Presiding bishop writes to presidential candidates

From ENS-

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has written to the presidential candidates, urging President Barack Obama and the Hon. Mitt Romney “to use the debate forum to articulate strong support for a just and peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as a clear plan for how you would work to support that goal in the next four years.”

Dear Mr. President and Governor Romney,
As each of you prepares for the two remaining presidential debates, I write to urge you to use the debate forum to articulate strong support for a just and peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as a clear plan for how you would work to support that goal in the next four years.

While the volatile political nature across the Middle East has emerged as a key theme in this year’s campaign, I am concerned by the relative absence of discussion of a conflict that is central to that region’s future.  This week Palestinian leaders have signaled their willingness to consider a return to the negotiating table, and it will be vital for the next President to prioritize the re-launch of the peace process and to articulate a clear vision for how American diplomatic leadership can assist and encourage negotiations.

More here-

http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2012/10/12/presiding-bishop-writes-to-presidential-candidates/

First Lady's Office Mum on When Obamas Will Pick A Church to Attend

From CNSNews-

The White House has told CNSNews.com that First Lady Michelle Obama is in charge of handling questions from the press about whether and when the Obama family will join and attend a church in Washington. But repeated requests to her press office asking for a response to that question have gone unanswered.

Although President Obama has not had difficulty selecting a golf course on numerous Sundays since he took the oath of office (see earlier story by CNSNews.com), choosing a church has resulted in a wide range of statements on the subject, from Obama himself as well as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Statements by Obama and his spokesmen on the subject date back to May 2008, when Obama officially resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where he had been a member for 20 years. The resignation came after news reports focused on repeated controversial statements from the pastor of the church, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Back then, Obama told reporters his family would probably not join another church until after the November presidential election.

“But, you know, I'm confident that we're going to be able to find a church that we find comfortable with and that will reflect our concerns and our values,” Obama said at a May 31, 2008 press conference when he announced he was leaving the Trinity United Church of Christ.

“I'm not going to approach this as a political exercise. This is a deeply personal exercise about trying to express your faith,” Obama said at that press conference.

More here-

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51314

Bush 41 Lands Safely After Celebrating 85th Birthday With Parachute Jump - Video

NPR reports-

From Maine, the Kennebec Journal updates us on the plan for former president George H. W. Bush to celebrate his 85th birthday with a parachute jump. According to the Journal, he's due to jump (tethered to a member of the U.S. Army "Golden Knights" parachute team), at 1 p.m. ET -- and it will take about seven minutes for them to come down from 13,000 feet.

They're due to land, the Journal says, in "the churchyard of St. Ann's Episcopal chapel in Kennebunkport."

Here's the video-

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/06/coming_up_bush_41s_parachute_j.html

Inauguration Day, hour by hour, on your TV screen

Today is the inauguration at noon for the 44th president who's looking really good in that hat.

With Barack Obama set to be inaugurated today as the nation's 44th president, the day figures to be one of the most-covered live events ever in television history. For Obama's swearing-in at noon, estimates put the potential worldwide audience in the billions. That figure that could dwarf viewership numbers for the Super Bowl and Academy Awards and reach heights ordinarily seen only for the Olympics and the World Cup.

Here's an hour-by-hour account of what to look for:

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lispread206005366jan20,0,5192446.story

Historic Church Will Host President-Elect on Big Day

You got to wonder why pew 54? Who gets the first 53?

President-elect Barack Obama will attend a private prayer service on the morning of his inauguration at the historic St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, according to the Presidential Inauguration Committee.

Kevin Griffis, spokesman for the inauguration committee, said yesterday that the prayer service will not be open to the public.

St. John's, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, is known as the "Church of the Presidents." Since James Madison, every president has worshiped there at some point during his tenure in the Oval Office. The church has kneelers embroidered in tribute to each president, and Pew 54 is traditionally assigned to the chief executives when they visit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011302730.html?hpid=sec-religion

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Decree 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore if, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth

Washington's Thanksgiving Decree 1789

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Veteran's Day

A wonderful photo from the London Times of President elect Obama greeting a war veteran.

Jubilant bishops (and others) greet first black US president

From the Church Times in England.

The Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, Dr Harold Lewis, author of a book on the African American struggle for recognition in the Epis copal Church, said he was delighted and elated. “It signals a new day in American history. The rules have to be rewritten.”

Dr Lewis was the first African American rector in a parish he described as “historically moneyed, old steel barons, pretty straitlaced”. But more than three-quarters of the population were Obama supporters, he said. “The important thing is, he didn’t do business as usual. A lot of his supporters looked beyond his race as an impediment and saw the man, saw his major contribution as an ability to bring people together.

“He got votes from what until now would have been considered unlikely sources. Before the Iowa caucus, there was a foregone conclusion that blacks would get support in black areas, but there are virtually no blacks in Iowa. He has transcended the racial stereotypes and racial applications, and really has done much to fulfil Dr King’s dream. . .

“He is a black man who doesn’t make black the issue. He has trans cended race, while at the same time using it.

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=65917

Abraham Lincoln's faith, from his pew

Interesting piece about Abraham Lincoln's faith and religious affiliation.

Wallace gave us a brief overview of Lincoln's religious affiliation: he was born in Kentucky to a family of so-called hard-shell Baptists, who were so strongly predestinarian that they rejected missionary activity; although Lincoln came to reject that strain of Baptist faith, his upbringing gave him a strong familiarity with the Bible, and as an adult he was able to quote large portions of the King James Bible from memory. In Illinois, Wallace said, Lincoln was hostile to "the emotional revivalism that was going around,'' and was viewed by friends as a religious skeptic. He married Mary Todd in an Episcopal Church; she went on to join First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, Illinois, and then, in Washington, New York Avenue Presbyterian. Lincoln never joined either church, but he attended periodically with his family, and, in Washington, he befriended the pastor, the Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, who played a particularly important role when the Lincolns' son, Willie, died in 1862.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2008/09/abraham_lincoln.html

Defend the Orphan: An Age-Old Christian Lesson Gets a New Lease on Life

An interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal about adoption as a Christian responsibility and how it might impact the presidential campaign. (says Sandy)

"If John McCain is looking for a way to shore up his support among evangelical voters, he might start talking about adoption. In 1993, the McCains adopted a daughter from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, and the senator has co-sponsored legislation to aid adoption, including measures that would provide tax credits for expenses and would remove barriers to interracial and interethnic adoption. But his efforts are rarely mentioned on the campaign trail at a time when adoption is a hot topic in the evangelical community."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121996442316481379.html

Good Stuff in TEC: Prayer is weapon of choice for group

A wonderful article about a prayer ministry at an Episcopal church in Houston

"We started this right before the Iraqi Study Group came out," founder Nancy Doss said. "Things were really bad at that time, and we just felt like the Lord wanted us to pray. He said: 'I've given you a great weapon in the world ... and that is prayer. I'd like you to begin right now.' "

So instead of feeling angry or frustrated about the war, that's what they did. There are about 15 steady members in the group, from several different churches. The only agenda is prayer, a better use for their energy, they all believe.

Members arrive at St. Martin's Episcopal Church west of Memorial Park at 4 p.m. on the dot and almost immediately bow their heads and fold their hands in prayer. At 5 p.m. they stop. If someone is late or has to leave early, that's just fine — everyone understands hectic schedules and bad traffic.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5960390.html

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I'm with you Warren

"My God this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies...But my damn friends they're the one's that keep me walking the floor nights."

Warren Gamaliel Harding