The day Barack Obama first showed up in the office of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., more than 20 years ago, the pastor warned him that getting involved with Trinity United Church of Christ might not be "a feather in your cap."

Obama was a community organizer trying to build support for his group on the South Side of Chicago, and a friendly minister at another church had suggested he'd have more luck with black clergy if he joined a congregation himself.

"Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about," Wright told him that day, as Obama would later recount it. "They feel like we're too radical. Others, we ain't radical enough."

Obama ended up joining, a story he tells in his memoirs, and later was influenced enough by Wright to derive the title of a subsequent book, "The Audacity of Hope," from one of the pastor's sermons.

But despite the warning, the association did not seem to be a terribly risky one for Obama, given the arc of the career he was beginning to craft even then....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008 • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Pope Benedict is expected to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on Monday in only the second official meeting between the two religious leaders, a Vatican source said on Sunday.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Abp of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Fiery comments by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have thrust the black church into the national spotlight in recent weeks. But what exactly is "the black church" and is it as monolithic as it's being described?

Linda Thomas, a professor of theology and anthropology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, talks with Andrea Seabrook.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Race/Race Relations • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

The Church of England is a timid, visionless mess of an institution. It lacks the courage to reform itself. Or rather, it lacks the courage to stick with necessary reforms, to see them through. It cannot reform itself without simultaneously pandering to the reactionaries who don't want reform. The result, of course, is not reform, but division.

In 1992, it decided to ordain women as priests. A clear, bold decision, you might think, without much scope for equivocation. Not quite. For it also voted to protect the rights of those who disagreed with the decision to women as priests. They were allowed to form a church-within-the-church; to keep their jobs, to teach that women priests were illegitimate. (They like calling them "priestesses" because it sounds a bit dark and pagan.)

The church defended its toleration of these dissenters with warm words like "broadness" and "inclusion". Really, of course, it is cowardice to tolerate those who refuse to go along with reform. Imagine if Parliament had voted for female suffrage, but also allowed conservatives who disagreed with the development to form a parallel parliament untainted by women's votes.

This laughable cowardice is now being repeated, in relation to women bishops....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE)

So the sky did not fall in. While the Chicken Littles of the world economy, led by Gordon Brown, George Soros and Warren Buffett, may still repeat mechanically the IMF's surprising judgment that the world - especially America - faces its worst financial crisis since the 1930s, their hearts are no longer in it. Mr Brown, after his election woe, can no longer blame the world economy for his political failure. Mr Buffett, having speculated against the dollar for years and declared that credit derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, has finally begun to find attractive opportunities to invest his money and told his shareholders last week that the worst of the credit crisis was probably over. Mr Soros, in his forthcoming book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets, states unequivocally: “We are in the midst of a financial crisis the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression.” But after making $3 billion for Quantum Endowment Fund by anticipating last year's bear markets, he is now hedging his bets, as is only to be expected from the world's most successful hedge fund manager. “I may well be proven wrong,” he told The New York Times last week, adding that he might yet again turn out to be “the boy who cried wolf”.

The main explanation for all this revisionism is simply the change in facts. The near-unanimity of a few weeks ago that the US was sinking into a deep, prolonged recession has been dispelled by recent data on jobs, GDP, business confidence, industrial orders and consumer spending - all telling a consistent story that although the US economy weakened abruptly last autumn, it is not nearly as weak as at the start of previous recessions, and that there have been no signs of further deterioration since February in the key economic variables apart from house prices.

