An award-winning pastor and the congregation he leads at the Flora-Bama lounge have left the United Methodist denomination, he confirmed Wednesday.

The Rev. Jeremy Mount, who received the Harry Denman Evangelism Award in June at the United Methodists’ annual meeting in Mobile, turned in his credentials in mid-December, he said. He is the third well-known pastor to leave the Alabama-West Florida Conference in 2013.

“We’ve always loved the local churches we’ve been a part of,” said Mount, who was discipleship pastor at Perdido Bay UMC and led Worship on the Water as a ministry of the church. “We have had a harder time dealing with the larger structure of the denomination.”

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Months after super typhoon Hayaan destroyed large parts of the Philippines, many survivors say prayer got them through the storm and the difficult times afterwards. “The comment that I have heard is that God can send the cyclone here because the Filipino people are so strong that we can overcome even a storm this strong,” says Catholic Relief Services emergency coordinator Elizabeth Tromans.

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When Jesus came, he said to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). On his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). He also instructed his disciples that their message to the people should be a message of peace. This was clear in his saying, “When you enter a house, first say, “Peace to this house.” (Luke 10:5).

However, some may ask, “where is this peace?”…….

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Three below zero on a Minnesota morning, and the Rev. Oliver White stomps the snow off his boots as he enters the stucco edifice of Clark Memorial United Church of Christ to lead worship. He peels off an overcoat to reveal the kente-cloth vestments his wife made for him, which match the kufi hat he wears.

On this Sunday midway between Christmas and New Year’s Day, he sees a congregation thinned by both vacation and weather. Perhaps 50 people fill the pews, yet in their modest number resides a startling range: a lesbian couple with their son; a 98-year-old man who still shovels his own sidewalk; the black and white relatives of a biracial baby about to be baptized.

“Good morning, and let’s have the church say, ”˜Amen,’ “ Mr. White, 71, begins, standing in the aisle rather than at the pulpit. Hearing the desultory response, he chides: “That was only half the church. Again?” The voices now rise, and he adds his own emphatic “Amen!”

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The Iraq war may have never been declared lost. But the stunning surge in violence over the past year ”” and the return of al-Qaeda in the western province of Anbar this month ”” is forcing Americans who invested personally in the war’s success to grapple with haunting questions.

“Could someone smart convince me that the black flag of al-Qaeda flying over Fallujah isn’t analogous to the fall of Saigon?” former Army captain Matt Gallagher asked on Twitter. “Because. Well.”

Gallagher, 30, who left the Army to pursue a writing career in New York, has kept close tabs on Iraq since the end of his deployment as a platoon commander in the outskirts of Baghdad in 2009. He has a Google alert for Saba al-Bor, a small village northwest of Baghdad where his infantry platoon spent 15 months living in terror of armor-penetrating roadside bombs and in awe of the complexities of tribal politics.

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O Almighty God, who by thy holy Apostle hast taught us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto thee, as our reasonable service: Hear us, we beseech thee, as we now come to thee in the name of Jesus Christ; and give us grace that we may dedicate ourselves wholly to thy service, and henceforth live only to thy glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

–Ephesians 1:3-10

The U.S. fertility rate hit an all-time low in 2012, according to the latest statistics released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

According to the CDC, in 2012 3,952,841 births were registered in the U.S., which was 749 fewer than in 2011. This translated into a total fertility rate of 63.0 births per 1,000 women aged 15”“44, down from 63.2 births in 2011.

While a fertility rate of about 2.1 babies per women over their lifetime is required to maintain a steady population in developed countries, in the United States it currently sits at 1.88, down from 1.89 in 2011.

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There was a moment, sitting in the Oval Office with then-President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney when she asked herself: Am I really here?

It was 2007, and Nancy Pellegrini had spent many late nights preparing for the intelligence briefing, one of her duties as a senior Iraq military analyst for the CIA.

