The majority of Egyptians have been holding their breath over the last few days. They were eagerly awaiting the announcement of the first president after the 25th of January Revolution. It was announced this afternoon, the 24th of June, that Mohammed Mursi won 51.7 percent of the votes, while his opponent Ahmed Shafiq won 48.3 percent. By this close margin, Mursi became the first Islamist President in Egypt….

We as a church accept the results of the election. We are committed to praying for Mursi, and we hope that he will fulfill his promises. We will continue to speak out if there is any deviation in our democratic journey.

We trust in God and His promises in the middle of this uncertainty and anxiety. He promised that the gates of Hades will never overcome His church. Please pray for our beloved country Egypt.

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(For the background on this, please see the earlier blog posts here and there.)–KSH.

Not once have I ever entertained the possibility that I wouldever find myself in this moment, preaching at the funeral of one of my children….

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Investment experts at Deutsche Bank now feel that a collapse of the common currency is “a very likely scenario.” German companies are preparing themselves for the possibility that their business contacts in Madrid and Barcelona could soon be paying with pesetas again. And in Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is thinking of running a new election campaign, possibly this year, on a return-to-the-lira platform.

Nothing seems impossible anymore, not even a scenario in which all members of the currency zone dust off their old coins and bills — bidding farewell to the euro, and instead welcoming back the guilder, deutsche mark and drachma.

It would be a dream for nationalist politicians, and a nightmare for the economy. Everything that has grown together in two decades of euro history would have to be painstakingly torn apart. Millions of contracts, business relationships and partnerships would have to be reassessed, while thousands of companies would need protection from bankruptcy. All of Europe would plunge into a deep recession

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Nearly four years after a borrowing binge gave way to financial crisis, have households slashed enough debt to take on new credit and start spending again?

Yes, says a growing chorus of economists, with some evidence to back them up. The Federal Reserve’s ratio of debt service payments to disposable income is at its lowest level since 1994.

But that traditional measure is a poor guide today, as credit-hungry adults under 45 bear the brunt of the jobs, housing and student loan crises.

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The Church of England has today published its latest information both about parish income and expenditure and about trends in ministry numbers in Church Statistics 2010/11.

The attendance statistics included were published in January 2012. This year’s financial statistics show that parish giving remained resilient in 2010 despite the general economic situation. With investment income still at the reduced level experienced in recent years overall parish income was marginally ahead of the previous year.

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St. James’s is the Anglican Parish Church of Hampton Hill, Middlesex.
We seek to be a Christian community and local community drawing closer to God. We are:
Ӣ Liberal Open to new ideas and possibilities with a critical eye to the past and present, and generous in our attitudes.
”¢ Catholic This literally means ”˜universal’ and so we recognise our setting in the wider world and Church, and value the past as well as being concerned for the future.
Ӣ Eucharistic Our principal act of worship is the eucharist and we explicitly acknowledge Christ present in the world with all this entails for Christian living.

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THE church, in Albert Hill, was torn apart when a significant number of its congregation left earlier this year.

Dozens of members of the congregation, as well as their vicar, Father Ian Grieves, left to join the Ordinariate, a structure within the Roman Catholic Church that allows former Anglicans to join but retain elements of their Anglican tradition.

Early last year, it became clear that a significant number of parishioners at the church, which was built in the 1870s, wanted to join the Roman Catholic Ordinariate….

The result was an inevitable, but amicable, split.

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The Anglican Diocese of Accra, Church of the Province of West Africa, on Sunday consecrated Venerable Dr Daniel Silvanus Mensah Torto as the Ninth Anglican Bishop of Accra.

As a Co-Adjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Accra, an assistant, Mensah Torto will succeed the Most Reverend Justice Ofei Akrofi, as Archbishop and Primate of the Church of the Province of West Africa, when he retires on October 29, after attaining 70 years. He would have served for 16 years.

The consecration was performed by the Most Rev. Ofei Akrofi.

The Most Rev. Dr Peter Akinola, a retired Archbishop and Primate of all Nigeria, delivered the sermon for the occasion and advised priests to uphold the core principles of Christianity.

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The Rev. Edward Meeks and his flock attended to a “million and one details” last week in the run-up to a momentous day for their church. People to talk to. Flowers to arrange. Food to cook. And, of course, the new sign.

On Sunday, Christ the King Church ”” Anglican ”” became Christ the King Catholic Church.

The Towson congregation of about 140 is one of the first groups in the United States to join a new “ordinariate” established for those who want to be Catholic but hold on to Anglican traditions. The largest Anglican church in the country to do so, it follows in the footsteps of Mount Calvary Church in Baltimore and St. Luke’s Parish in Bladensburg.

