“Last in pitching, last in defense, not much power or speed.”

–The scouting report on the Chicago Cubs on the MLB Network this afternoon during their game with the Yankees

ROFL!

So many people in France believe that the world is about to end that a government agency yesterday alerted the country to the risk of mass suicides by converts to prophesies of imminent Armageddon.

Natural disasters, the internet and French fears of economic doom are conspiring to lend credence to predictions that the planet will self-destruct on December 21, 2012, said Miviludes the government body that monitors cults and suspicious spiritual activities.

There have been 183 false predictions of the end of the world since the Roman Empire collapsed and these are multiplying with new technology and a global climate of fear, it added.

Read it all (requires subscription).

A Sacramento atheist’s challenge to the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, which stirred a legal and political frenzy nearly a decade ago, has quietly expired in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Michael Newdow said Tuesday, however, that he isn’t giving up and plans to file one or more lawsuits this year in hopes of winning a favorable ruling that would eventually reach the high court.

Read it all.

…the Fannie Mae scandal is the most important political scandal since Watergate. It helped sink the American economy. It has cost taxpayers about $153 billion, so far. It indicts patterns of behavior that are considered normal and respectable in Washington.

The Fannie Mae scandal has gotten relatively little media attention because many of the participants are still powerful, admired and well connected. But Gretchen Morgenson, a Times colleague, and the financial analyst Joshua Rosner have rectified that, writing “Reckless Endangerment,” a brave book that exposes the affair in clear and gripping form….

The scandal has sent the message that the leadership class is fundamentally self-dealing. Leaders on the center-right and center-left are always trying to create public-private partnerships to spark socially productive activity. But the biggest public-private partnership to date led to shameless self-enrichment and disastrous results.

Read it all.”>Read it all.

I kept thinking, “I just want somewhere to put my grief.” I was imagining a vessel for it: a long, shallow, wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes, or tear my hair, I could, in effect, create that vessel in the world.

–Meghan O’Rourke, The Long Goodbye: A memoir (New York: Riverhead [a dvision of Penguin Group], 2011)

After a year in Afghanistan, members of the unit will head home with their memories. Spc. Jenny Martinez’s voice grew soft as she recounted treating a Marine who stepped on an explosive and lost both of his legs.

She held his hand all the way to the field hospital.

“He didn’t want to let me go,” said Martinez, 24, of Colorado Springs, Colorado. But “I had to leave because we had another mission.”

Read it all.

What a thrill it was to be in that beautiful place, standing only a few feet away from the shrine of St. Alban himself, England’s oldest saint and patron.

It was a trip were I literally “got in touch” with some powerful things””the 1,000 year old tower at Glendalough; the pages of a Bible handled in 597 by the founder of our Anglican church; the pages of an original King James Bible (of which we are marking the 400th anniversary).

But more important, it was a chance to also be touched by the spirit of our heritage as Anglican Christians through the mysterious “high crosses” in the Irish countryside: the deeply moving experience of Evensong at Kings College Cambridge; the stillness of Sunday worship at a little parish church; bracing intellectual conversation at a Cambridge college “high table” dinner; bookcases full of leather-bound books at Lambeth.

Read it all.

So what is the Greek crisis really about? For starters, it’s a solvency crisis, meaning that bailouts can at best postpone, but not avert, the day of reckoning. Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio still tops 150%, and despite touting its efforts at austerity, government expenditures are up 3.6% year-on-year, to €21 billion. Its revenues for the first four months of 2011 were down 9.1% from the previous year.

Greece also suffers from a productivity crisis. The country’s employment rate is under 60%, compared to a eurozone average of 64.2%. In 2009 Greeks produced $34.2 worth of goods and services per hour worked, according to OECD data””compared to $53.1 in Germany and $56.8 in the United States.

The productivity crisis is linked, in turn, to the huge proportion of Greeks employed by the state””fully a third of the workforce, by some estimates, and civil servants are unionized, often militant and politically influential.

Read it all.

A former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said that the BBC had some “hard questions to address”, after broadcasting the programme. “Its own guidelines state that the portrayal of suicide has the potential to make this appear possible, and even appropriate, to the vulnerable.” He also argued that “the BBC has an obligation to provide a balanced presentation of the moral issues of the day,” but “so far, there has been little evidence of such balance in this matter.”

In a statement, the BBC said that it ac­know­­ledged that suicide was “an exceptionally difficult issue”, which “should be portrayed with the utmost sensitivity”. It argued that there was “a clear editorial justification” to broadcast the programme, which “does not encourage suicide and does not breach BBC guidelines.

Read it all.

Goshen College will no longer play The Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events, school leaders announced, reversing last year’s decision to allow the use of the national anthem for the first time in the Mennonite college’s history.

Some Mennonites had criticized the anthem’s lyrics as glorifying war and offensive to the school’s pacifist traditions. Goshen’s Board of Directors said many felt the school’s “allegiance should be to Christ rather than to country.”

Read it all.

“I pray that in time these sad divisions may be healed,” the Anglican Bishop of New Westminster, Rev. Michael Ingham, said in a statement released… [this week]….

“Obviously, this decision is extremely disappointing and should be of great concern to all Christian denominations,” she said. “While these congregations have remained steadfast in their faith, and have not changed the traditional teaching of the Christian church, they have now been called to sacrifice all their assets, including their church properties, for the sake of their faith.”

