Derrick Montgomery, an openly gay pastor at Fayetteville’s United Ministries in Christ, says the issue was long buried in churches, only to become apparent in the past decade.

“In the church I grew up in, there were gay individuals,” he said. “They just kept quiet, and nobody made an issue of it.

“But over the past several years, churches are being forced to deal with the issue. It’s a difficult issue, and we certainly aren’t insensitive to that. But we find it to be in keeping with the spirit of God to accept all those who wish to worship, not limit ourselves to certain categories.”

Perhaps the most public schism came in the U.S. Episcopal Church, where the ordination of an openly gay bishop in 2003 led to hundreds of churches breaking away from the denomination. The church ordained a second openly gay bishop last year.

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The issue of a “just war” is rather simple when a nation is attacked and has to defend itself. Since the American intervention in Iraq, the question of preventive strikes has been widely discussed. The fact that Gadhafi has to use mercenaries to try to repress the uprising of his own people could be another case to consider: does the international community have the right to intervene in such a situation?

Yes, and for several reasons: the rebels have requested it; the Arab League and therefore the neighboring countries have asked for it, and our own awareness of the suffering of the Libyan people, and what awaits the insurgents if Gadhafi wins his war against his own people, requires it.

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The Mt. Elgon sub-region district local governments in partnership with Diocesan bishops of eastern Uganda have sealed discussions intended to start an African Anglican University (AAU)a living memorial to African martyrdom.

The proposed university will be established at the Bishop Usher Wilson Theological College, Buwalasi in Sironko.

It is to be a living memory of particularly Bishop Jonan Luwum and Dr. Martin Luther King Junior and a South African martyr, Manche Masemola.

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Anglican leaders have condemned the act of burning of the Qur’an on March 20 in Florida, United States. Bishop Alexander Malik of the Diocese of Lahore, Pakistan, said that “Such acts were in flagrant contradiction to the teaching of Christianity”¦ They were the manifestations of sick minds busy in spreading hatred, bigotry and unease in society.”

In Peshawar, Pakistan, Bishop Humphrey Peters noted that this was a “shameful act” performed “only to gain cheap popularity”. Bishop Peters was speaking at a press conference alongside members of a Peshawar based inter faith group ”˜Faith Friends’ at which colleagues from the Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities also expressed their anger at the action.

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The newly refurbished Priory Church of St Mary has been blessed by the Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth.

In a service yesterday the Rt Rev Christopher Foster officially rededicated the Hayling Island Church, which reopened just before Christmas last year having undergone a six-month, £400,000 refit.

The medieval building now has underfloor heating, state-of-the-art lighting, wooden chairs to replace the old pews and restored stonework inside.I

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The Church of England was braced for a fresh row today after a cathedral announced plans to host a ‘new age’ festival.

The event – featuring tarot card readers, crystal healers, dream interpretation, and a fire-breathing vicar – is to be held in Manchester Cathedral in May.

But the move is certain to anger traditionalists, who feel the Church has already strayed too far from tradition.

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Update: There is more here also.

In an 1878 decision on the Mormons and polygamy, the Supreme Court held”” much like Oregon’s Legislature today ”” that religious freedom could not justify (otherwise) criminal activity. If it could, the court reasoned, what would stop a church from practicing human sacrifice?

Therein lies important practical wisdom that’s worth remembering the next time you hear people shouting indignantly about their rights with little regard for the consequences faced by their fellow citizens of other persuasions ”” whether it’s a pharmacy employee’s “right” to refuse selling legal contraceptives or an ardent secularist’s “right” to be free of any exposure to religious expression in public (as in the case of those who would forbid mention of the G-word in the Pledge of Allegiance).

The freedom to believe as one chooses is crucial to the American way, and belief has little meaning if it cannot be acted upon. Even so, as the Followers of Christ are learning the hard way, the right to practice religion must have its limits. Especially when the consequences are life or death for those with no choice in the matter.

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Historically, the east of Libya centred on Benghazi is quite distinct from the rest of the country and has suffered disproportionately under Col Gaddafi. It is not impossible that the country will be effectively divided while a civil war ensues. We have no mandate from the UN to intervene on the ground to help the anti-Gaddafi forces take Tripoli. We could, of course, arm them, which would allow them to defend the territory gained but we are then drifting further away from humanitarian intervention and closer to direct military involvement. More importantly, it might make it more difficult in future to secure Security Council backing for future humanitarian interventions.

