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Scott Todd’s “58:” project declares that eradicating poverty is not only possible but probable, if the people of the church put their backs into it.

Such audacious optimism is one of the most infectious, exciting qualities of the new evangelicals movement of which Todd is part, and it surged like electricity through his and other presentations at this spring’s Q conference, the signature annual gathering of next-generation Christian leaders.

Sure, in some of the quieter, more reflective moments of the three-day event in Portland you could hear acknowledgment of the heavy burden carried by this movement of new-century Jesus followers. These are, after all, the people who accept responsibility to right seemingly every global wrong you can name while restoring the credibility of publicly expressed Christianity in the process. But the workload is exhausting only when they lose connection with their ultimate power source, says Gabe Lyons, the host of Q and an unofficial spokesperson for the movement.

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Underestimating the long-term budget situation is an old game in Washington. But never have the numbers been this large.

There is no way to raise taxes enough to cover these problems. The tax-the-rich proposals of the Obama administration raise about $700 billion, less than a fifth of the budgetary consequences of the excess economic growth projected in their forecast. The whole $700 billion collected over 10 years would not even cover the difference in interest costs in any one year at the end of the decade between current rates and the average cost of Treasury borrowing over the last 20 years.

Only serious long-term spending reduction in the entitlement area can begin to address the nation’s deficit and debt problems. It should no longer be credible for our elected officials to hide the need for entitlement reforms behind rosy economic and budgetary assumptions. And while we should all hope for a deal that cuts spending and raises the debt ceiling to avoid a possible default, bondholders should be under no illusions.

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Confronting stereotypes is nothing new to Muslims at the Islamic Center of Eastside. It’s the very reason they have an open house every few months ”” to invite in neighbors and “demystify” themselves.

Saturday’s scheduled open house came just two days after two Muslim men were arrested in Seattle and accused of planning a terrorist attack on a Seattle military building. Disheartened but expecting questions, presenters at the Islamic Center in Bellevue worked up an extra PowerPoint slide to address terrorism.

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I’m hosting this month’s CGI America meeting on the assumption that there will be no federal stimulus and no further tax incentives targeted directly toward creating new jobs. Going on these assumptions, we want to analyze America’s economy: What are our assets? What are our liabilities? What are our options? There must be opportunities to be tapped, given all the cash in banks and corporate treasuries. If we have some success, we might be able to influence the debate in Washington in a nonpartisan way because we’ll have economic evidence to show them. I don’t have any problem at all if Congress wants to give tax credits to companies that actually hire people. But I think we have to pay for them, so I’d be happy to go back to the tax rates people at my income level paid when I was president in order to pay for the tax incentives to put more people to work.

The whole purpose of CGI America is to highlight good ideas because not everyone is aware of what’s out there. I’m going to try to get enough commitments that are representative enough of the circumstances facing diverse industries and different cities and states to persuade people across America to try their own version of them in a discussion of our economic stagnation. There’s been a remarkable lack of attention to “microeconomics,” the untapped growth potential of American corporations, entrepreneurs, and workers.

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South Carolina’s incredible baseball season continued Monday with a game so unlikely that it made the Disney movie “Angels in the Outfield” seem plausible.

The Gamecocks won 2-1 in 11 innings over SEC rival Florida in Game 1 of the CWS championship series at TD Ameritrade Park to put themselves one victory from a second consecutive NCAA championship.

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Mouna gets annoyed at the next question. “We’ve grown up to believe there’s nothing to do about this society, and you already ask me who we want as a new leader. No candidate has materialized between March and April. What I want is to participate in society,” she says firmly.

She disconnects her cell phone from its charger when it starts chiming. It’s a dying phone and needs charging three times a day. Mouna’s slight body begins to shake. She holds her phone in one hand and clasps her hair with the other.

“When? Where?”

She stares into the air. “I have to go,” she says. “My friend has been arrested. The secret police came to his home.”

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The Chinese Premier warned Britain against “finger-pointing” and “lecturing” the world’s most populous nation about human rights abuses yesterday as he signed trade agreements worth £1.4bn with David Cameron.

The carefully-orchestrated three-day visit by Wen Jiabao had included a visit to William Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, a tour of a Birmingham car factory and a show of pomp in London, away from demonstrators.

