Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple, by what means this man has been healed, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the head of the corner. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

--Acts 4:8-12

O Heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray thee so to guide and govern us by thy Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our daily life we may never forget thee, but remember that we are ever walking in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

By Tom Whitehead, Telegraph

A quarter of the population will be aged 65 or over within 25 years raising fresh fears of an ageing time bomb.

Those aged 85 or over are alone expected to double to 3.3 million by 2033 to make up one in 20 of the country.

At the same time the proportion of people of working age is expected to fall meaning an increasing individual financial burden to support the elderly.

The Government is already planning to raise the state pension age from 65 in steps to 68 in bid to ease a black hole that could run in to billions of pounds.

Projections by the Office for National Statistics warn the number of people aged 65 or over is expected to increase by 6.5 million to 16.4 million by 2033, at which point they would make up 23 per cent of the population.

The number of "very old people" of 85 or over has already doubled from 0.6 million in 1983 to 1.3 million by 2008 and is expected to double again over the next 25 years.

At the same time, the proportion of the population aged between 16 and 64 is expected to fall from 65 per cent to 59 per cent.

Read here

From An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy

This short broadcast can be viewed here.  

The Revd Peter Ould points out 'that I had no editorial control over what was eventually broadcast, so there was plenty of stuff that I talked about that didn’t make the final cut and also what you saw was not necessarily filmed in the same order.'

By Dale O'Leary, LifeSite News

The debate over therapy for same-sex attraction (SSA) and gender identity disorder (GID) has been going on for years. Recently, the APA put out a paper designed to resolve the issue. However, the introduction of the APA’s Task Force Report on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation defines the parameters for the discussion in such a way that the defenders of therapy for SSA and GID are positioned in the worst possible light. The issue is essentially decided in favor of gay-affirming therapy before the evidence is heard.

According to the introduction of the paper: “We see this multiculturally competent and affirmative approach as grounded in an acceptance of the following scientific facts.” This is followed by five supposedly scientific facts that are presented for acceptance as the foundation for discussion. However, the five points are not universally accepted facts based on uncontroverted scientific evidence, but biased statements that obscure the facts. Here are the five so-called facts and the concerns they raise.   1) Same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, and orientations per se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality—in other words, they do not indicate either mental or developmental disorders.   Read more here  

From AFA

WHY WAS THE 20th CENTURY SO BLOODY?

There have always been mad-men, but the 20th century was the bloodiest century in human history. Why? What changed? Why did the world suddenly find itself murdering millions of innocent people?

Is it possible that one specific idea influenced or provided a justification for the atrocities we know as Nazi Germany, the eugenics movement and abortion?

Is it possible that idea was Darwinian evolution?

Charles Darwin loved his wife and children. He paid his taxes and he never kicked his dog. But Charles Darwin had a big idea, and ideas have consequences.

Can we thank the advocates of natural selection for the deaths of millions of people? Or were their ideas twisted and misapplied? Dr. John West, Dr. Richard Weikart and Dr. David Berlinski present the evidence that seeks to resolve the question,

“What hath Darwin wrought?”

Read here

Read it all. Yves Smith (of the Naked Capitalism blog) speaks for me when she quips: "The worst is he might actually believe his PR"--KSH.

Saying that it unfairly targets gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter of what is expected to be a long legal battle over the ban – Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote.

Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, who heard the case without a jury, immediately stayed his decision pending appeals by proponents of Proposition 8, who confidently predicted that higher courts would be less accommodating than Judge Walker. But on Wednesday, at least, the winds seemed to be at the back of those who feel that marriage is not, as the voters of California and many other states feel, solely the province of a man and a woman.

"Proposition 8 cannot survive any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause," wrote Mr. Walker. "Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest."

Read it all.

You may find it here (138 page pdf).

[Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn] Walker.... found that the gay marriage ban violates the Constitution's due process and equal protection clauses while failing "to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license."

"Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples," the judge wrote in his 136-page ruling.

Both sides previously said an appeal was certain if Walker did not rule in their favor. The case would go first to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then the Supreme Court if the high court justices agree to review it.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church’s decision to proceed with the consecration broke one of three moratoria outlined in the Communion’s Windsor Report. The report requested a period of “gracious restraint” during which there provinces would not proceed with the ordination of gay or lesbian people as bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions, and cross-border interventions by bishops outside their own province. In June, Canon Kenneth Kearon, general secretary of the Anglican Communion, wrote to members of The Episcopal Church to inform them that as a result of the Los Angeles consecration, their membership on committees for ecumenical dialogue had been withdrawn.

But the standing committee did not go further in that direction. Commenting on the meeting’s results, Archbishop Hiltz, said, “For lots of people, it’s very encouraging because there was a lot of anxiety…,” said Archbishop Hiltz of the standing committee’s decision. “… It’s pretty clear, in spite of a request that the Episcopal Church be [asked] to leave, that that was one voice and everybody else said, ‘No, that’s not the way forward.’ ”

Read it all.

By Howard Mintz, Mercury News

A San Francisco federal judge today struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, concluding that it tramples on the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples and setting the stage for an appeal that appears destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a 136-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker sided with two same-sex couples that challenged voter-approved Proposition 8, which embedded a ban on gay marriage in the California constitution and wiped out a prior California Supreme Court ruling that briefly legalized same-sex nuptials across the state. Walker ordered that Proposition 8 should be immediately voided, and same-sex couples be given the chance marry across California.

Prop. 8 defenders have already vowed to ask an appeals court to immediately stay Walker's order.