From a parochial British point of view, we will want to gauge whether removing Col Gaddafi, as opposed to stopping his attacks on his own people, matters sufficiently to us as to be prepared to see our soldiers actively engaged on the ground. In reaching a decision are we motivated by a desire to protect our own security and energy supplies or are we inspired by the obvious wish of significant elements of the Libyan people to be free of the Gaddafi incubus? Almost certainly the latter.

But after the bitter experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, public opinion will want to know what the exit strategy is. If we are prepared to intervene on the ground to save Benghazi from being overrun by Col Gaddafi, how long would we be prepared to remain?

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Libya is not Iraq. The West has learned through bitter experience to avoid the grievous mistakes it made from the outset of that venture. For one thing, the current mission is indisputably legal. For another, it has, at least for now, the backing of Libya’s own people and””even allowing for some wobbles from Turkey and the Arab League””of most Arab and Muslim countries. Libya’s population is a quarter the size of Iraq’s, and the country should be easier to control: almost all its people, a more homogeneous lot albeit with sharp tribal loyalties, live along the Mediterranean coastal strip. If Colonel Qaddafi’s state crumbles, the West should not seek to disband his army or the upper echelons of his administration, as it foolishly did in Iraq. The opposition’s interim national council contains secular liberals, Islamists, Muslim Brothers, tribal figures and recent defectors from the camp of Colonel Qaddafi. The West should recognise the council as a transitional government, provided that it promises to hold multiparty elections. Above all, there must be no military occupation by outsiders. It is tempting to put time-limits on such a venture, but that would be futile.

Success in Libya is not guaranteed””how could it be? It is a violent country that may well succumb to more violence, and will not become a democracy any time soon. But its people deserve to be spared the dictator’s gun and be given a chance of a better future.

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The end of conciliarism, which accords with the practice of the early church, is to be regarded as tragic. The Anglican tragedy, like its medieval counterpart, may be seen as stemming from the reluctance of the central authority to relinquish or even dilute its control. This reluctance is not necessarily a matter of perversity, however. To be sure, the reluctance of Anglican Communion Office, instanced by their keeping the ACC in line in Jamaica, has seemed motivated by a desire to avoid offending TEC, which provides much of their funding. But from their perspective TEC’s financial support may appear essential for the proper functioning of the Communion. They have seemed concerned also to avoid alienating the liberal wing of the Church of England. But this may be not just out of ideological predisposition. It may also reflect a belief that the CofE could not afford the resulting exacerbation of its divisions.

To Archbishop Rowan himself, with his brilliant mind, deep learning, and winning personality, such considerations may have less application. The explanation in his case may lie more in his espousal of a theology militating against closure on any issue, and thus supportive of the inclinations of the Anglican Communion Office, as of the interests of TEC, by default. Charles Raven, in his 2010 book Shadow Gospel: the Theology of Rowan Williams and the Anglican Communion Crisis, made an impressive case to this effect. As for Rowan’s adherence to such a theology despite all his sophistication, being essentially an academic, without secular or even significant parish experience, perhaps limits his awareness of the outside world.

If, then, there is to be a revival of Anglican conciliarism, it will have to come not from the Instruments in their now compromised state but instead out of churches of the Global South, together with their Western allies. These churches have laid a basis for it already in Gafcon, their conference in Jerusalem in June 2008. There the Spirit was clearly at work, producing conciliarly the extraordinary Jerusalem Declaration. So far, despite the South-to-South Encounter in Singapore in April 2010 and the CAPA meeting in Uganda last August, the Global South leaders have not followed up on it. But by absenting themselves from the Dublin Primates’ Meeting and thereby sealing its irrelevance, they have taken on a responsibility to do so. For the sake of conciliarism and of Anglicanism itself, they need now, in American terms, to step up to the plate.

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O Eternal God, who through thy Son our Lord hast promised a blessing upon those who hear thy Word and faithfully keep it: Open our ears, we humbly beseech thee, to hear what thou sayest, and enlighten our minds, that what we hear we may understand, and understanding may carry into good effect by thy bounteous prompting; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Euchologium Anglicanum

And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin.” Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

–Romans 4:5-10

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church is meeting at the Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina from March 25 to March 30. The following is an account of the activities for Sunday, March 27.

