The second meeting of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN) will occur in Lima, Peru from Aug 4-10, 2011.

Hosted by Bishop Bill Godfrey of the Diocese of Peru, representatives from Australia, United Kingdom, USA, Fiji, Canada, Melanesia, Brazil, Madagascar, Tanzania and Mexico will report on environmental ministry in their respective jurisdictions. Together they will create an action plan which will become a template for provincial, diocesan and parish-based ministry. Such a plan will connect with environmental ministry at the United Nations and in relation to the forthcoming COP 17 meetings in Durban South Africa in December of 2011.

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Check it out–very interesting.

Jewish groups in America have welcomed Thursday’s decision by a California Superior Court judge to remove a proposal aimed at banning circumcision from a San Francisco city ballot scheduled for November.

In response to the initiative, a number of Jewish organizations, including the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco and the Anti-Defamation League, along with several individual plaintiffs ”“ both Jewish and Muslim ”“ filed a suit in June against the city, claiming that California state law prohibited municipal governments from restricting or regulating medical procedures.

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O Lord Jesus Christ, into whose death we have been baptized: Grant, we beseech thee, that like as thou wast raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we may walk in newness of life; that having been planted in the likeness of thy death, we may be also in the likeness of thy resurrection; for the glory of thy holy name.

–Henry Alford

“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. 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. He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them….

Romans 4:7-11

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced shortly after 10 p.m….[tonight] that he would postpone a vote on his bill to raise the debt limit to give negotiators at the White House more time to work.

He said the Senate would vote on his plan at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, instead of 1:00 a.m., as was originally scheduled.

Reid said leaders are at the White House this evening working on a deal but many details remain unresolved.

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Update: Here is an interesting tweet–@JohnJHarwood: on table in debt talks: extension thru ’12; $1.2-Tr 2nd round spending cuts w/no revenue, triggered 1/13 when Bush tax….

Another Update: ABC News’ Jonathan Karl now has more there.

I have found this to be a helpful source, if you are following the debt debate/debacle add it to your list. Cspan 2 has covered the Senate all day.

Jennifer Anguko was slowly bleeding to death right in the maternity ward of a major public hospital. Only a lone midwife was on duty, the hospital later admitted, and no doctor examined her for 12 hours. An obstetrician who investigated the case said Ms. Anguko, the mother of three young children, had arrived in time to be saved.

Her husband, Valente Inziku, a teacher, frantically changed her blood-soaked bedclothes as her life seeped away. “I’m going to leave you,” she told him as he cradled her. He said she pleaded, “Look after our children.”

Half of the 340,000 deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes each year occur in Africa, almost all in anonymity. But Ms. Anguko was a popular elected official seeking treatment in a 400-bed hospital, and a lawsuit over her death may be the first legal test of an African government’s obligation to provide basic maternal care.

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Tens of thousands of people descended Friday on downtown Cairo in one of the largest Islamist demonstrations in Egypt’s history, an effort to show political unity among Muslim groups and challenge efforts to limit their power.

In the march, a broad range of Islamist groups called for the establishment of Islamic law in Egypt and protested moves by secularist politicians to prevent them from influencing the drafting of a new constitution.

Friday’s rally showed the extent to which Egypt’s constitution has become a the core point of conflict between secular and Islamist political forces in the democracy emerging from the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

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America’s debt debate seems still more kabuki-like. Its fiscal problem is not now””it should be spending to boost recovery””but in the medium term. Its absurdly complicated tax system raises very little, and the ageing of its baby-boomers will push its vast entitlement programmes towards bankruptcy. Mr Obama set up a commission to examine this issue and until recently completely ignored its sensible conclusions. The president also stuck too long to the fiction that the deficit can be plugged by taxing the rich more: he even wasted part of a national broadcast this week bashing the wealthy, though the Democrats had already withdrawn proposals for such rises….

In both Europe and America electorates seem to be turning inward. There is the same division between “ins” and “outs” that has plagued Japan. In Europe one set of middle-class workers is desperate to hang on to protections and privileges: millions of others are stuck in unprotected temporary jobs or are unemployed. In both Europe and America well-connected public-sector unions obstruct progress. And then there is the greatest (and also the least sustainable) division of all: between the old, clinging tightly to entitlements they claim to have earned, and the young who will somehow have to pay for all this.

Sometimes crises beget bold leadership. Not, unfortunately, now….

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