When you were studying medicine in early-1950s Britain, what was the prevailing attitude toward organ transplantation?

It didn’t exist! While a medical student, I recall being presented with a young patient with kidney failure. I was told to make him as comfortable as possible because he would die in two weeks.

This troubled me. Some of our patients were very young, very deserving. Aside from their kidney disease, there was nothing else wrong with them. I wondered then if it might be possible to do organ transplants, because kidneys are fairly simple in terms of their plumbing. I thought in gardening terms. Might it not be possible to do an organ graft, replacing a malfunctioning organ with a healthy one? I was told, “No, that’s impossible.”

Well, I’ve always tended to dislike being told that something can’t be done. I’ve always had a somewhat rebellious nature. Just ask my wife.

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Women Bishops – The Way Ahead

The Chairmen of the Catholic Group in General Synod and the conservative Evangelical group Reform, who called for talks to break the deadlock over legislation to enable the consecration of women as bishops, have received acknowledgement of their request from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

Canon Simon Killwick (Catholic Group) and Prebendary Rod Thomas (Reform) have today further pledged themselves to do everything they can to ensure the speedy and safe passage of fresh legislation through the General Synod.

They said, “If agreement can be reached at round-table talks on fresh legislation which provides clearly and fairly for all members of the Church of England, there is no reason why fresh legislation should not be fast-tracked through the Synod before the next elections in 2015.”

The Synod’s Standing Orders only prevent the reconsideration of the same legislation during this period.

“It has never been our intention to prevent the consecration of women as bishops; our concern has always been for legislation which also made clear and fair provision for the substantial minority,” the Chairmen concluded.

The legislation which failed last week in the Synod would have had devastating consequences for the diversity and mission of the Church of England, had it been passed. We want the Church of England to continue to be a broad and comprehensive national Church.

Canon Simon Killwick

Prebendary Rod Thomas

(Chairman of the Catholic Group in General Synod)
(Chairman of Reform)

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“In its discussions the Council decided that a process to admit women to the episcopate needed to be restarted at the next meeting of the General Synod in July 2013. There was agreement that the Church of England had to resolve this matter through its own processes as a matter of urgency. The Council therefore recommended that the House of Bishops, during its meeting in a fortnight’s time, put in place a clear process for discussions in the New Year with a view to bringing legislative proposals before the Synod in July.”

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Almost a year after being appointed to shepherd Anglican communities seeking to join the Catholic Church, Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson says the past months have been showered with blessings.

“I think the real joys have been to see communities that have struggled with the decision of discerning whether to become Catholic and have made that choice, and they have come in,” he told CNA in a November interview.

He described “the joy on their faces” as they enter the Catholic Church and said, “That’s the thing that sticks in my mind the most.”

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The recession continued to affect how much Americans gave to charity last year, and the triple whammy of Superstorm Sandy, a national election and the looming fiscal cliff may cut how much we donate in the crucial final month of 2012, experts say.

Charitable giving overall increased by $6 billion in 2011, an increase of almost 4 percent from 2010, according to the 2012 report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Individuals gave $217 billion, compared with $209 billion in 2010.

“A little less than two years out from the end of the Great Recession, we’re starting to see charitable giving increase modestly each year,” said Geoffrey Brown, executive director of the Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the report.

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“We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. It’s not a very American thing to say, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is.”

–Playright David Lindsay-Abaire.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This is a painful letter. It is painful because it concerns un-canonical (and perhaps even unlawful) actions on the part of our Presiding Bishop and her associates. These actions, detailed in the attached appendix and summarized in the bullet points below, have already undermined the good order and spiritual health of our church. We write to you our Bishops because of your responsibility for that good order. We write as Presbyters who have in one way or another faithfully served our church for over half a century. We pray that, despite the painful nature of the story we place before you, you will listen to what we have to say with a clear and open mind.

We urge you, therefore, to take careful note of the following points that are more fully spelled out in our appendix. We urge you further to take the necessary steps to restore the good order of our church.

– Three years ago, the Presiding Bishop began an extraordinary and unconstitutional intervention in the internal affairs of the Diocese of South Carolina….