The president was gracious; Pellegrini conquered her nerves. And she did it all again during other briefings for the president and policymakers, highlights of her career as a CIA military analyst.

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Army Ranger Joshua Hargis lay braced, tangled and constrained by tubing in his hospital bed. Yet bound by duty, he managed to raise his hand in full salute as his commander awarded him the Purple Heart.

“At that point, I knew what I was supposed to do,” Hargis said as recounted the moment to NBC News. “So I hold my arm up. It felt stuck a little bit, so I started tuggin’ on it and I pulled it all the way up and, you know, presented my salute as best as I could.”

The moment made grown men at his hospital bedside weep and it instantly became viral after Hargis’ wife, Taylor, shared the photo on her Facebook page.

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…while Scripture is clear that murder, marital unfaithfulness and stealing, for example, are all unquestionably out of bounds in the life of a believer, alcohol consumption is not so clear-cut. As a result, Christians today have wide and divergent views on drinking and its acceptability in the life of a Christian.

Here, we talk with Brett McCracken, author of Gray Matters: Navigating the Space Between Legalism and Liberty, about a biblical view of alcohol, how different generations approach drinking and why all of this matters for the expansion of the Gospel in the world.

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This really is the question in today’s paper: Q: My friend has recently split up with his long-term girlfriend (he is in his early thirties, as am I), and is really enjoying his new, revived, single sex life. It’s made me question my relationship ”” whether I’m happy or not. I’ve been in a relationship for eight years and we have lived together for five years now. Should I play the field before settling down for life? I don’t want to realise later that I’ve missed out. Read it all (subscriber only) to see the answer

Throughout their married life, Greg and Renee Wood have always been the ones who take care of other people.

As Christian pastors for nearly 20 years, they tended to the spiritual – and temporal – needs of their congregation.

As parents, they raised six children of their own while also taking in dozens of abused youngsters….

…when the Woods found themselves sick, unemployed and on the brink of being evicted from their home earlier this year, asking for help didn’t come easily to them.

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The 1988 film [The Last Temptation of Christ] stars Willem Dafoe as a Jesus Christ who imagines himself subject to temptations including lust, and David Bowie as Pontius Pilate. Barbara Hershey won a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress as Mary Magdalene. The film’s original release led to protests and it is still banned in some countries.

Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury who was previously Bishop of Bath and Wells, defended the cathedral. “I would have no problem with this and support the Dean and Chapter,” he said.

The diocese is about to get a new bishop, the Right Rev Peter Hancock, currently Bishop of Basingstoke. He declined to comment but another conservative evangelical warned that there could be protests. “It has got a heterodox view of Christ. It has upset people,” he said.

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There should be more religious education in Australian schools, says one of the men tasked with reviewing the national curriculum.

Former teacher and ex-Liberal Party staffer Kevin Donnelly says Australian education has become too secular, and the federation’s Judeo-Christian heritage should be better reflected in the curriculum.

The review was announced yesterday by Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, after concerns the curriculum had become too left-leaning and was failing students.

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Legalisation is just the first step. Pot must also be regulated. Because it is more dangerous than chocolate or chips, it needs to be subject to more stringent safety checks than food. As with alcohol, anybody who wants to produce it for sale, or sell it, should be licensed, as they will be in Colorado. It should carry clear labels showing its tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, just as cans of beer display their alcoholic strength””consumers should know what they are smoking. Colorado seems to be handling this well: labels are clear, safety rules stringent.

Deciding how to tax the stuff means asking some fundamental questions. Where governments want to raise revenue without distorting markets, the best approach is to charge businesses a flat fee, like a cab licence. Firms then have an incentive to do as much business as they can. But where governments want to discourage consumption””as with cigarettes and alcohol””they should tax each unit sold.

Although marijuana does not harm people as reliably as cigarettes do, nor””as alcohol does””incite citizens to kill each other, it is not good for you. And although too little research has been done on the extent of the harm it can do, it is thought to raise the risk of schizophrenia and undermine motivation. This argues for a consumption tax, and a fairly stiff one at that.