With demonstrations and vigils at the ready in San Francisco and elsewhere, the judge based his decision on an unprecedented trial held in January, a crucial turn in the first federal court test in the nation of a state law forbidding same-sex marriage. Walker's decision is expected to be appealed swiftly to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and defenders of Prop. 8 moved even before the ruling to seek a stay that would preserve the status quo to prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying while the legal battle continues to unfold.

Read here

 

The text does not mention same-sex partnerships. It is worded to apply more generally to any future controversy. Whenever an innovation by one province is opposed by another, the standing committee's judgment will become the Anglican teaching. Step by step Anglicanism will accumulate teachings to which all are expected to assent. We shall be turned from an inclusive church into a confessional one.

Defenders of classic Anglicanism prefer the opposite. We should allow differences of opinion as signs of growth; it is the intolerant who are being un-Anglican. Our Christian duty is not just to accept inherited dogmas but to acknowledge our errors and welcome new insights, using the full range of God-given faculties – so that our faith will continually be made new, creative and exciting.

Read it all.

Brigham Young University was named the nation’s most religious campus, and Sarah Lawrence College the least religious, in new rankings released Tuesday (Aug. 3).

The Princeton Review released the 2011 edition of their yearly assessment of “The Best 373 Colleges,” which included rankings of the most and least religious students.

Mormon-owned BYU rose from second place in last year’s rankings; it also ranked first in the list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools,” an honor which the school has held for 13 consecutive years.

Read it all.

`Daily Mail’ A Tory MP has been warned he could face legal action if he follows through on a threat to refuse to meet constituents wearing burkas. Lawyers for human rights organisation Liberty have written to Philip Hollobone insisting that the Equality Act obliges him to avoid discrimination.   The missive warns that the campaigning group ‘will be happy to represent any of your constituents that you refuse to meet because they are veiled’.   Read more:        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297447/Burka-ban-MP-faces-court-threat-human-rights-group.html  

`Kathleen Gilbert’                     `LifeSiteNews’ NEW YORK, July 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The leader of a coalition of Orthodox rabbis has criticized a declaration signed by dozens of Jewish religious leaders that urges religious communities to accept open homosexuals and eschew therapy to overcome same-sex attraction.   More than 60 U.S. Orthodox rabbis signed the document, originally drafted by Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot, which proposes a set of "principles with regard to the place of Jews with a homosexual orientation in our community."   Read more:       http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10073002.html

`ccfon’   On 17 July 2010, Christian villagers in Mazah, a small village near Jos, Nigeria, woke up to gunfire in the night. As they ran out of their homes in fear, they were butchered by extremist Islamists armed with machetes. At least eight villagers were killed and ten houses burnt down. The pastor of COCIN Church lost his wife, two daughters and his grandson, who was burnt alive in the house after it was set on fire. The pastor’s church was also completely destroyed. Please see below for details of who to write to about this.   Read more:        http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=1145

`Matthew Hoffman’                          `LifeSiteNews’ BRASILIA, July 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Brazilian government has signed a UN-sponsored document endorsing the depenalization of abortion throughout Latin America.   The legally non-binding document, entitled the "Brasilia Consensus," was issued by the Eleventh Regional Conference on Latin American and Caribbean Women (CEPAL) meeting in Brazil's capital city.  It contains numerous references, some oblique and others explicit, to measures in favor of abortion, homosexualism, contraception, and other anti-life and anti-family policies.   Read more:     http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10073001.html

From the Washington Post, where there is more:
Some calamities -- the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 -- have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.

Funding entitlements -- especially medical care and pensions for the elderly -- requires reinvigorating the economy. Ryan's map connects three destinations: economic vitality, diminished public debt, and health and retirement security.

To make the economy -- on which all else hinges -- hum, Ryan proposes tax reform. Masochists would be permitted to continue paying income taxes under the current system. Others could use a radically simplified code, filing a form that fits on a postcard. It would have just two rates: 10 percent on incomes up to $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for single filers; 25 percent on higher incomes. There would be no deductions, credits or exclusions, other than the health-care tax credit (see below).

Today's tax system was shaped by sadists who were trying to be nice: Every wrinkle in the code was put there to benefit this or that interest. Since the 1986 tax simplification, the code has been recomplicated more than 14,000 times -- more than once a day.

At the 2004 Republican convention, thunderous applause greeted George W. Bush's statement that the code is "a complicated mess" and a "drag on our economy" and his promise to "reform and simplify" it. But his next paragraphs proposed more complications to incentivize this and that behavior for the greater good.

Ryan would eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, dividends and death. The corporate income tax, the world's second-highest, would be replaced by an 8.5 percent business consumption tax. Because this would be about half the average tax burden that other nations place on corporations, U.S. companies would instantly become more competitive -- and more able and eager to hire.

UK: Vatican: Anglican Theologian: Pope's visit "crucial" for relations between two Churches
According to John Milbank, the trip is "an opportunity" for Benedict XVI to change the wrong impression that the Anglo-Saxon world has of him. Consensus between Catholics and Anglicans is "deeper than their differences". Positive Anglican reaction to beatification of Cardinal Newman, "symbol of ...

http://www.speroforum.com/
August 02, 2010

Benedict XVI's visit next September to the UK is of "crucial" importance. It is a chance to revitalize his image in the eyes of the British press, after the media storm involving the Pope has in recent months (in reality since the beginning of his pontificate), but also to bring together two cultures and two confessions - Catholic and Anglican - often in conflict.

This is the view point of John Milbank, Anglican theologian and professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics, at the University of Nottingham, interviewed by AsiaNews ahead of the next papal trip:

Read the full story at www.VirtueOnline.org