Moreover, the time of greatest risk of a US recession is almost past, since tax rebates worth more than 1 per cent of disposable income will start landing in US taxpayers' bank accounts from this week, almost guaranteeing that consumer spending will pick up, at least temporarily, in the year's second half. And just as the stimulus to consumption from tax cuts runs out, benefits of the Fed's big cuts in interest rates should start to be felt fully in the first few months of 2009. So, it is increasingly likely that the US economy will not experience even a minor recession, at least as defined in the official statistics, as a result of the credit crunch last year.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy

Obama way up in North Carolina (over 91) with Hillary way up (over 81) in Indiana.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

Newly consecrated Bishop Stephen Taylor Lane stood for several minutes at the front of the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke facing the congregation after being adorned with Maine-themed vestments and presented with a ring, a cross and a crozier, which resembles a shepherd's staff.
The moment was striking to Harriet Gosnell, a candidate for holy orders and member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Waterville. "He looked so vulnerable and so receptive and open to the people of Maine, to his flock," Gosnell said, following the consecration service. "It was a joyful service."

Lane was consecrated bishop-coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine on Saturday. He will assist current diocesan Bishop Chilton Knudsen until she retires in September.

Lane's vestments were a gift from the Diocese of Rochester, N.Y., where he used to work. They were designed for him and contained Maine themes, with stitched seagulls, evergreen trees and the ocean. His ring represents the vow between Lane and the church, Knudsen said.

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

When Lynn and Roger Perkins married in 1983, they not only embarked on a marriage, they embarked on a spiritual journey together.

That journey took an unusual twist in the road in 2004, a twist which eventually lead the couple to a new vocation and a new life in Gallup.

Recently ordained as Episcopal priests in November 2007, the Perkins are the new, part-time co-vicars of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Although the Episcopal Church has been ordaining women as priests for about three decades, the Perkins said it is unusual for both a wife and a husband to serve together as co-vicars. Their arrival in Gallup is a boon to their small congregation, which has been shepherded for the last decade by a series of interim pastors. The church will officially celebrate the couple’s arrival with a ceremony later this month.

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

On school days at 2 p.m., Nicole Dobbins walks into her home office in Alpharetta, Ga., logs on to ParentConnect, and reads updated reports on her three children. Then she rushes up the block to meet the fourth and sixth graders’ buses.

But in the thump and tumble of backpacks and the gobbling of snacks, Mrs. Dobbins refrains from the traditional after-school interrogation: Did you cut math class? What did you get on your language arts test?

Thanks to ParentConnect, she already knows the answers. And her children know she knows. So she cuts to the chase: “Tell me about this grade,” she will say.

When her ninth grader gets home at 6 p.m., there may well be ParentConnect printouts on his bedroom desk with poor grades highlighted in yellow by his mother. She will expect an explanation. He will be braced for a punishment.

“He knows I’m going to look at ParentConnect every day and we will address it,” Mrs. Dobbins said.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Children • Education • Marriage & Family

China is in a frightening mood. The sight of thousands of Chinese people waving xenophobic fists suggests that a country on its way to becoming a superpower may turn out to be a more dangerous force than optimists had hoped. But it isn't just foreigners who should be worried by these scenes: the Chinese government, which has encouraged this outburst of nationalism, should also be afraid.

For three decades, having shed communism in all but the name of its ruling party, China's government has justified its monopolistic hold on power through economic advance. Many Chinese enjoy a prosperity undreamt of by their forefathers. For them, though, it is no longer enough to be reminded of the grim austerity of their parents' childhoods. They need new aspirations.

The government's solution is to promise them that China will be restored to its rightful place at the centre of world affairs. Hence the pride at winning the Olympics, and the fury at the embarrassing protests during the torch relay. But the appeal to nationalism is a double-edged sword: while it provides a useful outlet for domestic discontents, it could easily turn on the government itself.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • China

Black liberation theology was a radical movement born of a competitive time.

By the mid-1960s, the horns of Jericho seemed about to sound for the traditional black church in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. was yielding to Malcolm X. Young black preachers embraced the Nation of Islam and black intellectuals sought warmth in the secular and Marxist-tinged fire of the black power movement.

As a young, black and decidedly liberal theologian, James H. Cone saw his faith imperiled.

