This made BBC World News this morning where I caught it–watch it all–KSH.

The Obama administration announced new expanded women’s health regulations Monday, classifying contraceptives as preventive services and requiring that health insurers provide them without co-pays for customers….

A number of religious organizations, including the Catholic Church and the Family Research Council, have opposed the new regulations. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who runs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, recently wrote in opposition to the proposal that “pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible.”

Read it all.

Puritan writings reveal the Trinitarian character of theology. The Puritans were driven by a deep sense of the infinite glory of a Triune God. When they answered the first question of the Shorter Catechism that man’s chief end was to glorify God, they meant the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They took John Calvin’s glorious understanding of the unity of the Trinity in the Godhead, and showed how that worked itself out in electing, redeeming, and sanctifying love and grace in the lives of believers. John Owen wrote an entire book on the Christian believer’s communion with God as Father, Jesus as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Comforter. The Puritans teach us how to remain God-centered while being vitally concerned about Christian experience, so that we don’t fall into the trap of glorifying experience for its own sake.

If you want to appreciate each Person of the Trinity, so that you can say with Samuel Rutherford, “I don’t know which Person of the Trinity I love the most, but this I know, I love each of them, and I need them all,” read John Owen’s Communion with God and Jonathan Edwards on the Trinity.

Read it all.

Read it all.

O Lord Jesus Christ, thou good shepherd of the sheep, who didst come to seek and to save that which was lost: Inspire us and thy whole Church, we beseech thee, with thine own compassion for those who have wandered from thy fold and are lost; help us to be witnesses to them of thy love; and teach us what thou wouldest have us to do towards leading them home to thee; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

And they came to Beth-sa’ida. And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men; but they look like trees, walking.” Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly. And he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

–Mark 8:22-26

Read it all.

45 total–check them out.

269 to 161

“The current situation is dire, and necessitates decisive steps to put the city back on a path to solid financial footing and future prosperity,” Governor Lincoln Chafee, who joined Flanders in announcing the bankruptcy petition today, said in the statement. “We will be exploring all options to provide quality services at an affordable cost to all taxpayers.”

Central Falls, a city of about 18,000 located about 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) north of Providence, is the fifth municipal entity to file for bankruptcy this year, compared with six in all of 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The filing followed last week’s move by lawmakers in Jefferson County, Alabama, to postpone a vote on proceeding with what would be the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy.

Read it all.

Influential Muslims on this East African island have begun building what appears to be a hotel on a 100-year-old burial site owned by an Anglican church, Christian leaders said.

Church leaders with ownership papers for the land told Compass they are disturbed that authorities have taken no action since they filed a police complaint in December about the seizure of the burial site three kilometers (nearly two miles) from Zanzibar city’s airport. Tanzania’s Zanzibar archipelago, including the largest island of Zanzibar (officially known as Unguja), is 99.9 percent Muslim.

Read it all.

Read it all.

President Obama and Congressional leaders have stitched together an agreement to prevent a national default, provided their 11th-hour deal does not fracture on Monday, but the epic budget battle has failed to resolve another question: which party can be better trusted to govern?

The president, with his re-election on the horizon, emerges from the showdown in a diminished state after giving considerable ground and struggling to rise above a deep partisan intransigence that has engulfed Washington. And Republican leaders, especially Speaker John A. Boehner, are bruised after navigating the intractable sentiment of the Tea Party movement.

A full victory lap was not expected ”” or, perhaps, deserved ”” by those on either side of the debate, which has consumed the capital, unnerved the financial markets and infuriated the American public. Yet even as a compromise was announced on Sunday evening, both parties were prepared to try to define the deal as staying true to their respective principles.

Read it all.

… membership has always gone up and down, and in recent years has waned to the point that no more than 10 people show up on any given Sunday.

None of the remaining members even live in Wellsburg anymore, [Senior Warden Lois] Barton said.

The church hasn’t had its own pastor in years and shares a priest with a cluster of Episcopal churches in the area.

The remaining members finally made the painful decision to dissolve the church. The building will remain the property of the Central Episcopal Diocese of New York, which will decide its fate, Barton said.

Read it all.

Read it all.

….the debate is a clear loss for America as a whole. Here’s how Christine Lagarde put it:

There was a positive bias towards the United States of America, towards Treasury bills. That was the case historically. And the current crisis is probably chipping into that very positive bias.

That very strong confidence that generally led to a flight to quality and investment in Treasury bonds is slightly eroded at the moment. I mean, it was unheard of, only six months, to imagine that the United States could be under negative watch by the rating agencies.

So here’s what I’m wondering: is there some way of quantifying the cost to the US of simply having this debate? Is there a way of taking Lagarde’s “positive bias” and giving it a number, in terms of say basis points of reduction on US borrowing costs?

Read it all.

Check it out if you are so inclined.

The Rev. Mark Lewis is married. He also wants to become a Catholic priest. Lewis is the rector of St. Luke’s in Bladensburg, the first [Episcopal]… parish in the U.S. to seek to become Catholic under Anglicanorum coetibus, a process outlined by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 that allows groups of Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church without discarding their liturgical heritage. Raised Episcopalian, the 52-year-old Lewis entered the ministry 10 years ago and has two grown children. He will become Catholic with his parish in October.

Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?

Obviously, I am of the Catholic faith. Even as Episcopalians, we believed we were Catholic Christians. The Episcopal Church is a very broad church. In it you can have very evangelical people, and in it you can also have very high church Anglo-Catholics, of which I was one.

Why did you and your church convert?

