness; and concluding thoughts, which takes in also Meacham’s “Editor’s Desk” column.

Read it all.

1. There’s still a glut of houses on the market.

At the current pace, it would take about seven months to sell all of the newly built houses on the market, and eight months to sell all of the existing homes on the market. In an ordinary market, it would take about six months to sell all of the homes on the market. This excess supply tends to push prices down.

2. Distressed sales account for a huge chunk of all home sales.

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Many economists warn that the government’s huge national debt is a looming threat to long-term prosperity. But is it also immoral?
According to a growing number of conservative Christians, the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

As Washington debates President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, the morality of the deficit has become the hot topic on right-leaning Christian blogs, radio programs and political mailings.

The concern is not only that the estimated $14.13 trillion debt could cripple the economy, some conservative Christian leaders say, but also that borrowing so much money violates important biblical tenets.

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Saying they are aiming to answer claims that a revised set of Episcopal Church disciplinary canons set to go into effect July 1 are unconstitutional, several of framers of the changes to Title IV have issued a paper which they assert “conclusively establishes the constitutionality of the amendments.”

The statement, posted here, was written by Duncan Bayne, Diocese of Olympia vice chancellor; Stephen Hutchinson, Diocese of Utah chancellor and Joseph Delafield, Diocese of Maine chancellor. Delafield, the spokesperson, said that all three were “active participants in the nine-year process of development and adoption of the amendments.”

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Listen to it all (a little under 3 1/2 minutes).

More than 300 people were still trapped in collapsed buildings last night after a massive earthquake hit New Zealand’s second biggest city, Christchurch, claiming at least 75 lives and destroying buildings.

As police, emergency services and hospitals struggled to cope with the disaster, which toppled the spire of Christchurch’s stone cathedral, the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, declared a national state of emergency.

This morning, Mr Key vowed that Christchurch’s “comeback” would begin today. “Though lost lives will never be replaced, and though your city will never look the same again, you will rebuild your city, you will rebuild your lives, you will overcome,” he said.

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Now, as Polycarp was entering into the stadium, there came to him a voice from heaven, saying, “Be strong, and show thyself a man, O Polycarp!” No one saw who it was that spoke to him; but those of our brethren who were present heard the voice. And as he was brought forward, the tumult became great when they heard that Polycarp was taken. And when he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, [the proconsul] sought to persuade him to deny [Christ], saying, “Have respect to thy old age,” and other similar things, according to their custom, [such as], “Swear by the fortune of Cæsar; repent, and say, Away with the Atheists.” But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, “Away with the Atheists.” Then, the proconsul urging him, and saying, “Swear, and I will set thee at liberty, reproach Christ;” Polycarp declared, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”

—The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, Chapter IX.

O God, the maker of heaven and earth, who didst give to thy venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Saviour, and steadfastness to die for his faith: Give us grace, after his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

We beseech thee, O God, the God of truth, that what we know not of the things we ought to know, thou wilt teach us; that what we know, thou wilt keep us therein; that in what we are mistaken, thou wilt correct us; that at whatsoever truths we stumble, thou wilt stablish us; and that from all that is false, and all knowledge that would be hurtful, thou wilt evermore defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.

–2 Corinthians 2:15-17

A large earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand, on Tuesday, according to the United States Geological Survey, causing buildings to collapse and burying vehicles under debris. Prime Minister John Key said at least 65 people had been killed.

Damage was extensive and people were trapped inside buildings, The Associated Press reported.

Video from the scene by 3 News New Zealand showed extensive damage to the city’s main cathedral, as well as people running through the streets to safety. One person called it “the most frightening thing of my entire life.”

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Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has refused to stand down amid widespread anti-government protests which he said had tarnished the image of the country.

In his first major speech since unrest began last week, Col Gaddafi said the whole world looked up to Libya and that protests were “serving the devil”.

He urged his supporters to go out and attack the “cockroaches” demonstrating against his rule.

