Zombies are coming, according to the Fox News website.
The news outlet’s homepage accidentally displayed numerous fake but funny headlines on Tuesday morning in the US after accidentally turning live a homepage prototype. Initially, many believed Fox News’ website had been hacked.
A group of experts in medicine, law and ethics has issued a blistering report that accuses the United States government of directing doctors, nurses and psychologists, among others, to ignore their professional codes of ethics and participate in the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The report was published Monday by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, an ethics group based at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy network founded by the billionaire George Soros.
The authors were part of a 19-member task force that based its findings on a two-year review of public information. The sources included documents released by the government, news reports, and books and articles from professional journals.
The Rev Baden Stace, rector of St Cuthbert’s Carlton and chair of the Jesus brings steering committee says the aim is really to support the local parishes to push particularly hard in 2014 with mission.
“We’re trying to energise the parishes,” he says. “Connect 09 was a great time for many churches across the Diocese, and they sounded energised to be part of something bigger, and to be part of something together… we’re wanting to equip them and give a mission focus such that 80,000 Christians in Anglican churches across Sydney and the Illawarra can collectively shout out to our region what Jesus brings, and get to the heart of the gospel.”
IRD: I noticed that GAFCON focused on a re-evangelization of the West. What can you tell us about that? What are some of your hopes and plans on this front?
BDH: As you know, the reason for the first GAFCON in 2008 was in response to certain actions and movements going on the western church that were deemed again to be something as an impediment to the clear proclamation of the Gospel. So it’s been recognized that there are certain issues facings the western church that, in some circles, have undermined the credibility of the Church and the Gospel being preached in those areas””that something needs to be done in terms of addressing these issues.
It’s also been recognized that the western church, as far as church attendance goes (we could say on some level fervency and evangelism and things related to that) are waning, whereas in the Global South being planted at a dramatic rated, church attendance is dramatically higher there than it is in the West. So there’s something going on there in the Global South that is to be emulated and learned from by the western church. And so, I think everyone at GAFCON has recognized there are things that the Global South can do to help us as we try to wrestle with our culture and doing evangelism and the work of the church.
The news of the day is full of loud, messy intersections between religion and politics.
Roman Catholic bishops go to court to resist the birth control provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Muslims in Dearborn, Mich., lobby successfully for accommodations on student-led prayer in public schools. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives declares 2012 the “Year of the Bible.”
Mothers who still warn their children not to talk religion or politics in polite company may be wasting their breath. Yet the debates that turn on people’s religious freedom and government’s regard (or disregard) for faith are worth having in a society that must balance assorted rights.
Grocery aisles in Washington state could look a little different in 2015 if voters approve a ballot measure on Tuesday (Nov. 5) to require product labels to disclose when genetically modified crops are included.
Most of the processed foods and beverages that dominate the shelves are made with some sort of genetically modified crop, like soy or corn.
Campbell Soup Co., PepsiCo Inc. and Kellogg Co. are among the companies pumping money into the fight against the referendum, known as Initiative 522, claiming the measure is misleading, would hurt farmers and raise grocery costs.
Samaritans was started in 1953 in London by a young vicar named Chad Varah, then incumbent of St Stephen Walbrook. Through his work in a number of different parishes in the City he had seen the range and extent of the distress experienced by people everywhere, every day. During his career he had offered counselling to his parishioners, and he increasingly wanted to do something specific to help people in distress who had no one to turn to. He makes reference to one example of a girl aged 14, whom he had buried – in unconsecrated ground. She had started her periods, but having no one to talk to believed that she had a sexually transmitted disease and took her own life.
He says, “I might have dedicated myself to suicide prevention then and there, providing a network of people you could ‘ask’ about anything, however embarrassing, but I didn’t come to that until later”.
Q.: You said recently that most of our disagreements are about power and prestige rather than dogma or doctrine. What exactly do you mean?
Archbishop Welby: ”¦We exist in different church communities, different ecclesial communities around the world and the longer that goes on, the more our different communities embed their own institutions and put down roots. Some of them have been putting down roots for centuries and that makes it harder and harder for us to say, well, actually, perhaps we need to reimagine what it means to look like the church and to surrender some of the things that give us our sense of identity in the cause of Christ. There are very fundamental and extremely important doctrinal and dogmatic differences that we have between us and they have to be worked on, as they are with Rome and the Anglicans with ARCIC, and we take those extremely seriously. It’s absolutely essential that those are worked on. But we need to make sure we’re working on them in the context of churches and ecclesial communities that say no sacrifice is too great to be obedient to the call of Christ that we may be one.
