Over 900 Anglicans have already registered for ‘Be Faithful’. They will consider the situation of the global Communion, and express their solidarity and support for Anglicans under pressure and persecution, both in North America and in the Sudan. They will address challenges to maintaining biblically faithful witness and ministry in the Church of England today.

The FCA is not another organization. It is not seeking to create another church. It is a spiritual movement and fellowship for renewal, reformation and mission – uniquely bringing together those whose key shaping and commitment, but not exclusive identity, has been through the Anglo-Catholic, conservative evangelical, and charismatic expressions of Anglicanism.

The FCA movement can do this because it is defined by its centre in the Christian faith as currently embraced in the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement. Vinay Samuel, a speaker on July 6 writes: “Gafcon is defined by its centre and not by any boundaries. It is a fellowship of people who affirm the centre of orthodox faith as expressed in the Jerusalem Statement. Some who are uncertain whether they are in or out might be finding boundaries which were never intended by those who have taken the initiative to launch this fellowship.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Evangelicals

Just in time for the mad rush of travelers headed out for the 4th of July weekend, a computer problem made it so United Airlines flights could not leave O'Hare International Airport for much of Thursday morning.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Travel

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

If, as expected, 363,000 jobs were eliminated last month, it will mean 131.8 million people are working in the U.S.--the same as May of 2000. If another million jobs disappear by the end of the year--likely, without unexpected improvement--an entire decade of employment gains will have been wiped out. In January of 2000, there were 130.8 million jobs in the country. "It's not that those jobs weren't needed. The labor force has grown by nearly 13 million people," says Heidi Shierholz, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute.

--Forbes Magazine.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

In January, the committee of New York lawyers that reviews applications for admission to the bar interviewed Mr. Bowman, studied his history and the debt he had amassed, and called his persistence remarkable. It recommended his approval.

But a group of five state appellate judges decided this spring that his student loans were too big and his efforts to repay them too meager for him to be a lawyer.

“Applicant has not made any substantial payments on the loans,” the judges wrote in a terse decision and an unusual rejection of the committee’s recommendation. “Applicant has not presently established the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counselor-at-law.”

Read it all from the front page of today's New York Times. 400,000 in loans--symbolic of this recent era, alas.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--

Gov. Mark Sanford's latest expanded explanation about his love life has increased calls for his resignation among the Legislature and is being followed up with an investigation to determine if any state funds were misspent.

It also offered up more embarrassment to South Carolinians who were just getting over the shock of his rambling, emotional press conference of last week. The governor related the latest chapter of his personal soap opera to an Associated Press reporter during a three-hour interview.

One of his most reasonable comments in the published account was the observation that he is dealing with his "own political funeral." The governor appears to be under some inner compulsion to get to the graveyard in a hurry.

Read it all.

Filed under: * South Carolina

In concrete terms, the difference between the situation that the Obama advisers predicted and the one that has come to pass is about 2.5 million jobs. It’s as if every worker in the city of Los Angeles received an unexpected layoff notice.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Housing Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009 • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama

Because of this high failure rate, DOC's budget has crept up to $2 billion as Florida's prison population has approached 100,000. Ironically, though, we now know — and can quantify — key factors that reduce recidivism. Among them:

•A belief in something outside of themselves, such as God. Prisoners, like other humans, tend to behave differently in the face of the transcendent.

•Substance-abuse treatment. For many offenders, substance abuse has been a major problem. Treatment substantially reduces recidivism.

•Education. DOC data show a 4 percent reduction in recidivism for each grade-level increase in reading skills. Literacy should be required for release.

•Age. It's statistically odd but true that turning 28 makes a difference. Marriage also helps.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Prison/Prison Ministry

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • ACNA Inaugural Assembly June 2009 • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin

"We're trying to be servants," Katherine Martin, a cleric from Auburn, Ala., told me. "I'm not being welcomed to consecrate [Communion] in Quincy [Illinois] or Fort Worth [Texas]," which are two dioceses that don't ordain women, "but both the bishops of those dioceses couldn't be more kind."

