Many people first see Jeremy Begbie at a distance, onstage with a grand piano. He sits on a piano stool, leans forward with a lover’s total attention, and plays four bars of anything from Chopin to Boulez. Then he leaps up, leaving the audience musically bereaved and longing for the piece to go on (unless it’s Boulez). From the half-finished music, Begbie carries the audience’s attention straight into theology. (Usually, later in the presentation, he will also play a piece all the way through.)

Begbie studied music and philosophy in his native Edinburgh, but after finding faith in Christ he shifted his energies into theology, which he studied at Aberdeen and Cambridge. He was ordained by the Church of England and served in a West London parish until he was appointed to teach systematic theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. His books focus on the interplay between theology and the arts, and especially music: Voicing Creation’s Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts (2000), Theology, Music and Time (2000), and most recently Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (2007), which won the Christianity Today 2008 Book Award in the theology and ethics category. He has started arts and theology initiatives at both St. Andrews and at Duke (where he currently spends spring semesters). Nonetheless, he still sees himself as a systematic theologian rather than an “arts theologian.”

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Almost 40% of homeowners who took out second mortgages””extracting cash from their residences to cover everything from vacations to medical bills””are underwater on their loans, more than twice the rate of owners who didn’t take out such loans.

The finding, in a report to be released Tuesday by real-estate data firm CoreLogic Inc., illustrates the consequences of easy borrowing amid the housing boom’s inflated prices. The report says 38% of borrowers who took cash out of their residences using home-equity loans are underwater, or owe more than their home is worth. By contrast, 18% of borrowers who don’t have these loans were underwater.

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In just four years, Monterrey, a manufacturing city of 4 million people 140 miles from the Texan border, has gone from being a model for developing economies to a symbol of Mexico’s drug war chaos, sucked down into a dark spiral of gangland killings, violent crime and growing lawlessness.

Since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led war on the cartels in late 2006, grenade attacks, beheadings, firefights and drive-by killings have surged.

That has shattered this city’s international image as a boomtown where captains of industry built steel, cement and beer giants in the desert in less than a century — Mexico’s version of Dallas or Houston.

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The health insurance program for seniors is the nation’s biggest financial challenge.

The first of 77 million Baby Boomers turn 65 this year and qualify for Medicare. Enrollment will grow from 48 million in 2010 to 64 million in 2020 and 81 million in 2030, according to Medicare actuaries. That 33-million increase in the next 20 years compares with 13 million in the last 20.

This demographic burst ”” combined with the addition of a prescription drug benefit in 2006 and rising health care costs generally ”” has created an unfunded liability of nearly $25 trillion over the lifetime of those now in the program as workers and retirees. That is the taxpayers’ obligation, beyond what Medicare taxes will bring in or seniors will pay in premiums for Medicare Part B ”” also called supplemental coverage ”” that helps pay for doctor visits and other expenses outside the hospital.

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Since 2007, the Lambeth Diploma and Lambeth MA are no longer offered by the Archbishop’s Examination in Theology (AET) because of the launch of MPhil/PhD research degrees. The research degrees programme has been developed with Quality Assuarance Agency requirements and general university standards in mind.

The Archbishop of Canterbury enjoys the right to grant these degrees by an Act of Parliament in 1533. This act gave Archbishop Cranmer the right to grant dispensations previously granted by the Pope.

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If religion, ethics and a moral conscience are banished from informing the public realm, “then the crisis of the West has no remedy and Europe is destined to collapse in on itself” and risk falling prey to every form of tyranny, he said in an audience with Croatia’s political, religious, cultural, business and academic representatives.

Free and just democracies thrive when citizens’ consciences have been formed by love and Christianity’s “logic of gift” in which the good of the whole human family is sought after, not narrow self-interests, the pope said June 4 in Zagreb’s ornate Croatian National Theater.

“The quality of social and civil life and the quality of democracy depend in large measure” on all citizens possessing and exercising a conscience that listens, not to subjective feelings, but to an objective truth that recognizes one’s duty to God and all human beings, he said.

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Diane Sawyer asks Gen. Petraeus and Sec. Gates if the U.S. is winning the war.

Watch it carefully, it is a great illustration of the huge personal toll on a Secretary of Defense that goes with the job–KSH.