Q.: ”¦ Neither you nor Pope Francis seem remotely interested in power and prestige. Does this mean therefore that we can expect some kind of surprising healing or reconciliation in the near future?
Archbishop Welby: God has given you, and given us all, a great Pope. And he’s a great Pope of surprises”¦ and I think people are inspired and uplifted by what they see in Pope Francis, as I am. I think he’s a wonderful person. Surprises? Yes, I think there’ll be one or two surprises. We’re hoping to produce a few surprises.
Read or listen to it all (just slightly under 9 1/3 minutes).
A tumblr entitled “Selfies at Funerals” is the latest variation on the theme of spiritual entropy facing the modern world. The tumblr consists of self portraits of pretty youngsters making goofy expressions or showing off how flattering their dress or hair cut makes them look on the way to or after a funeral.
The phenomenon of “the funeral selfie” is inevitable in a culture entirely adverse to pain and terrified of dying. We would much prefer to make a silly face and strike a pose then to contemplate the fact we will inevitably die. As the Atlantic observed, what formerly inspired reflection and mourning now inspires a goofy grin or a suggestive pose. When death confronted Macbeth he pondered perhaps that life is nothing more than “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We are content to shout “YOLO! LMFAO!” and pose for a quick photo to show off how good our hair looks for the funeral. To see a loved one as a corpse and realize that we too shall be just as dead is too much for modern man’s constitution; he is too used to taking every available short cut with the aid of modern science and technology. The idea that pain, suffering and death are things we must come to grips with in order to be fully human is entirely foreign to our sensibilities.
As a result, we tend to gloss over death whenever possible when it rears its head in our lives.
Insurers say the early buyers of health coverage on the nation’s troubled new websites are older than expected so far, raising early concerns about the economics of the insurance marketplaces.
If the trend continues, an older, more expensive set of customers could drive up prices for everyone, the insurers say, by forcing them to spread their costs around. “We need a broad range of people to make this work, and we’re not seeing that right now,” said Heather Thiltgen of Medical Mutual of Ohio, the state’s largest insurer by individual customers. “We’re seeing the population skewing older.”
The early numbers, described to The Wall Street Journal by insurance executives, agents, state officials and actuaries, are still small””partly a consequence of the continuing technical problems plaguing the federally run exchanges, experts say. HealthCare.gov, the federally run marketplace serving 36 states, is suffering serious technical problems that have prevented many people from signing up.
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Jeff Walton, Anglican program director at the Institute on Religion & Democracy, told The Christian Post that these losses may even be larger than what is recorded.
According to Walton, TEC’s numbers are not factoring in the losses it technically sustained when the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina voted to leave the denomination last year.
“The reported nearly 29,000 member drop does not include an estimated 22,000 that departed with the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina in November of 2012. So the real decline is about 51,000 persons,” said Walton. “The Episcopal Church is continuing a gradual, predictable decline in both members and attendance.”
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Read it all and think about what is said and left unsaid.
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Read it all and read it carefully. You may also find still more material there.
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Check it out carefully and also look and there.
The case now before the court may not be decided on the issue of whether local citizens who must go before a city council to conduct business should be forced to listen to an opening prayer. The justices treat adults differently from school children in many church-state issues. And the town has not censored the prayers or barred anyone from giving them.
Rather the court may focus on the lower court’s attempt to analyze the prayers on whether they used “generically theistic terms” or refer to a deity as male. The lower court found most of the prayers to be too Christian and thus impose one faith on the citizenry….
The high court’s history hints that it will rule in favor of the city council, recognizing that prayer is too private for public control or official definition. Courts can serve justice better if they are silent about the nature of prayer ”“ and the power of prayer in individual lives.