I teach Catholic theology to my people. Once the apostolic constitution was announced, it opened a door that had previously been closed to us. I didn’t really want to sway them with my excitement, so we looked at it together: “Is this something that is really of interest to us?” We looked at the difference between being a Catholic in the Anglican tradition, and being a Catholic in the Roman tradition. And we realized as a church that we needed to be in communion with the Church of Rome.

Read it all.

Lack of gratitude is one of the driving forces of unbelief.

–Douglas Wlion, Books and Culture, May/June 2011 edition, p.8

For the Episcopal Church, questions about homosexuality and same-gender relationships came to a head with the election of the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson. In a controversial move in 2003, Robinson made history as the first openly gay priest to become a bishop in his church.

“It was like a lightning bolt hitting in the middle of the living room,” said Rev. Maureen Doherty, an Episcopal priest and a campus minister at the University of Northern Iowa.

Since then, a lot has changed in her church and in her state. After Iowa removed barriers in 2009 that had kept same-sex couples from marrying, Doherty, a lesbian, wed her partner. Doherty now has permission from her bishop to wed other same-sex couples whereas before, she was limited to offering a blessing.

Read it all.

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

–Smauel Johnson (1709-1784)

President Obama and congressional leaders Sunday night sealed a deal to raise the federal debt limit that includes sharp spending cuts but no new taxes, breaking a partisan impasse that has driven the nation to the brink of a government default.

The agreement brings to an end a self-created crisis that has consumed Washington, rattled Wall Street, and shaken confidence in the American political system at home and abroad. The deal could clear Congress as soon as Monday night ”” barely 24 hours before Treasury officials have said they could begin running short of cash to pay the nation’s bills.

Passage of the agreement, however, remained far from certain in the House, where skeptical Republicans were just beginning to digest the details….

Read it all.

O Lord and Master, who thyself didst come into the world to bear witness to the truth, and didst say that the good and faithful teacher should be greatly accounted of in thy kingdom: Send, we beseech thee, thy blessing upon all who are engaged in the work of education. Give them clearness of vision and freshness of thought, and enable them so to train the hearts and minds of the children that they may take their appointed places in the work of this life, and may be ready for the service of the life to come. We ask it for thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.

–Arthur W. Robinson

I have my own personal remembrances of John, of course, having served closely with him as his Study Assistant nearly thirty years ago. My favourite picture of him is this one I took when we were on a bird watching holiday together in Portugal. We had a few moments before our flight left Faro, so, not wanting to miss an opportunity of spotting one more specie, we struck out for the airport perimeter. The grey flannel trousers and blue jacket, the posture and the intensity, the hushed ”˜Look there!’ at a beautiful avian display, this is a memory of John that I shall never forget.

I have often been asked what is the most significant thing I learned from John when I was with him. As I have moved through various stages in my Christian development, I have found my answer to this question changing. Where once I tried to emulate his self-discipline and homiletic style, today I remember his loyalty, integrity and humility. There was a moment in 1984 when he took issue with the Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, over provocative statements the bishop had made about Jesus’ resurrection. It is a mark of his respect and charity that John did not rush into print with a rebuttal, but rather sought a personal audience with Bishop Jenkins to make sure that he understood the bishop’s position and to give the bishop a chance to respond to his own concerns. John’s sense of fairness and the fact that he did not savour argument, did, on occasion, put him at a disadvantage. In a public debate with Bishop Spong he came off badly when Bishop Spong departed from the rules and left John unprepared to answer. John rued the event, but not because he had been treated so poorly. He was concerned that the audience had not been furnished with a sufficient defence of the truth as he saw it.

Read it all (and do not miss the picture).

Merciful God, whose servant Joseph of Arimathaea with reverence and godly fear did prepare the body of our Lord and Savior for burial, and did lay it in his own tomb: Grant, we beseech thee, to us thy faithful people grace and courage to love and serve Jesus with sincere devotion all the days of our life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Remember, O Lord, according to the multitude of thy mercies, thy whole Church, all who join with us in prayer, and all our brethren, wherever they may be in thy vast kingdom, who stand in need of thy grace and succour. Pour down upon us all the riches of thy mercy, so that, preserved in soul and body, and steadfast in our faith, we may ever praise thy wonderful and holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. And the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man shall attack you to harm you; for I have many people in this city.” And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

–Acts 18:8-11

Sources familiar with the outlines of the deal say it would raise the debt limit by about $2.7 trillion and reduce the deficit by the same amount in two steps. It would cut about $1 trillion in spending up front and set up a select bicameral committee to put together a future deficit-reduction package worth $1.7 trillion to $1.8 trillion.

Failure of Congress to pass the future deficit-reduction package would automatically trigger cuts to defense spending and Medicare. An aide familiar with the deal said the Medicare cut would not affect beneficiaries. Instead, healthcare providers and insurance companies would see lower payments.

Read it all.

Scottsdale, Ariz. – On an empty desert lot covered with snake holes, cactus and scraggly brush lie the clearest clues to the demise of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., the once-great Wisconsin bank company brought down by its expansion into red-hot real estate markets at the worst possible time.

The lot once sold for $225,000, financed by an $180,000 M&I loan that went bad in 2008. Victor and Rita Lockwood recently bought the lot for $20,000 – they’re looking for a place to park a trailer if they default on their $586,000 M&I loan and lose their home across the road.

Two pieces of desert property, two loans that ultimately could cost M&I hundreds of thousands of dollars – and the same scenario has been playing out over and over, with no end in sight.

Read it all (still another from the long queue of should-have-already-been-posted material).