Read it all and be sure to read the timeline attached. There is a printable pdf here

In a handful of majority-Muslim countries atheists can live safely, if quietly; Turkey is one example, Lebanon another. None makes atheism a specific crime. But none gives atheists legal protection or recognition. Indonesia, for example, demands that people declare themselves as one of six religions; atheism and agnosticism do not count. Egypt’s draft constitution makes room for only three faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Sharia law, which covers only Muslims unless incorporated into national law, assumes people are born into their parents’ religion. Thus ex-Muslim atheists are guilty of apostasy””a hudud crime against God, like adultery and drinking alcohol. Potential sanctions can be severe: eight states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan have the death penalty on their statute books for such offences.

In reality such punishments are rarely meted out. Most atheists are prosecuted for blasphemy or for inciting hatred….

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Hundreds of protesters were in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for a sixth day on Wednesday, demanding that Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi rescind a decree they say gives him dictatorial powers.

Five months into the Islamist leader’s term, and in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that unseated predecessor Hosni Mubarak last year, police fired teargas at stone-throwers following protests by tens of thousands on Tuesday against the declaration that expanded Mursi’s powers and put his decisions beyond legal challenge.

Protesters say they will stay in Tahrir until the decree is withdrawn, bringing fresh turmoil to a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring and delivering a new blow to an economy already on the ropes….

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Nowadays we do everything later, be it prancing shamelessly across a stage in front of thousands, à la Sir Michael Jagger, or conquering Mount Everest for a second time, like 73-year-old Tamae Watanabe. As we live longer, humanity is increasingly refusing to sit back, put its feet up and settle for a quiet old age.
Nowhere is this phenomenon of age aping youth more noticeable than in the field of divorce. So-called ”silver separation’’, the parting of couples in their sixties after as many as 40 years of marriage, is on the rise, bucking the general downward trend in divorce.
The actress Diana Quick was 61 when she separated from her actor partner, Bill Nighy, after 27 years. As she said in an interview with the Telegraph this week: “There are far more couples splitting up in their sixties now and one reason is that they can. Economically, they have more independence.”

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There is widespread support in England for teaching Christianity in schools, according to a YouGov poll released by Oxford University.

Almost two-thirds (64%) of the more than 1,800 people questioned said that children need to learn about Christianity to understand English history, while more than half (57%) said it was important if pupils are to understand the English culture and way of life….

Andrea Williams, Chief Executive of Christian Concern, welcomed the findings: “It is striking that so much of the public sees the need for Christianity to be taught properly. We are often given the impression that teaching about Jesus and His message is old-fashioned and irrelevant to a modern generation. But this survey shows that many people value the Christian framework.

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Thirty years have passed since French president François Mitterrand launched Europe’s last great wave of nationalisation, seizing the banks, insurance groups, arms makers and steel industry in the culminating debacle of the Collectivist era.

The whole world has been living in an era of privatisation ever since.

So it seems like a strange step back in time to hear France’s minister of industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, threatening a “temporary public takeover” of ArcelorMittal’s steel operations in the Lorraine plateau ”“ purportedly to save the blast furnaces of Florange and their 2,500 workers, so sacred in the Socialist Party catechism.

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In Ghana, where deeply held religious beliefs unite much of the population, a new group has formed around a shared disbelief in religion.

The Humanist Association of Ghana practices a philosophy that is mostly unheard-of in Ghana, which a recent survey ranked as the most religious country in the world. Nonetheless, the group has already made waves in West Africa.

Last weekend, the association hosted humanists from across the region for a conference in the capital of Accra, where attendees listened as speakers discussed the impact humanists could make on West African society. Lecturers talked about how humanists can stand up for gay and lesbian rights and against traditional practices like witch hunts. One talk dealt with whether humanism is compatible with belief in God.

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Cambridge researchers are to assess whether technology could end up destroying human civilisation.

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) will study dangers posed by biotechnology, artificial life, nanotechnology and climate change.

The scientists said that to dismiss concerns of a potential robot uprising would be “dangerous”.

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The U.S. was ranked 17th in an assessment of the education systems of 50 countries, behind several Scandinavian and Asian nations, which claimed the top spots.

Finland and South Korea grabbed first and second places, respectively, in a global league table published by the education firm Pearson, while Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

The study, carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), combines international test results and data such as literacy rates and graduation rates between 2006 and 2010.