Stanley J. White, the Assemblies of God minister and then a postulant for the priesthood, had pushed the envelope any number of times since succeeding his father as pastor of Evangel Assembly of God. His devotional readings had led him to the Book of Common Prayer, among other sources of spirituality, and he had already grown weary of evangelicalism’s endless quest for innovation. Some time after he initiated a liturgical procession ”” perhaps still the only instance in the century-long history of the Assemblies of God ”” some complaints alerted denominational authorities in Springfield, Mo. White was quickly sacked, but, much to his surprise, a significant number of his congregants indicated their willingness to accompany him on his spiritual journey, wherever it might lead.
It led, finally, to the Episcopal Church and to that memorable Sunday evening in 1990. The evangelicals sought the structure and connectedness of historic Christianity, but they also had no intention of leaving their pentecostal enthusiasm behind. Harry Shipps, the bishop of Georgia, said that they didn’t have to, that in fact he welcomed their enthusiasm, though I don’t know that he was quite prepared for that event. After the confirmands queued up before five bishops and all the confirmations were completed, the congregation erupted in orgiastic celebration.
I was more than a tad hesitant about returning to Valdosta. I was afraid, frankly, that the journey from Assemblies of God to Episcopal Church might have been a bridge too far, that pressures from within and without might have triggered a conservative backlash….
Almighty God, whose blessed Son taught in all honesty the way of life that thou requirest: Grant that we may so live as dutiful and loyal citizens of our earthly country, that we may show ourselves to be members of that heavenly country whereof thou art sovereign Lord and King; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
–L. E. H. Stephens-Hodge
And I will grant my two witnesses power to prophesy for one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands which stand before the Lord of the earth. And if any one would harm them, fire pours out from their mouth and consumes their foes; if any one would harm them, thus he is doomed to be killed. They have power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.
–Revelation 11:3-6
From here:
On November 5th, New York voters will be presented with Proposal 1, the New York Casino Gambling Amendment, which would allow the legislature to authorize up to seven new casinos in the state. The stated purposes of this constitutional amendment are to promote job growth, increase funding to schools, and permit local governments to lower property taxes. These are more than reasonable goals, but what is not said is that in places where casino gambling has been introduced, almost all gains have come at the high social cost of addiction and family disintegration, and deepening poverty. Some of these casinos are targeted for regions in New York, including in our diocese, characterized by entrenched poverty. The infusion of such false hopes into communities of economic desperation will, we are convinced, prove ruinous to people and families who will turn to the empty promises of casino gambling. There are no quick fixes to the challenges of struggling cities and towns, and we call on our elected leaders instead to focus on the kind of investment and hard work that build sound, long-term economic health and the self-sufficiency of communities. The Episcopal Church has long opposed casino gambling for all of these reasons, and so we stand in opposition to Proposal 1.
The Right Reverend Andrew M. L. Dietsche
Bishop of New York
National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald has been elected as North American regional president for the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) during its 10th assembly currently taking place in Busan, Republic of Korea.
MacDonald becomes the first representative from the Anglican Church of Canada to assume this leadership role in the WCC. He will remain in his capacity as national indigenous Anglican bishop.
Founded in 1948, the WCC is an ecumenical fellowship of 349 member churches and denominations, representing over 560 million Christians in over 110 countries.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled for the plaintiffs. While prayers before legislative sessions do not necessarily violate the Constitution, the court said, the “overwhelming predominance” of the prayers was explicitly Christian, leading a reasonable observer to understand the town to be endorsing that religion over others, regardless of the town’s intent. (After the suit was filed, the board invited representatives of other religions, including Judaism, the Baha’i faith and Wicca, to deliver the prayer, but after four months the prayers were almost exclusively Christian again.)
Defenders of the board’s practice rely on a 1983 Supreme Court case that upheld prayers before legislative sessions ”” including those of Congress ”” because they are “deeply embedded” in American history. The prayers in Greece are constitutional, the defenders say, because they may be delivered by anyone, and the town does not compel citizens to pray.
But compulsion is not the only issue. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a 1984 case, when a government appears to endorse one religion, it “sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community.” After the Greece lawsuit was filed, one of the plaintiffs received a letter, signed “666,” that read, “If you feel ”˜unwanted’ at the Town of Greece meetings, it’s probably because you are.”