…this is not about technology alone. As Russian historian Leon Aron has noted, the Arab uprisings closely resemble the Russian democratic revolution of 1991 in one key respect: they were both not so much about freedom or food as about ”dignity”. They each grew out of a deep desire by people to run their own lives and to be treated as ”citizens” – with both obligations and rights that the state cannot just give and take by whim.

If you want to know what brings about revolutions, it is not GDP rising or falling, says Aron, ”it is the quest for dignity”. We always exaggerate people’s quest for GDP and undervalue their quest for ideals. ”Dignity before bread” was the slogan of the Tunisian revolution. ”The spark that lights the fuse is always the quest for dignity,” said Aron. ”Today’s technology just makes the fire much more difficult to put out.”

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With some 47,000 US troops slated to leave the country by then, the attack could provide a new impetus for the Pentagon to push for an extension of the US military presence in the country.

US military officials have made it clear that while security on the ground in Iraq has improved in recent years, “there is still much work to be done and still plenty of extremists aided by states and organizations who are bent on pulling Iraq back into violence,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said during a visit to Iraq in April.

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Middle Tennesseans and their children are at the center of the emotional national debate about separation between religion and public school life.

For most of American history, God was welcome in the public schools. The same is true today for many school systems across the Nashville area, where open prayer is held on school grounds, sports teams pray before games and high school graduations are routinely held in churches.

But objections from families and national civil liberties groups find Middle Tennessee at the center of the litigious argument over separating public schools and church.

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“Violence against women remains a significant social issue with a huge personal and social cost,” Bishop Philip Huggins, Chair of the Melbourne Anglican Social Responsibilities said today.

“Research by VicHealth has found that intimate partner violence contributes to more ill-health and premature death in Victorian women aged 15 to 44 than any other of the well-known risk factors,” he said.

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[Mike] Ditka’s biblical blunder is as common as preachers delivering long-winded public prayers. The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it’s also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches – all types of people – quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say.

These phantom passages include:

“God helps those who help themselves.”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

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At the graduation ceremony for Duquesne University Law School Sunday, commencement speaker Gov. Tom Corbett urged the graduates to practice law morally and with compassion, looking beyond the law and to their faith and consciences to guide them.

“It’s not something the law will ask of you,” he said. “You must ask it for yourself.”

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O Christ, the King of Glory, who through the everlasting gates didst ascend to thy Father’s throne, and open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers: Grant that, whilst thou dost reign in heaven, we may not be bowed down to the things of earth, but that our hearts may be lifted up whither thou, our redemption, art gone before; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, ever one God, world without end.

–Mozarabic Sacramentary

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

–Psalm 97: 5-6

China’s official Communist Party newspaper issued a caustic response on Monday to Google’s charge that Chinese hackers had taken aim at influential users of its Gmail service, calling the accusations “political gaming” aimed at fomenting new discord between the Beijing and Washington governments.

The newspaper, People’s Daily, published a front-page editorial in Monday’s international editions that also suggested that Google’s actions could cost it credibility in the business world.

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Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

The survey of 1,300 employers says those who are keenly aware of the health-reform measure probably are more likely to consider an alternative to employer-sponsored plans, with 50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch.

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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the real cost of the federal government guaranteeing the business of failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is $317 billion — not the $130 billion normally claimed by the Obama administration.

In a report delivered to the House Budget Committee on June 2, the CBO said a “fair value” accounting of guaranteeing the two defunct mortgage companies ”“ known as Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) ”“ was more than twice as high as the Office of Management and Budget had accounted for.

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After a period of deep discernment, the rector and parishioners of St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg, Maryland have decided to seek entry into the Roman Catholic Church through a new structure approved by Pope Benedict XVI called an ordinariate. Saint Luke’s is the first church in the Washington metropolitan area to take this step.

The transition is being made with the prayerful support of Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Catholic Archbishop of Washington.

“We welcome the St. Luke community warmly into our family of faith. The proposed ordinariate provides a path to unity, one that recognizes our shared beliefs on matters of faith while also recognizing and respecting the liturgical heritage of the Anglican Church,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “We also recognize the openness of the community to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in their faith journey.”

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The conversion helps “bridge and heal a wound that has existed between Rome and Anglicanism for nearly five hundred years,” the rector at St. Luke’s, the Rev. Mark Lewis, said on the church’s Web site.

In January, the St. Luke’s vestry, its elected decision-making body, affirmed a decision to become Catholic, and on Sunday the parish community voiced its approval. Only one family expressed reservations, Lewis said.

