The global financial crisis has strengthened the Church of England’s drive for more ethical business practices by making companies and shareholders more receptive to change, according to the man who manages its investment fund.

With about 5.5 billion pounds ($8.8 billion) of financial and property assets, the Church has greater clout than many hedge funds. But it has often struggled to make its voice heard.

That is starting to change, according to First Church Estates Commissioner Andreas Whittam Smith.

Read it all.

“Because of our unique witness and commitment to introducing our students to the historic English choral tradition, with its rich and varied approach to change-ringing, the gift of these magnificent bells will enhance our work and common life together,” said Canon Joseph A. Kucharski, professor of church music.

Change-ringing is common in England, where there are more than 5,000 towers, but there are fewer than 50 such towers in the United States.

Read it all.

The majority of local parishes and clergy, including Bishop Mark Lawrence, disassociated from The Episcopal Church last fall over theological and administrative disputes with that national church. Lawrence’s group filed a lawsuit against The Episcopal Church to retain control of property and identifying titles and marks.

“I’m encouraged by this ruling for the clarity it allows us in continuing with the mission and ministry of the diocese,” Lawrence said after Friday’s hearing.

The…[new TEC] diocese is led by Bishop Charles G. vonRosenberg who was installed three days after the temporary restraining order was issued.

Read it all.

…what happened late last week was not minor. Kill did not feel well as Minnesota prepared to leave for Michigan, and he stayed behind, and he hoped, right up until he had another seizure, that he would be able to fly to Ann Arbor on Saturday morning and lead his team to a statement win.

Only he did have another seizure. He stayed home. This was the first time he had not attended a game at all because of a seizure. And it was his fifth seizure on a game day and his second one this season.

Kill and the Minnesota football program did the right thing in light of all that Thursday. They did the right thing for the team, but more important ”” way, way more important ”” they did the right thing for Kill. When he can coach, he should. Until then, his health is more important. More coaches should consider that.

Read it all.

A jury found a Manhattan psychic guilty on Friday of swindling two women out of $138,000 in a case that probed the fine distinction between providing an unusual service and running a confidence scheme.

The fortune teller, Sylvia Mitchell, 39, who plied her trade at the opulent Zena Clairvoyant psychic shop on Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, scowled as the verdict was read, reaching up only once to dab an eye.

After the verdict, Justice Gregory Carro of Manhattan Supreme Court said he considered Ms. Mitchell, who lives with her two teenage children in Connecticut, a flight risk and ordered her held in jail. She faces up to 15 years in prison when she is sentenced on Oct. 29.

Read it all.

In “Our Father’s World,” Northland pastor Joel Hunter makes the argument to conservative Christians that saving energy, recycling waste and reducing your carbon footprint are all based on Scripture.

“The Bible provides a direct mandate to be caretakers of the garden,” Hunter says in the documentary. “While creation still belongs to God, he has graciously entrusted it to our care and stewardship.”

But the film also points out that evangelical Christians have abdicated the care of God’s creation to the New Age and secular environmentalists.

Read it all.

University of Michigan researchers will interview 3,000 American adults as part of an $8 million study of how religion and health are related, the school announced Tuesday.

The John Templeton Foundation is financing the study, which seeks to establish “solid explanations for why religion has both positive and negative effects on human physiology,” the Ann Arbor school said in a statement.

Public health professor Neal Krause and four colleagues from other schools will conduct the study.

Read it all.

A new text for the Catholic Mass which integrates centuries old Anglican prayers into the Roman Rite was officially introduced in a London church on Thursday.

The new liturgy, known as the Ordinariate Use, has been devised for the personal ordinariates ”“ the structures set up by Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion with the Pope, while preserving elements of their distinctive Anglican liturgical and pastoral traditions.

The Mass, at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, was celebrated by the leader ”“ or Ordinary ”“ of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton. It was offered in honour of the patron of the Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Newman, whose feast was on October 9.

Read it all.

THE Anglican Bishop of Wellington is to live a week in a small cabin-like “cell”, praying for New Zealand’s 8000-plus prisoners and their victims.

Bishop Justin Duckworth’s prayer vigil in the cell on the front steps of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul is part of Wellington diocese’s week-long focus on penal reform.

He will go into the cell after preaching at this Sunday’s 10am service in the cathedral and won’t leave it until next Sunday’s service.