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As you sat across the Thanksgiving table basking in the warmth of family and the aroma of chestnut stuffing, most likely you did not remember the vicious comment your Aunt Jennifer made about you a few years back. You didn’t dwell on Uncle Julio’s unkind reference to your drinking last Christmas or what cousin Duwan said about your girlfriend during that dreadful vacation at the shore. At family holidays, we tend to embrace our relatives even after months or years of not having seen one another, regardless of the quarrels we have had in the past.

We may chalk up our generous forgiveness to the festive spirit of the holiday, but the real reason has nothing to do with Thanksgiving; it is because of how we humans remember ”” and forget. Cognitive experts tell us that forgetting is fundamental to how we make sense of the world. Forgetting helps us survive, by making sure we don’t dwell in the past.

In the digital age, that mechanism of our humanity is under threat.

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O God, whose days are without end and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we pray thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of life; let thy Holy Spirit lead us in the paths of righteousness all our days; that when we shall have served thee in our generation, we may have an abundant entrance into thy everlasting kingdom; through thy mercy in Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Mediator.

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchae’us; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchae’us, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it they all murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchae’us stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”

–Luke 19:1-10

The debate about gay marriage is about sex and human identity, not homosexuality. Or, more accurately, it’s about homosexuality because it’s about sex and human identity. The progressive claim that we have a right to sexual expression is why they regard contraceptives and abortion as essential rights. It’s also one reason why our society is deeply committed to no-fault divorce.

Social conservatives like me don’t have a single view about how to respond to these contemporary realities. We don’t have a single view about how to grapple with the social reality of open and affirmed homosexuality in our society. But I think it’s fair to say that we all reject the progressive presumption that to have sexual desires creates a prima facie moral right to express them.

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Born in Sumter, SC, October 25,1922, he is the son of the late Joseph Herbert Haynsworth and Katherine Rees Sumter. Bishop Haynsworth began college at the Citadel in 1940 but was called into active duty during WWII. Upon returning from the war he graduated from the Citadel, Class of 1944. While attending Sewanee: University of the South he spent his summers as a counselor at Camp St. Christopher where he met his wife, Babbie, who was the camp nurse. He received his theological degree from the University of the South in 1949. He was ordained a priest in 1950. He served as a priest in SC and Savannah, GA. In 1960, led to serve as a missionary in Central America he ministered to the people of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua….

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Funeral services will be held Nov. 28 for the Rt. Rev. George Edward Haynsworth, 90, retired missionary bishop of Nicaragua and former assistant bishop in the Diocese of South Carolina.

Haynsworth died Nov. 24 after suffering a heart attack the day before. He lived in James Island, South Carolina.

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When the Church of England scuttled plans to allow women bishops on Nov. 20, incoming Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby called it “a very grim day for women and their supporters.”

Now, that grim day is turning into a church-state nightmare for Britain’s established church.

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“The entire mission of Jesus and the content of His message consists in proclaiming the Kingdom of God and establishing it among men through signs and wonders”, the Pope said. “But, as Vatican Council II observes, ‘the Kingdom is first manifested in the very person of Christ’, a kingdom He founded through His death on the cross and resurrection, by which He is revealed as the eternal Lord, Messiah and Priest. This Kingdom of Christ has been entrusted to the Church, which is the ‘seed’ and ‘beginning’ and has the task of proclaiming it and spreading it among all the nations with the power of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the determined time the Lord will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father and present to Him all those who have lived according to the commandment of love. … We are all called to extend the salvific work of God, converting to the Gospel and committing ourselves to serving the King Who came not to be served but to serve and give testimony to the truth”.

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Evangelical Protestants have become more devoted to their religious beliefs over the last three decades, even as Catholics have become less attached to their faith, new research finds.

The denominational differences come even as religious affiliations have decreased overall in America, with the number of people who claim no religious affiliation at all doubling from 7 percent in 1990 to 14 percent in 2000, said study researcher Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Nevertheless, Schwadel said, these unaffiliated individuals seem to be dropping out of religious institutions that they were previously ambivalent about. People who feel strongly about their faith are as numerous as ever.

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The holiday season is officially upon us. There are gifts to buy, recipes to perfect, and cards to be addressed. And while we may all spend the next frenzied weeks trying really, really hard not to let what’s important get lost in the shuffle, sometimes things slip through the cracks.