On Monday, parishioners said that St. Luke’s had long worshiped in the extremely traditional “Anglo-Catholic” style. Leaders of the congregation said they have long struggled with the lack of clear authority in Anglicanism and welcomed the pope’s leadership.

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An Episcopal parish in the eastern state of Maryland will be the first in the United States to join the Roman Catholic Church under a new streamlined conversion process created by Pope Benedict XVI, leaders of both church groups said Monday.

St. Luke’s Episcopal parish in Bladensburg will come under the care of Washington Catholic Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who is forming a U.S. ordinariate ”” effectively a national diocese ”” for Episcopalians converting under the pope’s plan.

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St. Augustine’s in-the-Woods Episcopal Church will dedicate its new addition next weekend, a 9,400-square-foot, two-story expansion that nearly doubles the size of the church’s facilities.

“This is the parish’s commitment to the future with the same sense of optimism of the people who came before us,” said Harry Anderson, who as senior warden is the top lay person in the church.

“This will be our testament and our legacy,” Anderson said.

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If you are going to propose a Robin Hood budget, you have to decide whether you are robbing from the poor to give to the rich, or robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Because you cannot do both. You cannot worship both the God of Jesus and the mammon of Rand.

I don’t agree very often with the Watergate criminal and evangelical leader Chuck Colson, but he has it right when he refers to Rand’s “idolatry of self and selfishness” as “the antithesis of Christianity”

Rand’s trinity is “I me mine.” Christianity’s is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So take your pick. Or say no to both. It’s a free country. Just don’t tell me you are both a card-carrying Objectivist and a Bible-believing Christian. Even Rand knew that just wasn’t possible.

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At least a million Christians celebrated the Uganda Martyrs’ Day at Namugongo shrine yesterday with the lead celebrant calling for “serious dialogue to address political and social problems in the country”.

Clad in the ceremonial catholic robes, Archbishop Sabino Ocan Odoki of Arua Diocese, told pilgrims that this will be the only way to amicably solve the country’s problems instead of “the walk-to-work campaign and teargas”.

“Uganda is known for her beauty and hospitality but it is also known for political turbulence and tribalism. We should address this through dialogue,” he said to a crowd which included the newly-appointed Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Sekandi who represented the President, and pilgrims who had trekked from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, DR Congo, among other countries.

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her new ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom on Thursday (June 2), calling the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook a bridge-builder who is right for the job.

Speaking at Cook’s ceremonial swearing-in, Clinton cited Cook’s firsts as an African-American Baptist minister and New York police chaplain, as well as her involvement in international activities.

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The Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, has urged Moslem leaders in the country to call their members involved in the killing of Christians in the North to order, warning that Christians could no longer continue to be on the receiving end during riots in any part of Nigeria.

In a speech delivered at the second session of the 28th synod of the Diocese on the Niger, taking place at the Immanuel Church, Onitsha, the Bishop of the Diocese, Rt. Rev. Owen Nwokolo, wondered why Christians should be massacred in the guise of protesting in favour of a political candidate who lost during the recent general elections.

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A New Yorker would return to some deep Omaha roots if he ends up the 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska.

The Rev. J. Scott Barker was elected Saturday during a special diocesan council at St. Mark’s Pro-Cathedral in Hastings, Neb.

Barker is among the sixth generation of the Barker family in Omaha. The prominent family at one time owned thousands of acres of prime Omaha real estate. One of those locations became the site of the Barker Building on the southwest corner of 15th and Farnam Streets.

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After venting out their ire against Sony PlayStation Network and Sony Pictures, hackers have pointed their guns at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The group LulzSec has hacked an FBI-affiliated website called InfraGard and siphoned off with the details of around 180 users. The attack was on their Atlanta chapter.

InfraGard is a government and private sector alliance which provides actionable intelligence to protect critical national information infrastructure. The website defines its role as: “InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States.”

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During the first Sunday service since three tornadoes ravaged central and western Massachusetts, worshipers including volunteers and veteran congregation members packed the nave to hear a message of hope and community.

“Any time there is a disaster, even people of faith have questions,’’ [The Rev. Bob] Marrone said. “Why did this happen? Where was God?’’

Since Wednesday, volunteers have used the church as a relief hub, keeping it open round-the-clock to provide free food, clothing, and guidance. For two hours yesterday, the church also gave the weary a quiet place to relax, reflect, and be thankful.

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