Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ Pentecost letter to the bishops of the Anglican Communion was not the anticipated communication in which he reportedly would ask bishops to predicate their attendace at the Lambeth Conference this summer upon their willingness to accept the recommendations in the Windsor Report.

A spokesman said Archbishop Williams had modified his plan to write to bishops whose stated positions ran contrary to the colleagial gathering of equals he envisions for Lambeth. Instead, Archbishop Williams has been in telephone contact with a number of bishops, asking that they honor the integrity of the meeting, the spokesman told The Church of England Newspaper.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Abp of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Lambeth 2008

Campaigners are staging a demonstration outside Rochester Cathedral today against the Bishop of Rochester’s stance on gay rights.

The protest has been planned to coincide with International Day Against Homophobia (Idaho) and will see members of the county’s gay community gather at the cathedral from noon.

Ray Duff, one of the organisers, said: “Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has regularly opposed gay rights measures; for example, adoption by gay and lesbian partnerships.

“He has himself received threats because of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender (LGBT) people fully condemn such threats unreservedly.

“Thus, we, the LGBT community in Kent and the UK, will urge the bishop to now extend his support and sympathy to the LGBT community, who have suffered for centuries because of Church homophobia.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

Inside Mifflin Hall at Fort Lee, Va., 11 students gather in a room that could pass for a pre-med class. A model skeleton stands on wheels in one corner; a partially dissected plastic torso rests on a table in the rear. The instructor, Sgt. 1st Class Alisa Karr, begins the lesson with a review of the body's bones.

But these soldiers are not studying anatomy to become medics. They are learning to care for the dead.

When these 11 students graduate from training at the U.S. Army's Mortuary Affairs Center, they will earn the title 92M — military code for mortuary affairs specialist. Some of those who have volunteered to work with the dead will serve at collection points in Iraq and Afghanistan; others will work in the port mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They will help recover, identify and prepare the remains of fallen soldiers.

The 92Ms have cared for the majority of the more than 4,500 military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They operate under a code of conduct that's part scientific and part symbolic....

I happened to catch this story this week during a run via NPR's story of the day podcast--very worthwhile I thought; see what you make of it.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Military / Armed Forces • * Economics, Politics • Iraq War

Is it neat, or is it slightly odd that in this Los Angeles community -- it's called Pasadena -- a suburban mix of nice restaurants and well-tended front lawns, there is a home wedged in with the other houses where the entire front yard is edible?

It's true. At 631 Cypress Avenue, there is not one thing that cannot be eaten. Nothing. Kale, chives, pepper, pinapple, guava, Swiss chard, even edible flowers along the side of the house, and into the back yard.

It is Jules Dervaes' fifth of an acre. His little family farm, in the midst of American suburbia, his way of breaking free without really going anywhere.

"We eat rich, I'm telling you," said Dervaes. "And the way we live, it just seems like something you would dream of."

The "we" he speaks of are his kids, who grew up on the farm. Three out of four of them have stayed on into their 20's and 30's, and they don't have other jobs either because what they don't eat, they sell.

Read it all or watch the video (link here).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • * Economics, Politics • Economy

Pope Benedict, speaking a day after a California court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, firmly restated on Friday the Roman Catholic Church's position that only unions between a man and a woman are moral.

Benedict made no mention of the California decision in his speech to family groups from throughout Europe, but stressed the Church's position several times.

"The union of love, based on matrimony between a man and a woman, which makes up the family, represents a good for all society that can not be substituted by, confused with, or compared to other types of unions," he said.

The pope also spoke of the inalienable rights of the traditional family, "founded on matrimony between a man and a woman, to be the natural cradle of human life".

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths) • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

In the few years since Mandela has retired from official engagements, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Peace Laureate and outspoken flayer of duplicitous politicians, has taken his place as South Africa’s moral conscience. Everyone wants to catch his eye or exchange a few words with him or prompt his famous giggle, and Tutu himself is the first to admit likes the attention.

The waitress takes our order and we both opt for grilled Cape salmon, the great cleric having changed his mind on the oxtail. At first Tutu seems pretty much unchanged since I last interviewed him a decade ago. Then, as head of the commission, he had the emotionally and physically taxing responsibility of wading through, in a series of public hearings between 1996 and 1998, the barbarities of apartheid.

He also had to make hugely sensitive decisions on granting amnesty for crimes, and on assessing the respective weight of human rights violations committed for or against such an inhumane system, a balancing act that infuriated both the African National Congress and white rightwingers. Then, towards the end of the assignment in 1997, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and yet the dynamic force of his personality helped to carry the country and himself through those difficult days, just as it had in the worst days of apartheid.