[Special counsel to the ANiC Cheryl] Chang added: “We always said that given a choice, we would choose our faith over our properties, and we have been willing to make that sacrifice if called upon by the courts to do so.”

Read it all.

There might be a new argument to try when convincing your teen to wait to have sex. According to the a study conducted by the University of Iowa, women who lost their virginity in their young teens are more likely to divorce.

The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, surveyed the responses of 3,793 women and found that 31 percent who lost their virginity as teens divorced within five years, and 47 percent divorced within 10 years. On the flip side, the divorce rate for women who had waited to have sex was only 15 percent at the five year mark, and 27 percent by the time 10 years rolled around.

But the study also found that a first sexual experience before the age of 16 — wanted or not — was still strongly associated with divorce.

Read it all.

No doubt about it, a growing number of modern Americans are convinced that it’s time for government officials to do some cutting and snipping in the pages of the holy books that define some of the world’s major religions.

“What you have here is an assault, by a popular referendum, on a central ritual in a recognized ancient religion,” said Marc Stern, associate general counsel for legal advocacy at the American Jewish Committee. While the current initiative may seem brazen, “it’s really nothing new. It’s easy for historians to find sources showing how the Greeks and Romans mocked the Jews for practicing circumcision.”

Read it all.

Baptisms fell to their lowest number in 60 years among Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The new numbers are a sign that the denomination is in trouble, Baptist leaders say.

“This is not a blip,” said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research. “This is a trend. And, the trend is one of decline.”

Read it all.

More than $470 million in new money poured into major-college athletics programs last year, boosting spending on sports even as many of the parent universities struggled with budget reductions during tough economic times, a USA TODAY analysis has found.

Much of the rise in athletics revenue came from an escalation in money generated through multimedia rights deals, donations and ticket receipts, but schools also continued increasing their subsidies from student fees and institutional funds.

Altogether in 2010, about $2 billion in subsidies went to athletics at the 218 public schools that have been in the NCAA’s Division I over the past five years. Those subsidies grew by an inflation-adjusted 3% in 2010. They have grown by 28% since 2006 and account for $1 of every $3 spent on athletics.

Read it all.

O Almighty God, who on the day of Pentecost didst send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to abide in thy Church unto the end: Bestow upon us, and upon all thy faithful people, his manifold gifts of grace; that with minds enlightened by his truth and hearts purified by his presence, we may day by day be strengthened with power in the inward man; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who, with thee and the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth one God world without end.

–Scottish Prayer Book

The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.” Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family–from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.

–1 Samuel 3:8-13

In the Anglican tradition, the Holy Bible is revered as central to God’s self-revelation to the world. It is the divinely inspired, revealed Word of God, unchanged from the time of the first Apostles. It expresses the unchanging Gospel of the Lord Jesus for ever-changing times ”“ for, though times may change, the Truth does not. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings.” (Hebrews 13:8) Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, tells us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”(John 14:6) When certain bishops deny these words, they are no longer true guardians and defenders of the faith, unity and discipline of the Church, as held by Anglicans around the world. Those who abandon the teachings of the Bible also abandon the Anglican way. Such innovators are free to start a new church, but do not call it Anglican if it does not abide by the clear standards and teachings revealed in Holy Writ.

While being clear that the Bible is basic and fundamental to all that Forward in Faith stands for, that it is the foundation upon which everything stands, we must hasten to add that our faith is not in the Bible, but in Jesus Christ. We believe the Bible, because it is the Written Word that bears witness to the Incarnate Word. We are saved by our faith in Jesus, not the Scriptures. So while we affirm that Anglicanism rests on a firm Biblical foundation, we confess that Jesus Christ Himself is that one foundation upon which the Church of God is built. As St. Paul reminded the Church in Corinth, “No other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (I Cor. 3:11) Historic, orthodox Anglicanism is built upon nothing less than the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, and everything else rests upon Him. In his Epistle to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul states it in a slightly different way: “You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:20)

Read it all.

All Anglican and Episcopal priests who apply for Catholic ordination must undergo the same criminal background checks and psychological evaluations required of all other candidates for Catholic priesthood, Cardinal Wuerl said. He asked the bishops of dioceses where these priests are located to supply those checks and tests as they do for their own seminarians.

Ultimately the inquirers will be sorted into three categories: Those who can he ordained as Catholic priests after a specially-developed nine-month intensive seminary course; those who require more intensive seminary education and “those whose formation histories would not recommend them for either of these options.”

Among those who will not be accepted as Catholic priests are those who were originally Catholic priests and left the Catholic priesthood for the Episcopal or Anglican churches, Cardinal Wuerl said.

Read it all.

St. Luke’s Church will make a pilgrimage from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism without leaving its historic location at 53rd Street and Annapolis Road in Bladensburg, Md.

The Rev. Mark Lewis, rector of St. Luke’s since 2006, praises the Rt. Rev. John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington, for the arrangement, in which St. Luke’s will lease the facilities from the Diocese of Washington and has an option to buy the property.

“We have a relationship that is mutually respectful,” Lewis said in an interview with The Living Church. He appreciates where I am theologically, and I know he appreciates the parish.”

Read it all.”>Read it all.

A Tanzanian court has issued an arrest warrant for Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT).

On June 13 the High Court in Arusha issued a bench warrant for Dr. Mokiwa for contempt of court, after prosecutors claimed the archbishop ignored a court order blocking the consecration of the Bishop of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Sources in Tanzania report that as of June 14 the archbishop had not yet been served by police with the warrant.

Read it all.