Read it all.

In certain parts of America, the word fiancé does not mean what it used to. I first became aware of this when I was reporting a story in a small town in Wisconsin a couple of years ago and “Bug” Smith, a 50-year-old man who worked as a machinist introduced me to his “fiancée.” I was about to say “Congratulations!” but something stopped me. Their union did not have the air of expectant change about it. From their domestic surroundings, it looked like they lived basically as a married couple already, his boots next to hers by the front door, pictures of kids above the mantel. I later found out they’d been living together for 15 years and had two children.

ince then I have come across this phenomenon dozens of times, almost always in working-class couples, and usually younger ones. Someone will introduce me to his or her fiancé. But what they mean is more like my “steady lady” or my “steady man.” It could mean the person they are living with, or the father or mother of their child. It could also just mean the person they’ve been dating for a long time….

Read it all.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for all who believe in Him; to whom with thee, O Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all honour and glory, dominion and power, now and for evermore.

Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words? says the LORD. The command which Jon’adab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept; and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, ‘Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall dwell in the land which I gave to you and your fathers.’ But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. The sons of Jon’adab the son of Rechab have kept the command which their father gave them, but this people has not obeyed me. Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing on Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered.” But to the house of the Re’chabites Jeremiah said, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of Jon’adab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done all that he commanded you, therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Jon’adab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”

–Jeremiah 35:12-19

On October 9, 2013, Judge Thomas H. Ortbal of the Adams County Circuit Court entered a final judgment against ECUSA and its (no-longer-existent) “Diocese of Quincy”. The judgment decrees and declares that the Anglican Diocese of Quincy is the sole owner of its real and personal property, including approximately $4 million in its bank accounts that has been frozen ever since ECUSA first wrote a letter to its bank in January 2009.

In order to keep the funds frozen, ECUSA had filed a motion to stay enforcement of the judgment pending its appeal to the Fourth District Court of Appeals. It also filed a motion to substitute, in place of its former “Diocese of Quincy”, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, into which the former Diocese of Quincy merged ecclesiastically effective September 1.

Read it all.

St. George, SC, October 11, 2013 ”“ South Carolina Circuit Judge Diane S. Goodstein today ruled in favor of the Diocese of South Carolina’s position that her injunction, which prohibits The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Episcopal Church in South Carolina (ECSC) from using the names and seal of the Diocese of South Carolina, should remain in place.

Judge Goodstein issued the injunction and temporary restraining order in January.

“I’m not going to disturb the injunction,” she said. The judge said it will remain in place to protect the diocese’s duly registered marks. Under South Carolina civil law those are entitled to protection.

Read it all.

South Carolina news and links can be found here

The Most Rev Justin Welby advised churchgoers that it could be an “enormously powerful” experience to unburden themselves to a confessor, even if it was not always a “bunch of laughs”.

His comments came as he addressed the heads of other churches ”“ including the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England Wales, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols ”“ about divisions between Christians.

Although Archbishop Welby comes from the evangelical wing of Anglicanism, his personal spiritual director is a Swiss Roman Catholic priest, Fr Nicolas Buttet, and he is a strong advocate of Catholic worship styles.

Read it all.

After the news broke last week (on Anglican Ink) that Archbishop Welby was not going to Gafcon, a torrent of negative comments from the right and rejoicing from the left washed through the Anglican blogosphere. Others gave the archbishop the benefit of the doubt. And the vast majority paid it no mind at all.

On Anglican Unscripted I said that the excuse of having to baptize Prince George was the best get-out-of-a-social-obligation-free card I had ever heard. I gave the archbishop high praise for finding a way to finesse a sticky situation. And now we have this extraordinary volte face — and this pitiable explanation.

So, what is going on? Wheels within wheels? Or incompetence? From what I have been able to divine, Archbishop Welby is breaking free from the shackles of the Church of England’s bureaucracy. His predecessor, Rowan Williams, was Anglicanism’s Jimmy Carter (or for our English readers its Harold Wilson). The smartest man in the room — but clueless as to how to use his authority and office. Justin Welby started off well as archbishop, but has also fired some distress rockets that worry the Global South. While they like him and are encouraged by his sincere faith ”“ will the office overwhelm the man as it had Rowan Williams?

Read it all.