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of South Africa

As Marcia Macy chatted with her dog walker in the driveway of her Wheaton home Thursday, a young Muslim man passed her and hooked a plastic bag containing a Quran on her doorknob.

Unlike most religious solicitors, the man didn't try to speak with her or engage her in debate. He simply left her a 378-page paperback English translation of the holy book of Islam.

"I'd read it just to see what it says, but I believe in Jesus, not Allah," said Macy, a longtime Christian. "They have a right to do it . . . but I feel pretty strong in my faith."

If Macy reads the text, she will have fulfilled the goal of the Book of Signs Foundation. The Addison-based Muslim organization says that since July it has distributed more than 70,000 free English Qurans to homes in the Chicago area and another 30,000 around Houston.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Note: please be cautioned that this may not be appropriate for certain blog readers.

Group readings of Dolly Doctor at high school are an Australian rite of passage. Most teenagers know exactly how to flip from the cover of the magazine straight to the sex and body advice column at the back. In schoolyards across the country, girls, and sometimes boys, can be found nervously giggling at the questions but eagerly awaiting the answers. "Is my period normal?", "What's a wet dream?" and "Can I get pregnant the first time?"

But now it is adults who are gasping at what they read. Dolly Doctor and its counterpart in Girlfriend magazine came under scrutiny last month at the Senate's inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment. The inquiry was set up to address parents' growing concerns about their children's exposure to sexual material via advertising, pop culture and the internet, and the rendering of them into sexual objects.

But in focusing on these magazine Q&A columns, the inquiry has taken a strange turn. Several senators, particularly the Tasmanian Liberal Stephen Parry, argued they were not appropriate reading material for younger teens. In particular, sexual questions were cause for alarm.

Read it all.

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Sexuality • Teens / Youth • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

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The Trinity School for Ministry Board of Trustees announced today that the Rev. Dr. Justyn Terry has accepted an enthusiastic call by the board to become the new Dean and President, succeeding the Rt. Rev. Dr. John H. Rodgers, Trinity’s second Dean and President, who left retirement to serve as Interim Dean/President beginning in August 2007.

Chairman of the Board of Trustees the Rev. Canon David Roseberry said, “The Lord has blessed us indeed, as Justyn will assume the awesome responsibility of Trinity’s vital role as a bearer of an orthodox evangelical witness in North America.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Theology • Seminary / Theological Education

Michael Pollan writes that the food business once lamented what it called the problem of the “fixed stomach”—it appeared that demand for food, unlike other products, was inelastic, the amount fixed by the dimensions of the stomach itself, the variety constrained by tradition and habit. In the past few decades, however, American and European stomachs have become as elastic as balloons, and, with the newly prosperous Chinese and Indians switching to Western diets, much of the rest of the world is following suit. “Today, Mexicans drink more Coca-Cola than milk,” Patel reports. Roberts tells us that in India “obesity is now growing faster than either the government or traditional culture can respond,” and the demand for gastric bypasses is soaring.

Driven by our bottomless stomachs, Roberts argues, the modern economy has reduced food to a “commodity” like any other, which must be generated in ever greater units at an ever lower cost, year by year, like sneakers or DVDs. But food isn’t like sneakers or DVDs. If we max out our credit cards buying Nikes, we can simply push them to the back of a closet. By contrast, our insatiable demand for food must be worn on our bodies, often in the form of diabetes as well as obesity. Overeating makes us miserable, and ill, but medical advances mean that it takes a long time to kill us, so we keep on eating. Roberts, whose impulse to connect everything up is both his strength and his weakness, concludes, grandly, that “food is fundamentally not an economic phenomenon.” On the contrary, food has always been an economic phenomenon, but in its current form it is one struggling to meet our uncurbed appetites. What we are witnessing is not the end of food but a market on the brink of failure. Those bearing the brunt are, as in Malthus’s day, the people at the bottom.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition

I acknowledge and respect the equal dignity of all - regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. There is no place for the harassment or persecution of anyone for whatever reason.

We are thankful that in this country there is freedom of meeting and expression for all.

The Bible and the Church teach that the proper expression of our sexuality is in the context of marriage. This has to do with God’s purposes in creating us, respect for persons and the importance of the family as a basic unit of society.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships

Like many other young couples, Aimee and Jeff Harris spent the first years of their marriage eagerly accumulating stuff: cars, furniture, clothes, appliances and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Now they are trying to get rid of it all, down to their fancy wedding bands, although finding takers has been harder than they thought. Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

“It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

“We’re not attached to any outcome,” said Mrs. Harris, a would-be doctor before dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken in a family that traces its lineage back through the Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy

As oil soared to a record-high $127 a barrel on Friday, Saudi Arabia's leader rebuffed appeals by President Bush to increase oil production, saying they did not see enough demand to warrant increased output.

