The continuing presidential devotion to the Bible has been a constant throughout American history, one that connects us directly to our Founding Fathers. Even as the cultural staples of the founding era have gone away, and TV, Twitter and movies have taken their place, the Bible has remained pre-eminent in American life. The book our Founders read and meditated upon in the past will continue to provide a hopeful path for Americans””one that will inspire presidents, and the rest of us, for generations to come.

Read it all.

Alum Rock, a neighborhood of Birmingham, looks the way Pakistan might, if Pakistan were under gray northern skies and British rule.

The streets are lively but orderly, with shops that provide the largely South Asian population with most of its needs. The huge Pak Supermarket, with its 10-kilogram bags of spices and rices, is matched by the nearby Pak Pharmacy. Nearly every face is South Asian, and people wear a vibrant mixture of clothing, from Western styles to head scarves, knitted caps and full-face veils, or niqabs.

But the Muslims of Alum Rock, Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook, who make up most of the more than 21 percent of Birmingham’s population who declare Islam as their religion, are newly uneasy, they say. The backlash from the killing of a white soldier, Lee Rigby, in London in May by two fanatical young British Muslims, combined with anxieties about the flow of jihadis between Britain and Syria and the sometimes harshly anti-immigrant tone of leading British politicians have combined to create a new wariness among British Muslims.

Read it all.

The single most significant factor seems to be a willingness to abandon a paternalistic mode of action. The bulk of the Church’s social activities – and many congregational ones, too – were shaped in the 19th century in response to the demands of urban industrial modernity, and missionary activity. They were premised on social inequalities that were rarely challenged, and had to do with dispensing salvation goods, educational goods, and material goods to “God’s children”, and the “poor and needy”.

Those forms of Christian activity which have not shaken off this paternalistic mode are in trouble. Where they have given way to genuine partnership, and co-creation, they tend to be doing much better.

Rather than ignoring or repressing the Church of England’s deep insertion into society, the time seems ripe for rediscovering it as its saving asset. My point about a Church without congregations is tongue-in-cheek. Success always depends, in part, on activists. But once the Church starts to exist for the benefit of activists alone, it ceases to be a Church, and becomes a sect.

Read it all from the Church Times.

Fourteen percent of adults between the ages of 24 and 34 — those in the post-college years when most young adults are trying to establish independence — report living at home with their parents. By contrast, roughly half of 18- to 23-year-olds, many of whom are still finishing their education, are currently living at home.

Read it all.

A couple of years ago, an out-of-print book published in 1972 by a long-dead British professor suddenly became a collector’s item….

How exactly did a long-forgotten book suddenly become so prized? The cause was a ground-breaking lecture called Sugar: the Bitter Truth by Robert Lustig, professor of paediatric endocrinology at the University of California, in which Lustig hailed [John] Yudkin’s work as ”prophetic”.

”Without even knowing it, I was a Yudkin acolyte,” says Lustig, who tracked down the book after a tip from a colleague via an interlibrary loan. ”Everything this man said in 1972 was the God’s honest truth and if you want to read a true prophecy you find this book… I’m telling you every single thing this guy said has come to pass. I’m in awe.”

Read it all.

Check out the ice and fallen limbs.

Rob and Kelly Mitchell were prepared for their two sons to have a four-day weekend, but when nasty weather tacked on two additional days, they were caught off guard.

“We had a sitter set up for Friday and I’m off work Monday,” said Rob Mitchell, a government contractor and father of Ellis, 7, and Jeremy, 5. “Those days were covered, but we had to scramble to cover the ice days” Wednesday and Thursday.

Read it all from the local paper.

It was not the “hell-for-leather gallop” suggested by one member. The General Synod, none the less, set a brisk pace for the passage of the women-bishops legislation on Tuesday. As a result, the way was opened for a woman to be appointed a bishop “in the early months of next year”, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Revd James Langstaff (above), said after the debate.

The Synod was swift in its own proceedings. Comfortable majorities were secured for both the draft Declaration from the House of Bishops and the draft procedure for the resolution of disputes, with few queries from the floor.

The Draft Measure and Draft Amending Canon were both revised quickly – in full Synod, without a revision-committee stage. Amendments concerning the Equality Act fell, after reassuring speeches that parish representatives and patrons would have enough protection against claims under this legislation.

Read it all.

This is just wow–watch it all.

Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit didst move thy servant Cyril and his brother Methodius to bring the light of the Gospel to a hostile and divided people: Overcome, we pray thee, by the love of Christ, all bitterness and contention among us, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Set our hearts, O God, at liberty from ourselves, and let it be our meat and drink to do thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed; the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

–Romans 13:8-14

The Anglican Communion should not start a debate on issues as marriage and sexuality. The Bible is clear, says the Archbishop of Kenya, Eliud Wabukala.

The pastor is the chairman of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Gafcon), a group of conservative Anglicans. He responded to the decision by the English bishops to form discussion groups on marriage and sexuality.

This is a response to the so-called Pilling report, published in November, which dealt with the way the church deals with the theme of sexuality. It proposes, among other things, that gay people in the church be treated fairly. It also advocates an open attitude of the church towards gay men who want to play an active role in the church, among other things fullfilling a role as minister. In addition, the Anglican Church must determine its position this year when it comes to dealing with the religious same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Wabakula says that the solution to a difference of opinion on issues such as gay marriage and sexual morality, cannot be found with debate. “We should be grateful that the college of bishops does not embrace the idea to bless what God calls sin something. Nevertheless, they unanimously agreed on the formation of discussion groups. That is worrisome. According to the church leader, there has been debate for years in the Anglican Communion. The underlying issue is whether one has to accept the Bible as the Word of God.

Read it all

No internet, house and yard is a mess, feels like living in slow motion–KSH.

Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company’s 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual.

“There’s going to be a lot of people for whom this is going to mean nothing, but for the few it does impact, it means the world,” said Facebook software engineer Brielle Harrison, who worked on the project and is herself undergoing gender transformation, from male to female. On Thursday, while watchdogging the software for any problems, she said she was also changing her Facebook identity from Female to TransWoman.

“All too often transgender people like myself and other gender nonconforming people are given this binary option, do you want to be male or female? What is your gender? And it’s kind of disheartening because none of those let us tell others who we really are,” she said. “This really changes that, and for the first time I get to go to the site and specify to all the people I know what my gender is.”

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

If past conferences such as Women of Faith drew thousands of evangelical women to indoor stadiums for devotional Bible study, a new generation of evangelical women is looking outward and concerned with issues such as social justice.

The IF:Gathering in Austin earlier this month was one of those conferences. At the Austin Music Hall, about 1,200 women were greeted by farm tables decorated with candles and cabbage- and lavender-filled centerpieces. The free coffee came from Westrock Coffee, an organization committed to safe working conditions in Rwanda. But the wholesome, back-to-nature ambiance was just the start.

Read it all.