We intend to give back. We intend to get involved. But there are many options to choose from ”” and before we know it, we’re celebrating the New Year.

I want to make it easy for you. I want to show you how a holiday gift through World Vision can transform lives

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After his East Mississippi Community College football team went undefeated and won the 2011 junior college championship, star lineman Derrick “DJ” Wilson was offered full athletic scholarships to four-year colleges in Alabama and Louisiana.

But as the football season came to an end, the 2010 Horn Lake High graduate had more important concerns. His mother, Jelks Wilson, was dying of cancer. Wilson was driving home from school every weekend ”” an eight-hour round-trip ”” to care for her and his two younger sisters.

Wilson would wake to the sounds of his mother’s soft mumbling. Straining to hear, he realized she was praying.

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“The strong support of many of our Churches and faith communities for the traditional understanding of marriage cannot be overlooked. This message from the faith communities is a reminder that the Government needs to listen carefully to the voices of ordinary people.”
“It cannot be presumed that everyone is in favour of same-sex marriage because a vocal minority has captured the attention of the media,” stressed the Most Reverend Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham, during the Annual Civic Mass, at the Metropolitan Cathedral & Basilica of St Chad, Birmingham, on the Solemnity of Christ the King on Sunday.
The Archbishop of Birmingham emphasized: “At the same time faith communities must welcome a wider public debate in which we can dialogue with those who oppose our views.”

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The key political and constitutional problem is that, although the Church of England now behaves largely as if it is a voluntary society, it remains nonetheless part of the state. The Queen as head of state is ”˜Supreme Governor’ of the Church, must be in communion with it, holds the title Fidei Defensor and ”“ nominally ”“ appoints its senior clergy. The Archbishop crowns and anoints the new sovereign, and the Church conducts important public ceremonies and rituals effectively in relation to the UK as a whole. The Church’s courts remain courts of the land, although they lost their public law jurisdictions in the 1850s. Twenty-six bishops continue to sit in the House of Lords ”“ each nowadays actually appointed by a private, unaccountable committee of the Church itself.

These are high matters and could be addressed again by Parliament. However, whatever the degree of change made, none could procure the appointment of female bishops unless Parliament legislated directly to that end. In other words, disestablishment could not by itself resolve the particular question of female bishops. On the other hand, what disestablishment could do would be ”“ a very different matter ”“ to permit the state and Parliament to wash its hands of Church of England affairs altogether.

Since nothing so far suggests that Parliament contemplates such a rupture, it follows that the Church must be allowed to deal with the present crisis itself. Whether in doing so it strengthens the case for a radical review of remaining church/state ties is another question.

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President Obama’s re-election and Democratic gains in Congress were supposed to make it easier for the party to strike a deal with Republicans to resolve the year-end fiscal crisis by providing new leverage. But they could also make it harder as empowered Democrats, including some elected on liberal platforms, resist significant changes in entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

As Congress returned Monday, the debate over those programs, which many Democrats see as the core of the party’s identity, was shaping up as the Democratic version of the higher-profile struggle among Republicans over taxes.

In failed deficit reduction talks last year, Mr. Obama signaled a willingness to consider substantial changes in the social safety net, including a gradual increase in the eligibility age for Medicare and limits in the growth rate of future Social Security benefits. An urgent question hanging over the new round of deficit talks is which of those changes Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats would accept today….

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In Sexual Sanity for Men, David White of Harvest USA writes a book for men about their struggles with sexual immorality. White’s book is needed in the midst of a culture with expanding opportunities for sexual sin and a church whose skills to address those temptations have, at times, appeared weak. As White seeks to expand the church’s wisdom to address men’s sexual struggles, there is much to commend.

The most important thing that can be said of White’s effort is that he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the gospel of Jesus Christ for change. The most significant element of the church’s approach in the battle against sexual immorality does not consist in any process or procedure, but rather in a person whose name is Jesus.

White not only understands the importance of Christ’s power, he also underlines the necessity of connecting that power to the tangible categories of life in the midst of powerful enemies in the culture, the dark desires of humanity, and the prince of the power of the air. Furthermore, White explains that, in his great gospel, God not only forgives us but also gives us actual power to change (91).

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