No one wants to be against Grandma, who ”” as portrayed in the media ”” is kindly, often suffering from some condition, usually financially precarious and somehow needy. But projecting this sympathetic portrait onto the entire 65-plus population is an exercise in make-believe and, frequently, political propaganda. The St. Louis Fed study refutes the stereotype. Examining different age groups, it found that since the financial crisis, incomes have risen for the elderly while they’ve dropped for the young and middle-aged.
The numbers are instructive. From 2007, the year before the financial crisis, to 2010, median income for the families under 40 dropped 12.4 percent to $39,644. For the middle-aged from 40 to 61, the comparable decline was 11.9 percent to $56,924. Meanwhile, those aged 62 to 69 gained 12.3 percent to $50,825. For Americans 70-plus, the increase was 15.6 percent to $31,512. (All figures adjust for inflation and are in 2010 “constant” dollars. The “median income” is the midpoint of incomes and is often considered “typical.”)
There has been a historic shift in favor of today’s elderly. To put this in perspective, recall that many family expenses drop with age. Mortgages are paid off; work costs vanish; children leave. Recall also that incomes typically follow a “life cycle”: They start low in workers’ 20s, peak in their 50s, and then decline in retirement, as wages give way to government transfers and savings. Against these realities, the long-term gains of the elderly and losses of the young are astonishing. From 1989 to 2010, median income increased 60 percent for those aged 62 to 69 while falling 6”‰percent for those under 40 and 2”‰percent for those 40 to 61.
The prayers of parishioners at two cold and damp churches have been answered after the Diocese of Exeter agreed to trial re-heatable cushions on the pews.
One hundred cushions are being trialled in Broadclyst and South Tawton’s Anglican churches for three months.
Designed for use by sports fans, the cushions are part of a campaign to cut carbon emissions and look at new heating systems for church buildings.
“In the western section of the diocese,” the Rev. John Stark Ravenscroft told North Carolina Episcopalians in 1825, “the prospect (of advancing the faith) is very discouraging, though not without hope.”
“Spiritual destitution” is how Bishop Levi Silliman Ives characterized our region’s religious landscape 19 years later, though the physical landscape was “beautiful and striking, far beyond my powers of description.”
Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians had made great spiritual progress in Western North Carolina as early as the 18th century. Samuel Edney, head of the Methodist church’s Swannanoa circuit, established the first camp meeting west of the Blue Ridge in what is now Edneyvillle in the 1790s; in 1797, the Rev. George Newton turned Asheville’s Union Hill Academy into a Presbyterian school named after him. The French Broad Baptist Church was organized in Henderson County in 1780, and regional churches formed the French Broad Baptist Association in 1807.
Nadia Bolz-Weber bounds into the University United Methodist Church sanctuary like a superhero from Planet Alternative Christian. Her 6-foot-1 frame is plastered with tattoos, her arms are sculpted by competitive weightlifting and, to show it all off, this pastor is wearing a tight tank top and jeans.
Looking out at the hundreds of people crowded into the pews to hear her present the gospel of Jesus Christ, she sees: Dockers and blazers. Sensible shoes. Grandmothers and soccer moms. Nary a facial piercing.
To Bolz-Weber’s bafflement, this is now her congregation: mainstream America.
“’God of life, lead us to justice and peace’ has become a prayer around the world.” These were words of Dr Wedad Abbas Tawfik about the theme of the World Council of Churches (WCC) 10th Assembly. She shared her experiences and hopes for social and political stability as a Coptic Christian in her country, Egypt.
Tawfik, who was one of the speakers at the World Council of Churches (WCC) 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea, made special reference to the situation of Christians in the Middle East, Egypt and Syria in particular, inviting prayers for peace for the region.
Tawfik was addressing a plenary session of the WCC assembly on 31 October.
Elizabeth and I at the new 9/11 memorial this past Saturday morning–KSH.
What was supposed to be a touchy-feely, one-on-one interview by Oprah Winfrey with long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad has morphed into a broader, sometimes angry exchange about what it means to be an atheist.
Earlier this month Winfrey, 59, hosted Nyad on “Super Soul Sunday,” her weekly talk program on cable’s Oprah Winfrey Network. Nyad, 64, recently completed a 53-hour solo swim from Cuba to Florida.
During the hourlong segment, Nyad declared herself an atheist. She then explained, “I can stand at the beach’s edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist, go on down the line, and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity. All the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt and suffered. So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity.”