I wondered if the men would take a similar position, agreeing to be "servants" while limitations were placed on them.

"I'd be lying if I'd say I wasn't disappointed," said Canon Mary Hayes of the Pittsburgh Diocese. "I've been a priest 25 years. I'm delighted to be in a body of people who have different views. It's not about getting my way."

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • ACNA Inaugural Assembly June 2009 • * Culture-Watch • Women

Although the decision has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Anglican leaders in Petaluma decided to settle rather than engage in a costly legal battle, said their lawyer, the Rev. Lu T. Nguyen.

“My clients felt as though it just wasn’t worth the long-term fight,” Nguyen said. “This is a church. It’s purpose is not material gain but spiritual matters.”

Petaluma Episcopalians appeared happy Wednesday to have a place of their own.

After a majority of the congregation voted to split from the Episcopal Church in December 2006, the remaining Episcopal members re-formed under the Rev. Norman Cram, and held services first in a parishioner’s living room and later at Elim Lutheran Church.

The congregation now has about 50 members.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin • TEC Departing Parishes • TEC Parishes

The Rt. Rev. Robert .O. Miller, Ninth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, died Monday evening June 30, 2009, at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham. Bishop Miller served as spiritual head of the more than 30,000 member diocese for almost a decade from 1989 until his retirement in 1998. His ordained ministry spanned almost half a century.

"Bishop Miller was a much beloved bishop in our diocese. He was a devoted pastor to many, a champion of the church's ministry among the poor and persons in special need, and a leader in expanding the ministry of the Episcopal Church in Alabama. He will be greatly missed," said the Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley Jr., Bishop of the Diocese of Alabama.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals

The 3,600-square-foot church, which faces Lyndon Lane across from Westport Village Shopping Center, is also intended to serve people in the immediate neighborhood. About 400 people were invited to the consecration service, which also was open to the public.

"Let the doors be opened," the Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr., Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky intoned at the service, before leading a procession into the church sanctuary. The congregation sang "The Church's One Foundation."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

He discusses the Obama administration's fiscal policy, the U.S. government's debt and proposed changes to the financial regulatory system.

I happened to catch this yesterday morning. Note especially the concern about the mounting national debt and the mention of the historical parallels with the 1930's (he sees significant discontinuities there). Watch it all (a little over 10 1/2 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • The National Deficit • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition.

Nuns were the often-unsung workers who helped build the Roman Catholic Church in this country, planting schools and hospitals and keeping parishes humming. But for the last three decades, their numbers have been declining — to 60,000 today from 180,000 in 1965.

While some nuns say they are grateful that the Vatican is finally paying attention to their dwindling communities, many fear that the real motivation is to reel in American nuns who have reinterpreted their calling for the modern world.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * Culture-Watch • Women • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.

The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force.

Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Military / Armed Forces • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • War in Afghanistan

Eight members of the Episcopal Church's House of Deputies are scheduled meet privately with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at General Convention in a session that is intended in part to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church.

General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9.

The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans. However, when contacted by Episcopal News Service, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the Diocese of California confirmed the details.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention 2009 • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry

When it comes to controversial issues, like homosexuality, Jefferts Schori says she begins with studying the Scriptures.

That includes looking at the messy human families found in the Bible.

"In the Old Testament, there are lots of examples of what holy and blessed marriage looks like, and what unholy marriage looks like," she said, "including polygamy and concubines being normal."

In the New Testament, she said, Jesus never married and was celibate. Paul wasn't married either.

"He said don't get married — unless you have to — because Jesus was coming back soon," she said.

Read the whole thing.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • * Theology • Theology: Scripture

Crime in South Africa is commonly portrayed as an onslaught against the wealthy, but it is the poor who are most vulnerable: poor people conveniently accessible to poor criminals. Diepsloot, an impoverished settlement on the northern edge of Johannesburg, has an estimated population of 150,000, and the closest police station is 10 miles away.