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What is the difference between the General of the Salvation Army and the Pope? Less than I presumed a week ago. Both, of course, care about the poor, which has ever been a mark of the Church.
“Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life,” declared St John Chrysostom 1,600 years ago. “The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.”
Until last week, I’d thought the Salvation Army was Calvinist. That is no crime. But the Army, I find, believes that the “saved” can backslide. “We believe that continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ.” That is No 8 in the 11 succinct doctrines of the Salvation Army. As William Booth put it in 1879: “We are a salvation people ”“ this is our speciality ”“ getting saved and keeping saved, and then getting somebody else saved, and then getting saved ourselves more and more.” One hostile commentator on the internet characterises such a belief as “demonic works-salvation”.

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Thousands of small satellite dish-based computer systems that transmit often-sensitive data from far flung locations worldwide ”“ oil rigs, ships at sea, banks, and even power grid substations ”“ are at high risk of being hacked, including many in the United States, a new cyber-security report has found.

Very-small-aperture terminals, or VSATs, are workhorses for the oil and gas industry, utilities, and even news media. Journalists send reports via VSAT from firebases in Afghanistan, energy companies gather production data from oil drilling operations, and retail outlets send sales data back to corporate headquarters every day. Banks use VSATs for transactions between branches and headquarters.

But at least 10,500 of those terminals globally are wide open to being hacked, including some used in critical US infrastructure systems, according to the new report by IntelCrawler, a Los Angeles-based cyber-security firm.

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Sixteen schoolgirls are to make history by ending a tradition of male-only choral singing at Canterbury Cathedral stretching back more than a thousand years.

The girls took part in their first full rehearsal this week and will make their debut, dressed in purple cassocks and white surplices, at evensong on 25 January. “It is all a completely new experience,” said Ellen Spurling, 15, from Pett Bottom, near Canterbury, one of the choir. “I have not done anything like it. We have had choral arrangements at school but nothing like this.”

The rehearsal was memorable, she said, but “to be able to sing like you have seen boys do, in the choir stalls, will be amazing”.

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Aziz Tajuddin witnesses the richness of interfaith harmony every time he looks around the table during extended family gatherings.

Tajuddin, a retired Laurens County chemical engineer who practices the Baha’i faith, is married to an Episcopalian. His grown children also have been raised in the Christian faith. His sister-in-law from Louisiana is Roman Catholic. A niece from Charlotte is Muslim, the faith he was born into, and her husband is Jewish.

“So there is my interfaith activity,” said Tajuddin, who is active in the nonprofit Interfaith Partners of South Carolina.

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Employers added just 74,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday, the weakest hiring in nearly three years and less than half what was expected, abruptly halting a string of recent rosy reports about the labor market and economy.
The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to a five-year low of 6.7% from 7%. But that’s only because workforce participation tumbled, pushing the participation rate back to 62.8%, the lowest since 1978. If it had held steady since December 2007, the jobless rate would be 11.2%.
Hours worked fell 0.3% in December, the worst drop in three years. Meanwhile, hourly earnings grew just 1.8% on the year.

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We thank thee, O God, that thou didst give thy Son Jesus Christ to be the light of the world, and that in him thou hast revealed thy glory and the wonder of thy saving love. Help us to love thee who hast so loved us; strengthen us for the service of thy kingdom; and grant that the light of Christ may so shine throughout the world that men everywhere may be drawn to him who is the Saviour and Lord of all, and the whole earth be filled with thy glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-4

The U6 unemployment rate tabulates not only people without work who are seeking full-time employment but also counts “marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons.”

Please take the time to study this graph of U-6 at the top and look carefully at the other numbers. What do you see? Seasonally adjusted U-6 unemployment is now
still higher than it was in November of 2008, over 5 years ago. While there has been improvement from the worst levels of the great recession, it is hardly anywhere near what could be called healthy.

