“Bowdoin College students have the right to be members of any Bowdoin College student organization. Bowdoin College students have the right to seek ”” that’s an important word ”” to seek a leadership position in any Bowdoin College student organization,” [Bowdoin spokesman Scott] Hood said. “What we’re talking about here is people who are members of the community or region, who are not part of the college, who are coming in and deciding who can be a leader, who can be a member, who can do something within a Bowdoin College student organization. That is not OK with us.”

Reached by phone Wednesday, Paulson told the Bangor Daily News, “There’s a real tension between the college’s deeply held commitment to making sure no group discriminates against any student and the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship’s deep concern that the people who lead it need to share the basic Christian doctrine.”

Bates College in Lewiston does not require student groups or leaders to sign any type of nondiscrimination pledge when submitting its constitution to student government for consideration, college spokesman Kent Fischer said, although student government does ensure prospective groups “draft fair and inclusive constitutions that set the groups up for future success.”

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The Anglican Church has decided to give priests in Australia the option of breaking the confidentiality of confessions.

The general synod, meeting in Adelaide, has voted for the historic change to cover serious crimes, such as child abuse.

It has decided it will be up to individual dioceses to adopt the policy.

Adelaide’s Anglican Archbishop Jeffrey Driver says the change makes sense but there will not be a hard-and-fast rule.

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COVER STORY: AFTER GOD

For this week’s cover story, Rowan Williams and Lucy Winkett consider the importance of ritual in religion, while the non-believers Melvyn Bragg, Julian Baggini and Robin Ince suggest ways of filling the God-shaped hole in modern life.

Williams describes the ritual of prayer that marks the start of his day and how this enforces the same stillness and physical focus required in Buddhist meditation:

. . . the regular ritual to begin the day when I’m in the house is a matter of an early rise and a brief walking meditation or sometimes a few slow prostrations, before squatting for 30 or 40 minutes (a low stool to support the thighs and reduce the weight on the lower legs) with the “Jesus Prayer”: repeating (usually silently) the words as I breathe out, leaving a moment between repetitions to notice the beating of the heart, which will slow down steadily over the period.

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Seeing the United States players pinging the ball around with purpose, making determined runs upfield and generally setting the tempo of play after falling behind Belgium, many fans may have thought or yelled out the same thing.

Why couldn’t they play that way earlier?

Coach Jurgen Klinsmann has often thought the same thing. A day after the United States was knocked out of the World Cup in the Round of 16, Klinsmann acknowledged that he would leave Brazil with a set of questions to answer and challenges to tackle.

“When you get out in the Round of 16, clearly it gives you the message you have a lot of work still ahead of you,” he said Wednesday.

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Yet again, the choice of a civil partnership will not be extended to opposite-sex couples (Civil partnerships can be converted into marriages, 27 June). During the debate on gay marriage you published a letter from my partner and myself calling for parliament to make this option available. We explained we had felt reluctantly obliged to marry after a long-standing cohabitation because of discriminatory pension rules, subsequently changed. Sadly, opposite-sex civil partnerships became the victim of disgraceful parliamentary manoeuvring

Read it all and note this reply from the Very Rev Richard Giles who says “Civil partnerships should not only be available to opposite-sex couples (Letters, 1 July) but made the mandatory first step for all couples, irrespective of sexual orientation, who wish to commit publicly to a permanent relationship.”

While Wonga may not be at the most aggressive end of the payday loan spectrum, its “in-your-face” approach has made it the face of the post-crisis explosion in high-cost consumer credit. The volume of payday loans, designed to tide the borrower over to the next pay cheque, more than tripled in the UK between 2007 and 2013 as the economy soured and mainstream banks withdrew from riskier areas of consumer credit.

The growth in such lending may be a classic post-bubble phenomenon, and the less well-off do sometimes need access to short-term credit to deal with unexpected shocks, but most people are made understandably uneasy by the idea of encouraging those of slender means to borrow expensively to finance elective consumption. Against this background, calls for tighter regulation have fallen on fertile ground.

As the sector’s most visible lender, Wonga has become a focus for public disapprobation. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has condemned Wonga for usurious practices and called for it to be competed “out of existence”….

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Just a wobble away – that’s how close Tropical Storm Arthur will come Thursday to the Lowcountry.

Forecasters said the eye of the storm will pass 100 miles out to sea or closer. On Wednesday, the storm’s winds extended 90 miles from the eye.

The National Weather Service’s forecast Thursday night called for strong winds and rain squalls for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties – harsher nearer the coast – but not tropical storm conditions.

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O Almighty God, from whom every good prayer cometh, and who pourest out on all who desire it the spirit of grace and supplication: Deliver us, when we draw near to thee, from coldness of heart and wanderings of mind; that with steadfast thoughts and kindled affection we may worship thee in spirit and in truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–William Bright

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 131

If you have a job, you know some people take their job titles way too seriously. Many of them just sit around and do the bare minimum all day long.

Whether you’re a sales associate taking on a retail position at a high-end store, or a director at a major corporation, there’s a high chance you should just be called a more simplified name rather than whatever your business card says you are.

In a recent photo series released by Someecards, we’re all exposed to the harsh reality of what our job titles actually entail.

These are really good and deserve a careful look–KSH.

The Sudanese woman who gave birth in a Khartoum prison with her legs in chains has said that her baby daughter is disabled as a result of her treatment.

Meriam Ibrahim, 27, was sentenced to hang for apostasy on May 15, when she was heavily pregnant with her second child. Less than a fortnight later she gave birth to Maya ”“ but the prison authorities refused to remove the shackles on her legs.

“I gave birth chained,” she said, in her first description of the May 27 birth.

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While we remain in a provisional time when our canons have not fully caught up to what I believe is an intersection of the movement of the spirit and the understanding of the people, it seems that now is the time to remove any distinction between same-sex marriage and other marriages.

From this date forward, please simply follow the canonical requirements for marriage regardless of the gender of the couple.

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Traci Butler and her husband cut out vacations after the U.S. recession five years ago. This week, the couple is taking their two boys on a weeklong trip that includes a July 4th visit to the nation’s capital, just a few weeks after touring Italy on their own.

In the aftermath of the recession, “things were much tighter,” said Butler, a special education teacher from Washington, Illinois, whose husband works for construction machinery maker Caterpillar Inc. “We didn’t have bonuses for a while. The last two years have been better.”

About 34.8 million people plan to drive 50 miles or more from home during the five days ending July 6, up from 34.1 million last year and the most since 2007, AAA, the biggest U.S. motoring organization, said June 26. The travel recovery is boosting sales for hotels and attractions, a sign that consumer confidence and consumer spending are on the mend, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

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