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Nearly 70 years later, Athens, one of the last European capitals to commemorate those who perished at the hands of Nazi forces, finally has a Holocaust memorial.

But since its dedication in May, synagogues have been targeted, Jewish cemeteries desecrated, Holocaust monuments elsewhere in Greece vandalized and the Jewish Museum of Greece, in the capital, defaced with swastikas. What’s more, an alarming chunk of Athenians in November supported the election of a neo-Nazi candidate to the capital’s city council.

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On the evening of Sunday 13 February, an estimated 45 Christians were temporarily detained overnight by the Iranian authorities in various towns and cities, including at least five people who were held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

At least one woman was detained in Mashad, while two men were detained in Ahwaz, and other men in Karaj, Robat Karim and Dezful. One man and his pregnant wife were released after being informed that they must return for questioning once their child is born.

The wave of arrests and temporary detentions by the Iranian government appear to be part of the government’s wider tactic of repression and intimidation of the Christian community.

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ELEANOR HALL: Now Abdul, were you part of the revolution in Egypt?

ABDUL: Yes, I was actually. I flew out from London to join them here.

ELEANOR HALL: So you were part of the revolution in Egypt. How does what happened there compare to what you are hearing about in Libya?

ABDUL: Oh, absolutely nothing. There is no comparison whatsoever. I mean even though there was what 300, 400 casualties here, it was peaceful compared to what is happening over there. They are not using water cannons against them, they are not using tear gas. They are using live ammunition. I’ve even been told that there is helicopter gunships who are flying over crowds and opening fire into them.

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Let’s indulge Mr Obama in his fantasy economics: imagine that he does reduce the deficit to 3.1%. Supposedly, that would stabilise government debt: but it would do so at a dangerously high level of around 80% of GDP, and as interest rates rise the target will become much harder to hit. And that is before you consider the biggest problem of all: as more and more baby-boomers retire (the first started to do so this year), their demands for pensions and government-provided health care will start to push the deficit sharply up again after that.

Indeed, the real problem with both Mr Obama’s budget and the Republicans’ proposals is not so much the half-truths and fibs within them, as all the things they both left out. America needs to simplify its tax system and (slightly) increase its overall tax take. It needs to rein in its defence spending, which is currently equivalent to that of the next 20 countries combined. And it needs to tackle the gathering surge in entitlement costs. All these recommendations were made by the deficit-reduction commission that Mr Obama himself set up, but his budget conspicuously fails to take up any of them. Other debt-burdened Western countries have embarked on a stringent diet. America continues to gorge.

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(ACNS) A statement from Bishop William Mchombo, Acting Provincial Secretary of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.

“The Electoral College of the Church of the Province of Central Africa that was held in Harare on 17 February 2011, Bishop Albert Chama of the Diocese of Northern Zambia was elected as the Archbishop of Central Africa. Archbishop Chama until yesterday has been acting as the Dean of the Province since the then Archbishop Bernard Malango resigned four years ago.

The installation of the new Archbishop of the Province shall be held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross at an appropriate time.

Please pray for Archbishop Chama for wisdom and strength in his new role.”

Four outside facilitators led the primates in their indaba-style discussions: Stephen Lyon, Church of England Partnership for World Mission secretary and administrator of the ACO’s Bible in the Life of the Church project; Alice Mogwe, director of DITSHWANELO – the Botswana Centre for Human Rights; Dr. Cecilia Clegg, a Roman Catholic nun and an expert in reconciliation and conflict transformation who teaches at the University of Edinburgh; and the Rev. Canon Justin Welby, dean of Liverpool Cathedral and one of the Pastoral Visitors appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. All have extensive experience in facilitation and mediation, according to Anglican Communion Office spokesperson, Jan Butter. Mogwe and Clegg both participated in the Continuing Indaba Project as facilitators for one of the planning pilot conversations last year.

In addition to the four facilitators, a team of 15 “organizers”, most coming from the Anglican Communion Office, managed the tightly controlled meeting of 23 primates….

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