Those of you who are data hounds (like yours truly) will perhaps appreciate the table here; there is much more material at the BLS website–KSH.

In a blow to hopes that the economy was finally gaining momentum, the government reported on Friday that employers added jobs last month at the slowest pace in three years, although some experts cautioned that wintry weather in many parts of the country may have skewed the data.

In December, employers added just 74,000 jobs, the Labor Department said, well below the 200,000 gain many economists had been looking for. The latest figures were a reversal from healthier monthly payroll gains in the fall that had convinced many economists ”“ as well as policy makers at the Federal Reserve ”“ that the labor market was on a more solid footing.

The unemployment rate did fall to 6.7 percent from 7 percent in November, the lowest since November 2008. But that was largely because of people dropping out of the work force rather than finding jobs.

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Is the Central African Republic the world’s next Rwanda? That’s the question some are beginning to ask about a crisis that has been going on for most of this year but has only just burst through into the mainstream international mass media.

Warlords ruling the countryside by terror, a government that is almost toothless and the collapse of institutions have forced 0.4 million people to flee their homes and left a million dependent on aid.

And now reports of Muslim and Christian communities engaged in inter-communal violence have sparked concern about a slide into religious conflict. The “G-word” — genocide — has even been floated as a real risk by some observers.

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MUSC’s online nursing degree program is one of the best in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking of online degree programs.

The Medical University of South Carolina’s program was ranked No. 2, behind only St. Xavier University in Chicago. But MUSC was the top-ranked school among those that offer a doctorate of nursing online.

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Do higher living standards for the poor mean that the war on poverty has succeeded? No. To judge the effort, consider LBJ’s original aim. He sought to give poor Americans “opportunity not doles,” planning to shrink welfare dependence not expand it. In his vision, the war on poverty would strengthen poor Americans’ capacity to support themselves, transforming “taxeaters” into “taxpayers.” It would attack not just the symptoms of poverty but, more important, remove the causes.

By that standard, the war on poverty has been a catastrophe. The root “causes” of poverty have not shrunk but expanded as family structure disintegrated and labor-force participation among men dropped. A large segment of the population is now less capable of self-sufficiency than when the war on poverty began.

The collapse of marriage in low-income communities has played a substantial role in the declining capacity for self-support. In 1963, 6% of American children were born out of wedlock. Today the number stands at 41%. As benefits swelled, welfare increasingly served as a substitute for a bread-winning husband in the home.

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The rise of affordable flying video cameras is creating one-upmanship among amateur and professional videographers seeking spectacular cinematic shots.

Several manufacturers of remote-controlled drones designed to carry camcorders wowed the crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. They included DJI, Parrot and Yuneec Technology.

“It’s a big and growing market,” said D. Andrew Knight, a representative for New York City-based retailer B&H Photo Video, which sells DJI Phantom quadcopters.

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It was an expensive media spectacle. A United Methodist pastor had presided at the marriage ceremony of his gay son and his partner, and several years later was brought before a jury of his peers to answer for his disobedience to the laws of the United Methodist Church. As the broader society wrestled with the legality of same-sex marriage, the teachings and the means of addressing conflict in the UMC were put on display, to the satisfaction of some and the horror of others.

The question of the value of public church trials has been under the microscope in recent weeks in the wake of Frank Schaefer’s trial, conviction, and defrocking; the decision by the Council of Bishops to ask two of their own to file formal charges against Bishop Melvin Talbert for his presiding at a celebration of marriage service for two gay men in Alabama; and the increasing number of United Methodist clergy who are ignoring the UM Book of Discipline’s provisions forbidding UM clergy from participating in services celebrating the union of gay couples. There have been calls by church leaders and advocates for a moratorium on church trials related to gay marriage. And today, an advocacy group working to end “heterosexist policies and practices” in the UMC issued a statement expressing their opposition to such a moratorium, suggesting that a moratorium would allow the church to ignore same-sex concerns rather than moving to repeal what they believe are “discriminatory laws.”

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