But the key moment came yesterday when the two leaders witnessed 24 trade agreements and memorandums of understanding between the two countries, covering banking, mining, oil and gas, alcohol and even supply of 800 pigs to China.

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It was a historic moment in Ottawa as a subdued crowd of about 300 filed out of St. Alban’s Anglican Church on King Edward Avenue on Sunday, leaving behind a place where some have roots going back to Confederation.

Founded in 1865, the church where Sir John A. Macdonald worshipped has been in the spotlight ever since a showdown over same-sex marriage and other issues led the congregation of St. Alban’s to leave the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, and, after a bitter battle, the building they have called home for 146 years.

“This is kind of historic. We’re in a new era,” said Sheila Lang, 79, as her grandchildren ”” the seventh generation of her family to attend the church ”” played in the reception hall of the Ottawa Little Theatre, where the congregation, now called the Church of the Messiah, will meet until it finds a permanent home. Meanwhile, the diocese will establish a new congregation at St. Alban’s, with a relaunch planned for Friday.

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Mr. Gates is, along with James A. Baker III, perhaps the greatest non-presidential public servant of the post-war age. One more thing. Perhaps better than anyone alive, he knows how the world works.

These days the world isn’t working all that well, and the same can be said about Washington. It’s the latter that preoccupies Mr. Gates, who is to leave office this week. Last Sunday Chris Wallace asked Mr. Gates what was the big lesson he had learned during all that time in the capital. Here’s his answer on Fox News Sunday:

“That when we have been successful in national security and foreign affairs, it has been because there has been bipartisan support. And agreement between the president and the Congress that the fundamental strategy — maybe not all the tactics, maybe not all the specific decisions — but that the fundamental strategy is the correct one. That’s what [happened] through nine presidencies and the Cold War that led to our success, because no major international problem can be solved on one president’s watch. And so, unless it has bipartisan support, unless it can be extended over a period of time, the risks of failure [are] high.”

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[Bishop Edward] Salmon said he plans to strengthen relationships, both among seminary faculty and staff and between the seminary and bishops of the Episcopal Church.

“The name of leadership is relationships ”” people connecting with each other and working together,” he said. “Our broken relationships in the Church are a testimony against the Gospel.”

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Almighty God, who didst uphold thy servant Irenaeus with strength to maintain the truth against every blast of vain doctrine: Keep us, we beseech thee, steadfast in thy true religion, that in constancy and peace we may walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Almighty God, who hast created us for thy glory and service: Give us grace, we pray thee, to hallow every gift and improve each talent thou hast committed to us; that with a cheerful and diligent spirit we may render thee our grateful service, and whatsoever we do, may do it with all our might, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 121

The Archbishop of Canterbury today returned from a pastoral visit to the Anglican Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he learnt about the inspirational work of the church in helping individuals and communities rebuild their lives after the trauma of the war waged by rebel armies.

Dr Williams was able to meet a group of young men in Bunia who had been taken from school to join the militia, but who had been brought back to their families by a church organisation called ”˜AGAPE’, which had transformed their lives through faith and compassion. It was evident from their personal testimonies that the real priority for them was to complete their education, with many returning to secondary school to continue their studies, despite being a decade or more older than their classmates.

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The Anglican Synod of Enugu Diocese Sunday joined the growing condemnation of the forum of state governors over their call for removal of fuel subsidy, saying doing so would render useless, the new minimum wage.

Accordingly, the Synod advised the government to among other ways reduce cost of governance as a means of paying the new wage, explaining that cost of running the democracy of the country has continued to increase by the day.

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The Hudson-based spokesman for a local clergy sex abuse survivors group has taken Dubuque Archbishop Jerome Hanus to task for his handling 24 years ago of a former Catholic monk, as recounted in a new Missouri lawsuit.

Hanus is not named as a defendant in that lawsuit.

In the suit, filed in Nodaway County, Mo., a plaintiff named as “John Doe 181” said he was sexually molested as a minor while at a choir camp in 1987 at Conception Abbey Inc., a Benedictine abbey in Missouri and the suit’s sole defendant, by a Father Bede Parry.

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