Following a day of Sabbath, the House of Bishops gathered for a Moravian Service of Holy Communion in the Kanuga Chapel. .

The Liturgy for Christian Unity was taken from the Moravian Book of Worship.
The Bishops of the Moravian Church participating in the service were:
The Rt. Rev. Dr. D. Wayne Burkette, who welcomed HOB to the service, thanking HOB “for the invitation to be part of the meeting of HOB and for the opportunity to worship,” noting that he looks forward to “future times of worship and fellowship and common mission as expressions of our full communion.”

The Rt. Rev. Graham H. Rights, who provided the meditation. “I hope you will seek out Moravian partnership wherever you are,” he said, bringing greetings from the 17 Moravian bishops (10 bishops in the Northern Province and 7 in the Southern Province).

He continued, “The Eucharist is a service of thanksgiving and tonight our thanksgiving is for this coming together. We have taken a step to answer the Lord’s prayer that we all may be one.”

He talked about an early bishop of the Unitas Fractum, John Comenius, whose birthday was March 28, 1592. Comenius proposed a world assembly, and his early writings included those about the Anglican Church.

Bishop Rights pointed out that now, three different reformation churches are in communion with each other: the Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “It is an exciting time in the history of our communions,” he said. “It is an exciting time for the universal church.”

The Rt. Rev. Lane A. Sapp presided at the service.

Moravian Daily Text for March 27 was read:
Malachi 4:2: For you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.

Romans 13:12: The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Readings were:
Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16: I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

John 15:12-17 ”˜This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

Music was prepared by the Director of Moravian Service Foundation Nola Knouse; organist was Paul F. Knouse.

Among the hymns and festive music at the Service were: The Church’s one foundation; Holy Spirit, still creating; Join we all with one accord; Is this our high calling; Highly favored congregation; Christ is our Master, Lord and God.

Note: Full communion between the Episcopal Church and the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in North America was celebrated in February. The relationship of full communion was approved by the Episcopal Church General Convention in 2009 and by the 2010 Provincial Synods of the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church in North America.

Listen to it all.

In light of recent food price spikes ”“ some of which exceed the peaks reached during the now notorious food crisis of 2008 ”“ and the continuing political instability in the Middle East, Dr. [Jeffrey] Sachs’s outlook was markedly darker than usual during a video talk he delivered Friday to a gathering on food scarcity and global security held at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Despite his trademark frankness in articulating global challenges, Dr. Sachs has traditionally been an optimist.

“Something very dramatic is happening,” he warned a rapt audience. “We’ve entered a new global scenario with respect to food, hunger and conflict ”¦ an era where things are likely to get tougher, not easier, in terms of production,” he said. “We’re hitting boundaries that are very important to understand and very important to counteract.”

Chief among those is the fact that global demand for food ”“ and the agricultural commodities used to produce it ”“ is outpacing the growth of supplies. The onset of climate change, which affects everything from the water supply to crop yields, is a ballooning wedge that will continue to force those trend lines in opposite directions, Dr. Sachs said.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives lost power in their German heartland after nearly six decades, initial poll results showed Sunday, with the Greens likely to lead their first state government.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have ruled Baden-Wuerttemberg since 1953, but anger over her nuclear policy in light of the Japan crisis as well as decisions on Libya and the euro drove away voters in the run-up to the poll.

The anti-nuclear Greens claimed about 24 percent of the vote — about 12 point higher than five years ago — and were likely to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, who garnered about 23 percent in the rich state.

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[BOB] ABERNETHY: You have described a theory that you call “preventive humanitarian intervention.” Would you describe what that is.

[WILLIAM] GALSTON: Sure, it’s not that complicated. In the 1990s, there were two episodes of genocidal ethnic cleansing: one in the Balkans, the other in Rwanda. In both cases, the international community waited too long to intervene, and the result was a disaster. Many people in the White House remember that. Some of them were there in policy-making decisions. They were determined not to repeat it. When the Libyan forces were on the edge of Benghazi and Colonel Gaddafi issued a bloodcurdling threat to hunt down the dissidents alley by alley, the administration thought that it had no choice but to act to prevent an impending blood bath, and I think they were right.