To spend time in Diepsloot over three weeks is to observe the unrelenting fear so common among the urban poor. Experts point to the particularly brutal nature of crime in this country: the unusually high number of rapes, hijackings and armed robberies. The murder rate, while declining, is about eight times higher than in the United States.

In Diepsloot, people usually bear their losses in silence, their misfortune unreported and their offenders unknown. If a suspect is identified, victims usually inform quasi-legal vigilante groups or hire their own thugs to recover their property.

This ran on the front page of Tuesday's New York Times. It is a sobering account of just some of the plight of the urban poor globally. Read it all--KSH.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Poverty • * International News & Commentary • Africa • South Africa

Perhaps it is partly out of a desire to avoid being labelled frauds when they stray from absolute fidelity that Australian politicians, unlike their American counterparts, have worn their religious beliefs lightly, eschewing ostentatious displays of faith or the use of religious precepts to justify or shape policy positions. While religion has not been entirely absent from Australian political debate (it did cause a split in the ALP), by and large politicians have preferred to justify their values and decisions by reference to their political philosophies. Australians seem wary of appeals to religious authority; research shows they are increasingly unlikely to claim Christian religious affiliation or to engage in religious practices.

A study by the Melbourne political scientist Anna Crabb provides some confirmation that this deliberate separation of religion and politics may be dissolving - at least among MPs. Her analysis of parliamentary speeches of prominent federal politicians from 2002 to 2006 showed MPs were increasingly likely to appeal to religious beliefs to explain their positions. Conservatives were most likely to make such references but Labor MPs, including Kevin Rudd, came close to matching them.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Check them out.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops

How do you find a new search engine if all you know is Google? Typing “search engine” into the usual box might lead you to Microsoft’s newly launched Bing, the combined search at Dogpile, or the former king of search, Altavista.

But for those willing to dig around, searching for search engines can reveal a treasure trove: The net is rich with specialized search services, all trying to find a way to get their slice of the billions of dollars Google makes every year answering queries.

For this article, we surveyed some 50 specialty search services and picked out our favorites. What follows is not a systematic ranking or review, but a general guide to a very vibrant world that few have bothered to explore in depth.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology

For the moment I will leave aside the many problems that attach to TEC’s press for a polycentric communion. It is enough to say that their argument will work only if communion excludes common belief and practice but focuses instead on cooperation in good works and mutual aid. (Though even here, because of conflicting theological commitments, “good works” can be construed quite differently) Of more immediate importance is the logic of inclusive justice. The logic of inclusion employed by progressive Episcopalians excludes meaningful opposition from the start.

This exclusion is of such importance that it must not go unchallenged. It is a matter that concerns all Episcopalians. Exclusion of meaningful opposition in respect to the matters now before The Episcopal Church in the end will produce a niche church rather than a catholic church. Progressive claims to inclusivity are in fact false. The logic of their position drives relentlessly toward an increasingly constricted identity. The question progressive Episcopalians must answer is why members of the Episcopal Church that do not share their views ought to think otherwise. To put the issue more directly, progressive Episcopalians need to show the membership of their church and the rest of the Anglican Communion why their position does not end in an exclusive form of church life rather than a diverse one. This observation leads to a direct question. The question is what reason can be given from the point of view of progressive Episcopalians to a traditional Anglican for being a member of The Episcopal Church. I certainly have my own reasons and have stated them on many occasions. But progressive Episcopalians have claimed something that both their words and actions belie, and it seems only right for them to confront and explain this inconsistency to the rest of us.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Consultative Council • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Polity & Canons • Instruments of Unity

Until President Obama and his family settle on a local church to attend, their fill-in pastor will be a former All-American offensive lineman who is now a Navy lieutenant who served in Iraq, and a distant relation of Johnny Cash.

Navy Lt. Carey H. Cash, 39, a Memphis, Tenn. native, is pastor of the chapel at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin mountains. A Southern Baptist, Cash began his three-year tour of duty there in January.