“Christianity was seen as the white man’s religion,” he said. “I wanted to say: ‘No! The Christian Gospel is not the white man’s religion. It is a religion of liberation, a religion that says God created all people to be free.’ But I realized that for black people to be free, they must first love their blackness.”

Dr. Cone, a founding father of black liberation theology, allowed himself a chuckle. “You might say we took our Christianity from Martin and our emphasis on blackness from Malcolm,” he said.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Race/Race Relations • * Theology

Sen. Barack Obama, the other Democratic presidential contender, has rejected the tax interruption as a "quick fix" with limited benefits and numerous drawbacks.

The White House and congressional leaders in both parties also sound rightly dubious. Other well-informed votes against the gas-tax holiday: Friday's Los Angeles Times quoted Joseph Doyle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, as saying economists are "as close to unanimous as you can get" in regarding it as a "horrible idea."

Yes, higher gas prices are tough on our personal and collective budgets. Then again, higher gas prices strengthen motivation for fuel conservation, alternative-energy development and mass transit.

Our long-term energy problems require long-term solutions, not short-term gas-tax "holidays" that merely delay the inevitable adjustments we must make now that the era of cheap oil is over.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources • US Presidential Election 2008

Squeezed by surging gasoline and grocery prices, the Dentons and other middle-class families are looking to cut corners any way they can to keep their household budgets afloat. It's become a daily struggle for those who exist in that gray zone between safety nets and Easy Street.

People are trading name brands for generic offerings, eating out less, pooling errands to avoid car trips, clipping more coupons — whatever they can do to save a few bucks here and there.

"We're in some very uncertain times right now," said Frank Hefner, an economics professor at the College of Charleston. "I don't think we are going back to the '30s where people didn't spend money, but people are thinking more about how they spend their money."

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • * South Carolina

"Not every one is called to marriage." Canon Llewellyn Armstrong, an Anglican (or Episcopal) priest for almost 50 years, was explaining why he has advised some couples against getting married because they are not marriage material.

"There are various reasons why people get married," said the Rector of Calvary/St Cyprian's Church in Brooklyn, who insists on counselling lovers before he agrees to perform the wedding ceremony.

"They would come and try to give the impression that they are so much in love and I can see through [them], that it's not the case," he added.

"We have situations in which other people tell couples they should be married [like] you are getting old and therefore should look for someone with whom you should settle down.

"Couples often get married for immigration purposes. And yes, I have suggested to people that they should not go ahead with the marriage ceremony because I didn't see the marriage working."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family

Since June, there has been a rash of overdoses at Army hospitals, including some, like [Sgt. Robert] Nichols', that have resulted in deaths. The medications prescribed for soldiers are so potent that they can be dangerous when taken with other drugs or alcohol. Overdoses have become another problem for the Army to grapple with in the wake of criticism of the care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals.

Eleven medications were found in Nichols' body, including painkillers to treat his physical wounds from an explosion in Iraq and drugs to ease the nightmares, insomnia and memory loss caused by his post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

Susan Nichols said that several times before he died, Robert Nichols asked his doctors to reduce the medications "because he felt like he was a zombie and he could only function for a small portion of the day."

Brig. Gen. James Gilman, commander at Brooke, said Nichols' death is still under investigation, so he could not discuss details. But he said the Army has made changes to try to prevent a repeat of that kind of death.

"We obviously went back and looked at medications and whether there are additional steps to take to make it safer," Gilman said. "It would be unthinkable not to reassess everything that you're doing when an event like this happens."

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

It is for many in the Obama camp an unthinkable thought. But politics is sometimes the art of adjusting today to what seemed inconceivable yesterday. I'm talking about the possibility — and the powerful logic — of a unity Obama-Clinton ticket for the Democrats.

I never thought I'd even consider it; but times change; politics shifts, and in the roiling flux of this American campaign, a bold unifying gesture could make the Democratic ticket — and an Obama presidency — unstoppable almost overnight. It's still highly unlikely, but so was JF Kennedy running with Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan running with the first George Bush.