ABERNETHY: You’ve also spoken of our two objectives. Spell those out.

GALSTON: We have a humanitarian objective and political objective. The humanitarian objective is to protect innocent civilian life. The political objective, which President Obama articulated some weeks ago, is to secure the exit of Colonel Gaddafi from power.

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Democracy is part of America’s very identity, and thus we benefit in a world of more democracies. But this is no reason to delude ourselves about grand historical schemes or to forget our wider interests. Precisely because so much of the Middle East is in upheaval, we must avoid entanglements and stay out of the domestic affairs of the region. We must keep our powder dry for crises ahead that might matter much more than those of today.

Our most important national-security resource is the time that our top policy makers can devote to a problem, so it is crucial to avoid distractions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fragility of Pakistan, Iran’s rush to nuclear power, a possible Israeli military response””these are all major challenges that have not gone away. This is to say nothing of rising Chinese naval power and Beijing’s ongoing attempt to Finlandize much of East Asia.

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power. We intervened twice in the Balkans in the 1990s only because Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic had no nuclear weapons and could not retaliate against us, unlike the Russians, whose destruction of Chechnya prompted no thought of intervention on our part (nor did ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the Caucasus, because it was in Russia’s sphere of influence). At present, helping the embattled Libyan rebels does not affect our interests, so we stand up for human rights there. But helping Bahrain’s embattled Shia, or Yemen’s antiregime protesters, would undermine key allies, so we do nothing as demonstrators are killed in the streets.

Of course, just because we can’t help everywhere does not mean we can’t help somewhere.

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Today, South Carolina is an older, more Hispanic and less rural state than it was 10 years ago, while its coast and urban counties have seen most of the growth. The statewide population increased by 15 percent since 2000, a greater increase than in most states, for a total of 4.63 million.

State Demographer Bobby Bowers said he was surprised by the growth of Dorchester County, where the population soared by 42 percent, made possible by scores of new neighborhoods in and around Summerville.

York, Horry, Beaufort and Lancaster counties were the next fastest growing counties, in that order.

Read it all from the local paper.

A Charlotte businessman created a poster of homeless people holding up words to The Lord’s Prayer, which inspired a Winston-Salem surgeon to create a similar poster with words to a Bible verse, which in turn inspired a former teacher from Thomasville to create a poster.

Sales of the three posters have brought more than $14,000 to help the homeless.

And there’s no telling where Brian Hadley’s idea may turn up next.

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[South Carolina]… legislators seem convinced that there are only three things they can do about taxes: Raise them, slash them, or ignore the issue. But there’s a fourth option, and it works and is desperately needed whether they ultimately raise taxes, lower them or leave them just where they are: Fix them.

Our tax code was built on the tried-and-true “three-legged stool” formulation, deriving roughly equal revenue from the sales, income and property taxes. But that balance has become skewed, as we rely far too heavily on the sales tax, making our tax system much too volatile. And there are significant problems within each major tax ”” as well as with the minor taxes ”” that create gross inequities and prevent revenue growth from keeping pace with economic growth.

The most obvious, smack-you-in-the-face problem is our 85 sales tax exemptions, which result in more goods being untaxed than taxed and are the target of a lawsuit pending in the state Supreme Court. And the grossest example of bad exemption policy is the $300 tax cap on automobiles, which means people who buy clunkers pay the same tax as those who buy luxury cars ”” and boats and planes.

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Around the country, law enforcement officials and educators are struggling with how to confront minors who “sext,” an imprecise term that refers to sending sexual photos, videos or texts from one cellphone to another.

But adults face a hard truth. For teenagers, who have ready access to technology and are growing up in a culture that celebrates body flaunting, sexting is laughably easy, unremarkable and even compelling: the primary reason teenagers sext is to look cool and sexy to someone they find attractive.

Indeed, the photos can confer cachet.
“Having a naked picture of your significant other on your cellphone is an advertisement that you’re sexually active to a degree that gives you status,” said Rick Peters, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney for Thurston County, which includes Lacey. “It’s an electronic hickey.”

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The President’s difficulties in positioning himself as the champion of a jobs renaissance were compounded by two new reports on the nation’s fiscal condition, one by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), another by the General Accountability Office (GAO).