The Evergreen Chapel serves the roughly 400 people who live and work on the remote compound, along with the first family when they flee the White House for the peace of the mountain forest.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Military / Armed Forces • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama

The Bishop of Honduras has written to the House of Bishops, asking their prayers for his country after Sunday’s ouster of President Mel Zelaya.

“So far, the entire clergy, lay leadership and our families are all well,” the Rt. Rev. Lloyd Allen wrote on June 29 in an e-mail to the House of Bishops.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * International News & Commentary • Central America • --Honduras

Among the [ACNA] founders was the Rev. Neil Lebhar, a Jacksonville priest and a leader of the regional movement of theological conservatives out of the denomination after an openly gay bishop was elected in New Hampshire in 2003.

With its archbishop and church laws now established, the new group represents a clean break with the past for former Episcopalians, Lebhar said.

"For the average person in the pew, I'd say the major thing it means is that our denominational battles are over and we can get on with the ministry and mission of the church," said Lebhar, rector at the (Anglican) Church of the Redeemer on the Southside.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Florida • TEC Departing Parishes

Greetings in the wonderful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to you celebrating the official launch of the Anglican Church in North America. You are to be congratulated for your faithfulness in the Gospel and in your cooperation with the organization of the new Province. It is likely that it will take some time before the institutional structures catch up to the realities of the present day situation in the Communion. Until that time, you can be sure of your dual status with us in the Southern Cone. This is true not only for Bishop Iker, but also all of the priests and deacons who received licenses through him under my authority when your diocese came to us.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Fort Worth

The Bishop of Kentucky has no ecclesiastical authority to act within the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, first and foremost because the Diocese has realigned with another Anglican Province in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. We assume that he is seeking to exercise some authority in Fort Worth based upon Canon 13 of the Canons of PECUSA. Setting aside the obvious argument that the Diocese is no longer a part of the PECUSA because of realignment and Canon 13 is inconsistent with Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution of PECUSA, and is therefore null and void, his reliance upon Canon 13 for his authority is misplaced. The meeting that was held in Fort Worth on February 7, 2009, by some clergy and laypersons of the Diocese was not a duly-constituted meeting of the Convention. Neither the Bishop nor the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth issued a call for a special meeting of the Convention, as required by Article IV of the Constitution of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. Moreover, there was no quorum present at the February 7, 2009, meeting, because less than one-third of all clergy and lay delegates of the Diocese entitled to seat was present for the meeting. Consequently, the individuals in attendance at the February 7, 2009, meeting lacked any legitimate power or authority to perform any official act, including but not limited to the placement of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth under Bishop Gulick’s “provisional charge” pursuant to PECUSA Canon 13. All actions purportedly taken at the meeting clearly were null and void.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: Florida

Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.

And so, even as Washington tries to cover the tens of millions of Americans without medical insurance, many health policy experts say simply giving everyone an insurance card will not be enough to fix what is wrong with the system.

Too many other people already have coverage so meager that a medical crisis means financial calamity.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Life Ethics • Religion & Culture • Teens / Youth

Pope Benedict XVI signed his latest encyclical Monday, a text on ways to make globalization more attentive to meeting the needs of the poor amid the worldwide financial crisis.

The document, entitled "Charity in Truth," is expected to be published soon.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Poverty • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Though [the Rev. Brad Braxton was] chosen last September out of 200 applicants to be Riverside's sixth senior minister, the former Rhodes scholar saw strife from day one. In April, four church members unsuccessfully sued to block his installation, alleging violations of church bylaws relating to his compensation package.

The soaring church, built by tycoon John D. Rockefeller Jr., on Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1927, has become renowned for its interracial and interdenominational brand of preaching and social justice.

The parish of my father's parents, in which his father played a huge early role--sad to read this.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you; and I will instruct you in the good and the right way.

Only fear the LORD, and serve him faithfully with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you.

--1 Samuel 12: 23-24

Filed under: * Theology • Theology: Scripture