The rationale for a fusion ticket is the same as for any grand political compromise. Very few people in Washington believe that Barack Obama can now be denied the Democratic nomination. Even after the past month, as Hillary Clinton has hung in there, as the scandal about Jeremiah Wright (Obama's firebrand cleric) scandal has battered the post-racial Obama brand, and as white Reagan Democrats have proven resistant to a new young black freshman senator, Obama has actually increased his number of delegates. Clinton simply cannot overcome the edge he built up in February and March, however cruel his April turned out to be. And the superdelegates — who will ultimately decide -- have also been slowly trending his way.

The decision last week by the former Clintonite Democratic Party chairman, Joe Andrew, to switch from Clinton to Obama confirmed the super-delegate trend.

And the raw truth is: Clinton's victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania and persistence in states such as North Carolina and Indiana, which vote this Tuesday, have kept Obama from closing the deal definitively. Worse: the demographics seem to be hardening into a difficult dynamic for him.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • US Presidential Election 2008

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said his company increased its offer to $33 per share, from the $31 per share cash-and-stock bid that it initially made on January 31. But Yahoo was looking for $37 a share, Ballmer said.

"Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo has not moved toward accepting our offer," Ballmer said in a statement.

"After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," said Ballmer.

Yahoo was not immediately available for comment.

Laura Martin, a senior analyst at Soleil Securities, said Yahoo was demanding too high a price and she expected its shares to fall $8 on Monday when trading resumes on the Nasdaq. The shares closed up nearly 7 percent at $28.67 on Friday on hopes of an agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo.

"The Yahoo guys want too much money for their company. We think $33 a share is fair in the context of the weakening economic environment and adverse advertising trends," Martin said, who has a "hold" rating on Yahoo shares.

I continue to be embarrassed by the leadership at Yahoo. Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Economy

Some years ago I read a book, written by an Israeli, about the relationships between Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. It contained a fascinating remark made by a nun, Sister Maria Teresa: “I watch the [Jewish] families who visit here on weekends; how the parents behave toward their children, speaking to them with patience and encouraging them to ask intelligent questions. It's an example for the whole world. The strength of this people is the love of parents for their children.” I see a very similar devotion to children among the Sikhs I've been privileged to know.

Sister Maria's remark touches on another feature of Judaism: the idea that Jewish parents must teach their children to ask questions. We do not believe that faith is blind or unquestioning. Nor do we believe that education is a process in which adults speak and children listen, adults command and children obey. That is the sign of an authoritarian culture, not a free society.

In the Hebrew Bible, people ask questions of God, and the greater the person, the deeper the question.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism

Then the LORD said, "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings,

and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Per'izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb'usites.

And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."

--Exodus 3:8-10

Filed under: * Theology • Theology: Scripture

Shortly before Toby Goldfisher Kaplowitz married two years ago, she went to a kallah teacher — a woman who prepares Orthodox Jewish brides to be intimate with their husbands.

The teacher spent most of her time going over how to observe the laws prohibiting physical contact between husband and wife during the woman’s menstrual period and for a week afterward. She described sex as “‘so horrible, so painful, but said, ‘I’ll give you some tips to deal with it,’ “ Ms. Goldfisher Kaplowitz recalled.

“I was really shocked,” she said. “I knew it was probably true for some women, but I didn’t want to be one of them.”

Today she teaches brides herself in Brookline, Mass., taking a very different approach.

Ms. Goldfisher Kaplowitz is part of a movement among more liberal Orthodox Jews toward open discussion of sexuality and sexual health.

“Sexuality needed addressing,” said Jennie Rosenfeld, director of Tzelem, a project housed at the Center for the Jewish Future, at Yeshiva University, that focuses on the topic. “Having grown up in the Orthodox community, it was too often a subject not spoken about, especially by people of authority, like teachers and rabbis, people who should be addressing it.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Judaism