The CBO analysed the President’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year and estimates the federal deficit over the next decade will clock in at $9.5 trillion (£5.8tr), a mere $2.3 trillion (£1.4tr) higher than the White House estimate. And the GAO, re-assessing the nation’s long-term outlook, concluded that the fiscal situation has deteriorated. If the nation’s debt is to be stabilised at 62% of GDP, an immediate tax increase of 15%, or a spending cut of 13%, or some combination of the two is needed.

The Peter G Peterson Foundation, a sort of budget watchdog and nag, concludes that even under a set of optimistic assumptions, “large and persistent deficits still lead to an unsustainable growth in debt… and a steady growth in net interest payments to service this growing debt”. By 2030, unless the President and Congress come to grips with the fiscal situation, net interest payments and entitlements (pensions, healthcare costs) will consume almost the entire budget, leaving nothing for spending on defence, education and other programmes.

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The American strategy for handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government rests on a similar strategy: putting local militias on the government payroll. Such “recruits” are supposed to be vetted. But in the months it will take to complete that process, American commanders are counting on ragtag militias like Rozeboi’s to fight the Taliban.

Many of the militias are controlled by strongmen who traffic in drugs and weapons and pay their soldiers by taxing the locals, as the Taliban do. Indeed, several militias in Kunduz fought alongside the Taliban before switching to the government’s side.

Can the Karzai government provide the food, clothing and salaries needed to keep those militias friendly? “If they do not have income, they will return to their old bosses,” the mayor of Imam Sahib, Sufi Manaan, warned American officers in February. He should know. Some American commanders believe that he has links to a militia that fought against their soldiers last fall.

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On a warm and windy afternoon, the bishop of Cuba is inspecting tomatoes. Dressed in a crisp purple shirt, she bends into a garden patch and finds a tomato as big as her hand. She weighs it, plucks it, and holds it up””the first fruit of a new crop.

This community garden in Itabo, Cuba, is second home to Bishop Griselda Delgado del Carpio, Cuba’s first female diocesan bishop. Before her installation in November 2010, she led this parish of Santa Maria Virgen for 22 years.

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The state budget squeeze is fast becoming a city budget squeeze, as struggling states around the nation plan deep cuts in aid to cities and local governments that will almost certainly result in more service cuts, layoffs and local tax increases.

The cuts are widespread. Ohio plans to slash aid to Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and other cities and local governments by more than a half-billion dollars over the next two years under the budget proposed last week by its new Republican governor, John R. Kasich. Nebraska passed a law this month eliminating direct state aid to Omaha and other municipalities. The governors of Wisconsin and Michigan have called for sending less money to Milwaukee, Detroit and other local governments.

And it is not only Republicans who are cutting aid to cities: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, decided not to restore $302 million in aid to New York City that was cut last year, while Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, another Democrat, has called for cutting local aid to Boston and other cities by some $65 million.

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The first page of the first chapter of Henning Mankell’s latest (and apparently last) Wallander novel The Troubled Man is sheer misery. Inspector Kurt Wallander, divorced for 15 years, lives in a flat “where so many unpleasant memories were etched into the walls”; he “reminded himself over and over again of his father’s lonely old age … now it seemed as if his father was taking him over … he had no religious hopes of anything being in store for him … nothing but the same darkness he had once emerged from … he would be dead for such a long time … he had seen far too many dead bodies in his life”.

Wallander novels might be prefaced by the sign Dante imagined above the gates of Hell ”“ “lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’ intrate”: “all hope abandon, ye who enter here”: for in these books, the descent is often through deepening layers of horror. The same could be said for much of rest of the now enormously popular, critically acclaimed school of Scandinavian noir ”“ for noir they are, set in the bleakness of towns and forests, dark for much of the year. The cult BBC hit of the year so far, the Danish-made Copenhagen-set The Killing, which ends this weekend, is shot almost wholly at night….

…the most striking commercial success in novel writing in the past five years has come from Marxists who write of people beset with misery who either commit or must deal with acts of extreme sadistic violence. It is not a development that a publisher or an agent would naturally have arrived at as a formula for success. So what explains its extraordinary appeal?

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O almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who hast made the light of thy truth to shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–William Walsham How (1823-1897)

The herdsmen fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. And they came to Jesus, and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine. And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their neighborhood.

–Mark 5:14-17