"The Saudi government has reiterated their policy that Saudi Arabia is willing to put on the oil market whatever oil is necessary to meet the demand of Saudi Arabia's customers," said Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Bush made the plea as U.S. motorists suffer rapidly rising prices at the pump, soaring to a record average of $3.787 for a gallon of regular gas, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. The average a year ago was $3.114. Bush made a similar unsuccessful appeal to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in January.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer and a member of OPEC, the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries, which controls more than 40 percent of the world's crude oil supply. Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi said in South Korea on Thursday that the record oil prices are a result of turmoil in financial markets, not from a shortage in supply.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources

The Supreme Court's ruling is a "frightening departure" from long-held norms about marriage and family, said Richard J. Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena.

"I am saddened that people are comparing this favorably to the historic decision in California that reversed the ban on interracial marriages," Mouw said by e-mail. "That courageous decision was a wonderful step forward in the cause of justice. This verdict is not that at all. It undermines what many of us firmly believe is the very foundation of a healthy social order...."

The Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena said she is thrilled that her church, which has been blessing same sex unions for 15 years, will soon be able to offer official wedding rites.

"It is a very exciting day," said Russell, who had her union with her partner blessed at All Saints last year. But she acknowledged the continuing efforts to outlaw same-sex weddings.

"It is not the end of the story by any means," she said, noting the court's decision means homosexual persons are entitled to equal protection under law. "But it is a huge step nonetheless."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships

In Cuba, 75 dissidents were arrested five years ago, most of whom are still in prison. Some of their wives formed a group called "Ladies in White" and have had demonstrations at their church every Sunday. A smaller number of them acted on their own last month, using bolder methods, attracting the attention of Cuban officials.

It is a difficult question--what is the best way to oppose a dictator? Listen to it all from NPR and see what you think.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General

Go here, then click on the cartoon for today, then scroll back to the cartoon for May13th. LOL.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008 • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Late last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon made a somewhat unlikely appearance at the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College here. The author of "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" (2007) -- in which the protagonist discovers that an evangelical cabal in the U.S. has launched a holy war between Muslims and Jews in Israel in order to hasten the Second Coming -- found himself addressing a crowd of devoted Christians.

In some ways, the Dutch Reformed Calvin College is as homogeneous as the names of its professors (many of which end in -inga, and -einstra). Catholics are not allowed to teach there; neither are members of most other Protestant denominations. Faculty members are required to sign three confessional creeds -- the Heidelberg Confession, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt -- which include the doctrines of predestination (God has predetermined all events) and election (God has chosen some to be saved from eternal damnation and others not).

One could speculate that adherence to these doctrines could foster a certain apathy toward matters in the outside world. ("I can't do anything to change the course of events, so why bother?") But there is another major theological tenet that the folks at Calvin hold dear: the belief that the Gospel not only saves souls upon death but redeems minds and bodies in the here and now.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Poetry & Literature • Religion & Culture

Transnational companies, many of whom have their headquarters in Britain, are legally and illegally withholding billions in taxes from some of the poorest countries in the world, Christian Aid says.

The money would be more than enough to meet all the UN Millennium Development Goals, states the development charity’s report, Death and Taxes, which was launched on Monday at the start of Christian Aid week. It estimates that 1000 children die each day from causes that the lost revenue could have alleviated.

Companies argue that they have a legal duty to minimise or avoid tax. But the report says that, although tax avoidance is legal, responsible companies should not seek aggressively to avoid the taxes that are needed to pay for the essential welfare services and infrastructure in developing countries.

Illegal tax-evasion schemes, such as transfer mispricing and false invoicing, account for $160 billion a year in lost revenue, it says. This figure reflects the research of Raymond Baker, a senior fellow at the US Center for International Policy. Donations from countries and aid agencies are “peanuts” compared to the wealth that has left poor countries in tax evasion.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Most Americans believe the choice to end one's life is a personal decision and that physician-assisted death should be legal, according to a new survey.

More than 80 percent of adults questioned in the poll by Knowledge Networks said the right to die should not be decided by the government, church or a third party, yet only 50 percent of Americans over 60 and less than 25 percent of younger people said they have a living will.

