[Archbishop Nicholas] Okoh, who a fierce critic of the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, described the selection process for the new church leader as “politicised”.
The cleric said, “The Prime minister of Britain will have to appoint (the Archbishop of Canterbury), whether he is a member of the Church or not.
“When you consider the political involvement, you can see the point we are trying to make.
“In other words, we are trying to say the Anglican Communion should be separated from the politics of Great Britain.’’

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French leader François Hollande is uncomfortably close to a collapse in credibility. His poll rating has sunk to 36pc. The speed of decline has been shocking.
The latest broadside comes from ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, supposedly his ally on the Left.
“The election promises of the French president are going to shatter on the walls of economic reality,” he said in Paris.

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A treatment which corrects errors in a person’s genetic code has been approved for commercial use in Europe for the first time.

The European Commission has given Glybera marketing authorisation, meaning it can be sold throughout the EU.

It is a gene therapy for a rare disease which leaves people unable to properly digest fats.

Read it all.

Read it all.

A spokeswoman for the national church, Neva Rae Fox, has said even if leaders or individual members of a diocese leave, the diocese itself stays within the Episcopal Church.

[Tom] Woodle said any church that wishes to remain in the Episcopal Church ”” which is effectively the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion ”” can make that move, though he only expects five or six to do so. The problems between the diocese and Lawrence run deeper than disagreements over homosexuality and church property, he said.

“The press has made this out to be only about openly gay bishops and priests, but we see that as a symptom of a flawed Christology in the Episcopal Church,” Woodle said. “The overwhelming majority in the denomination are revisionists. What they’ve decided is that Jesus is a way, a truth and a life, not the way, the truth and the life.”

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Jaded cynics may try to suggest that the Anglican Communion is divided over the Bible.

Well, there’s no need to buy into that notion any longer.

After three and half years of worldwide research, the Bible in the Life of the Church project has found that Anglicans around the globe ”“ and that includes Africans and Americans, conservatives and liberals ”“ share “a high common ground” over the essential place and use of the Bible in Anglican life….

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[In the 39 Articles of Religion]…Article VII… says, “… Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called moral.”

In other words, obey God’s law. The most sensitive issue involving the church, of course, was Gene Robinson’s election to bishop in the state of New Hampshire in 2003. Robinson was the first priest in a blessed and openly gay relationship to be ordained bishop in a major denomination believing in the historic episcopate (the collective body of all bishops of a church).

This is such a difficult conundrum, because reasonable people believe that we’re all God’s children, that no one chooses to be gay, and that no one who is gay would be excluded from heaven simply for being such. Although acceptance of this is, or at least should be, a no-brainer, there is evidence in both the Old and New Testaments clearly suggesting that gay relations are in violation of the word. By ignoring this when it comes to promoting individuals to positions of authority, whom are we trying to please: ourselves or God?

Read it all.

But I am besides my purpose when I fall to bewail the cold affection which we bear towards that whereby we should be saved, my purpose being only to set down what the ground of salvation is. The doctrine of the Gospel proposeth salvation as the end, and doth it not teach the way of attaining thereunto? Yes, the damsel possessed with a spirit of divination spake the truth: “These men are the servants of the most high God who show unto us the way of salvation” [Acts 16:17] — “a new and living way which Christ hath prepared for us through the veil, that is, his flesh,” [Heb 10:20] salvation purchased by the death of Christ.

–Learned Discourse on Justification (my emphasis)

O God of truth and peace, who didst raise up thy servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

–Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more.

–Luke 12:32-48

U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 171,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The politically important unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.9%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast a gain of 125,000 in payrolls and a 7.9% jobless rate.

Friday’s report offers the last broad snapshot of the economy before the Nov. 6 election. The campaign was overshadowed much of this week by Sandy, though severe disruption and damage caused by the storm isn’t reflected in the October employment figures because they are based on surveys conducted earlier in the month.

Read it all. Blog readers know I prefer U-6, which I consider the most representative rate–it went down from 14.7 to 14.6 month over month. You can find a list of all measures, U-1 through U-6, there and a longer term U-6 chart there–KSH.

Update: Dylan Matthews has 6 charts on the employment report here; note especially the one on wages.

[Australian bishop the Rt Revd Stephen Pickard]… went on to highlight the theological reflection on the Instruments in the report and said that there needed to be a proper understanding of the Instruments as a gift for the Communion that is primarily about relationships.

“The Instruments of Communion can lose their focus,” he said. “Their primary concern is the mission of God. Their horizon should be God’s work in the world. All deliberations, arguments [and] desire for corporate discernment, ought to be directed to God’s work in the world.”

Read it all.