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[THE] REV. MICHAEL] TANNER: What I see coming to us and joining us is a group of people who have been knocked down all their lives and who are just remarkably joyous and remarkably full of faith. They get it that God loves them and that their suffering is just part of life, and God loves them through it, and they love each other through it.

[DEBORAH] POTTER: One out of every ten people will experience a severe and persistent mental illness at some point in life, experts say. For decades society shut those people away in institutions. But now they’re more visible on the streets and in group homes, and faith communities have been challenged to respond.

Holy Comforter responded 15 years ago when a group home opened nearby and the priest at the time invited the residents to church. Today, almost two-thirds of the congregation is made up of people with mental illness””including bipolar disorder, clinical depression, and schizophrenia””who worship together”¦

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The Supreme Court is set this week to decide the politically charged constitutional clashes between President Obama and Republicans over his healthcare law and his immigration enforcement policy.

By most accounts, the justices must make a stark, clear choice either to endorse Obama’s policies ”” including the mandate for all to have health insurance ”” or to strike them down as flatly unconstitutional.

But the justices could rule in unexpected ways that would allow both sides to claim a victory.

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As he left the meeting, [Richard] Holbrooke pulled out his trump card ”” a call to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was traveling in Saudi Arabia. The following week, Clinton went to see Obama armed with a list of Holbrooke’s accomplishments. “Mr. President,” she said, “you can fire Richard Holbrooke ”” over the objection of your secretary of state.” But Jim Jones, Clinton said, could not.

Obama backed down, but Jones didn’t, nor did others at the White House. Instead of capitalizing on Holbrooke’s experience and supporting his push for reconciliation with the Taliban, White House officials dwelled on his shortcomings ”” his disorganization, his manic intensity, his thirst for the spotlight, his dislike of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his tendency to badger fellow senior officials. At every turn, they sought to marginalize him and diminish his influence.

The infighting exacted a staggering cost: The Obama White House failed to aggressively explore negotiations to end the war when it had the most boots on the battlefield.

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As the first freely elected president of Egypt, Mr. Morsi has a historic opportunity, but he faces a litany of challenges that could prevent him from becoming more than just a figurehead. He will have to spar with the generals, who, just after the election, stripped much of the power from the presidency, and he must overcome the doubts of those who chose his opponent ”” nearly half of the voters ”” and millions more who did not vote.

Mr. Morsi will also have to convince Egyptians that he represents more than just the narrow interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and to soothe fears among many that his true goal is to bind the notion of citizenship itself more closely to Islam.

“The challenges are very strong,” said Mohammed Habib, a former deputy chairman of the Brotherhood who has worked with Mr. Morsi. “Everyone is watching him through a microscopic lens.”

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Almighty God, by whose providence thy servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Savior by preaching repentance: Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

O gracious and holy Father, give us wisdom to perceive thee, diligence to seek thee, patience to wait for thee, eyes to behold thee, a heart to meditate upon thee, and a life to proclaim thee; through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Saint Benedict

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

–Romans 3:21-31

Definitions of class are hard to come by ”” so much so that the U.S. Department of Commerce, on behalf of Vice President Joe Biden’s White House Task Force on the Middle Class, emphasized descriptive language rather than statistics, finding that “middle-class families are defined by their aspirations more than their income. [We assume] that middle-class families aspire to homeownership, a car, college education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations.”

The government’s verdict: “It is more difficult now than in the past for many people to achieve middle-class status because prices for certain key goods ”” health care, college and housing ”” have gone up faster than income.”
Median household income has also remained stagnant for more than a decade; when the figures are adjusted for inflation, Americans are making less now than they were when Bill Clinton was in the White House.

There, in brief, is the crisis of our time. The American Dream may be slipping away. We have overcome such challenges before. To recover the Dream requires knowing where it came from, how it lasted so long and why it matters so much.

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Italy were the better team and deserved to win.

Egypt’s military rulers on Sunday officially recognized Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood as the winner of Egypt’s first competitive presidential election, handing the Islamists both a symbolic triumph and a potent weapon in their struggle for power against the country’s senior generals.

Mr. Morsi, 60, an American-trained engineer and a former lawmaker, now stands ready to become the first non-military figure to lead Egypt in generations. But 16 months after the military took over at the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Morsi’s victory is an ambiguous milestone in Egypt’s promised transition to democracy.

After a week of doubts, delays and fears of a coup since a public ballot count showed Mr. Morsi ahead, the generals have showed a measure of respect for some core elements of electoral democracy ”” they have accepted a political opponent over their ally, former Gen. Ahmed Shafik, after a vote that international monitors said was credible.

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