"People put that off. They're in denial and they have their heads in the sand," said Dave Bunnell, editor-in-chief of ELDR magazine, which commissioned the poll.

read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Life Ethics

Today's Supreme Court decision on same-gender relationships is important because it reflects our baptismal vow to "strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being" and our commitment to justice and mercy for all people.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has been a leader in working for the rights of all people in the State of California, and that work is honored in today's ruling. The canons of our church, under "Rights of the Laity" (Canon 1:17.5), forbid discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, disabilities or age. We affirm equal rights for all.

We will continue to advocate for equality in the future and will do so at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which will meet in Anaheim in 2009.

I celebrate and give thanks for this decision of the court and look forward with joy and excitement to a future of justice and mercy for all people in the State of California and the Episcopal Church.

To paraphrase St. Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, gay nor straight in Jesus Christ our Lord.

--(The Rt. Rev.) J. Jon Bruno is Bishop of Los Angeles

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • Civil Unions & Partnerships

In another action that drew charges of canonical impropriety, Schori recently called and oversaw a convention in California that purported to continue or reconstitute the TEC Diocese of San Joaquin and accept as temporary shepherd former Northern California Bishop Jerry Lamb - despite the possibly void deposition of Bishop Schofield.

This action was clearly a precursor to TEC’s move in late April to file a lawsuit claiming the property of the seceded diocese - though the Dar es Salaam communiqúe called for an end to a resort to lawsuits among opposing Anglican parties. The suit, which is focused on direct holdings of the diocese rather than individual parish properties, names Bishop Schofield as the primary defendant, as trusteeship of the property of the San Joaquin diocese is vested in the bishop, under California law.

Meanwhile, there has been an uptick in litigation against individual parishes seeking to leave TEC for reasons of theological conscience. Unlike her predecessor, Frank Griswold, Bishop Schori rejects the idea that a diocese may negotiate a financial settlement allowing a departing congregation that intends to remain Anglican to keep its church property. That she is pressing her view, and that the national church is now more actively joining in court battles, with the help of Schori’s ubiquitous Chancellor, David Booth Beers, is evident in reports of church property disputes across the country. (See more in the latest issue's “Focus” section.) Adding insult to injury, the P.B. recently defended her church’s litigiousness by comparing the faithful who seek to retain parish property to child abusers. In both cases, she said, “bad behavior” is involved that must be confronted.

The question of Schori’s own “bad behavior” was, however, the subject of a memo that was circulating at deadline among a consortium of church leaders. Prepared by an attorney, the memo concluded that sufficient legal grounds exist for bringing Schori to ecclesiastical trial on 11 counts of violating TEC regulations. The memo was not optimistic, though, that the current political and legal climate in TEC would allow a presentment of the P.B. to go forward.

Read the whole long article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Conflicts • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues

A bell ringer broke his collarbone after becoming entangled in a rope at the top of a church tower.

Tony Merry was hoisted 3ft off the belfry floor when the rope caught his trousers. Stuck fast in the cramped upper reaches of St Mary's Church in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, he had to be rescued by firefighters and paramedics. They used a pulley to lower him through a trap door 15ft above ground and down on to a stretcher below.

Recovering at home yesterday, Mr Berry, 58, said: "Nothing like this has ever happened before – it gave me a real shock. I think a bunch of keys got caught in the rope and I was pulled about 3ft off the floor. The shock made me black out and I lost consciousness and fell to the ground and bashed my shoulder. The paramedics gave me morphine to help with the pain and then I was conscious throughout the rescue."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

After Dar es Salaam, a representative of the progressive position on sexuality encouraged the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church to ‘fast’ for a season from involvement in Communion affairs. That was sage counsel. The alternatives are simply keeping people close to the presenting issue without giving them any genuine way forward.

Our plea is then for the adherents of a new teaching in sexuality, and a principled view of Anglicanism as a worldwide federal reality, to take courage and move forward, and detach from an understanding of both of these issues, theological and ecclesiological, with which they disagree. There is no reason for this action to be the cause of any negative judgment whatsoever, and every reason for it to be applauded as principled, courageous, and a sign of consistent belief and consistent commitment. It is unclear why this view of the way forward is not enthusiastically embraced, as a principled commitment to a specific understanding of the Gospel and its demands.

It has become clear that mutual subjection in Christ, within a worldwide catholic Communion, is not a priority for certain American Episcopalians; it may also not be so for some Anglicans with opposing views, though their opposition emerged in the context of provocation. We see no reason whatever to contest this view or argue for its deficiency. Its logic is clear and time has allowed that to emerge with clarity. Can we not then allow for a different view to go its own way, and so find a resolution that belongs to the logic of ‘ecumenical relationships’? The Anglican Communion is not some kind of ultimate good, necessary for salvation, and indeed it is seen to be a hindrance for many within The Episcopal Church.

Let that reality sound forth, and let those within this same church exhibit the kind of keen commitments to Communion, commitments they believe are consistent with what it genuinely means to be an Anglican in the United States, express them and move forward on that understanding.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Covenant • Anglican Identity • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Heartwarming to the point of tears for me--watch it and see what you think.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Military / Armed Forces • * Economics, Politics • Iraq War

As it did when the housing bubble began to burst, California is leading the way in the next leg: a consumer bust.

Squeezed by rising unemployment, inflation in food and energy costs and plunging home values, Californians are cutting back on spending. Besides causing woes for state and local government, the cutback is giving California's economy another knock and makes further job losses, home repossessions and banking problems more likely.

The figures are pretty bad. The median home price has fallen by 29 percent in the year to March, according to the California Association of Realtors, and repossessions are increasing.

Unemployment hit 6.2 percent in March, up 1.2 percentage points from the same month last year.

But most important, in the 10 months to the end of April, sales tax receipts in California are actually down in absolute terms. Gasoline tax receipts are essentially flat. When you factor in that there would have been considerable inflation during the period, and that some essentials like gasoline would have risen sharply in cost, the picture is clear: Californians are tightening their belts.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy

The parishioners were lined up for Holy Communion on Sunday when the riot police stormed the stately St. Francis Anglican Church in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Helmeted, black-booted officers banged on the pews with their batons as terrified members of the congregation stampeded for the doors, witnesses said.

A policeman swung his stick in vicious arcs, striking matrons, a girl and a grandmother who had bent over to pick up a Bible dropped in the melee. A lone housewife began singing from a hymn in Shona, "We will keep worshiping no matter the trials!" Hundreds of women, many dressed in the Anglican Mothers' Union uniform of black skirt, white shirt and blue headdress, lifted their voices to join hers.

Beneath their defiance, though, lay raw fear as the country's ruling party stepped up its campaign of intimidation ahead of a presidential runoff. In a conflict that has penetrated ever deeper into Zimbabwe's social fabric, the party has focused on a growing roster of groups that elude its direct control — a list that includes the Anglican diocese of Harare, as well as charitable and civic organizations, trade unions, teachers, independent election monitors and the political opposition.

Anglican leaders and parishioners said in interviews that the church was not concerned with politics and that it counted people from both the ruling party and the opposition in its congregations.

Read the whole article.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Zimbabwe

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman for her alleged role in perpetrating a MySpace online hoax on a 13-year-old neighbor girl who committed suicide.
Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl.

Drew allegedly helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named "Josh Evans."

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Drew has denied creating the account and sending messages to Megan.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Law & Legal Issues

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The Episcopal Church USA
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY

Dear Bishop Katharine,

I received word of your letter through a colleague who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.

Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed about key matters, which I hope to clear up in this letter.

1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.

Read more...

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Uganda • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • TEC Bishops

One of the most important and disputed pieces of recent legislation is being debated in the House of Commons. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is hugely complex, reflecting the newest developments in embryology but some of the oldest questions, such as "when does human life begin?" and "does every child need a father?". The different faith organisations in this country all have concerns about this bill, but also disagree among themselves. Dr Lee Rayfield, Anglican Bishop of Swindon and immunologist, and Dr Usama Hasan, an Imam who is also a scientist, talked to Sunday.

Listen to it all (a little over seven and one half minutes).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Life Ethics • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows.

The most widely used drugs are those to lower high blood pressure and cholesterol — problems often linked to heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

The numbers were gathered last year by Medco Health Solutions Inc., which manages prescription benefits for about one in five Americans.

Experts say the data reflect not just worsening public health but better medicines for chronic conditions and more aggressive treatment by doctors. For example, more people are now taking blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medicines because they need them, said Dr. Daniel W. Jones, president of the American Heart Association.

In addition, there is the pharmaceutical industry's relentless advertising. With those factors unlikely to change, doctors say the proportion of Americans on chronic medications can only grow.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine

The big problem is that when Aslan finally appears, only Lucy can see him and her visions are mysterious and highly personal.

The youngest queen faces a frustrating paradox that is at the heart of the book's message. As she grows older, Aslan will grow in stature and power, yet it also requires more faith to see and follow him.

"The thing is, Narnia isn't a game" for the children, said Georgie Henley, the 12-year-old actress who plays Lucy. In the context of Lewis' parable, "It's a real world. Although Aslan fades for a while, when he comes back he's stronger than ever and he's bigger than ever.

"I love that saying, you know: 'As long as you grow, so shall I.' "