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.

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."

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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.

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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.’ ”

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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.

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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.

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One of the hot debates in academia is now reaching the courts. The question: Do universities discriminate against religious conservatives? Some professors and students say they do, but it's not an easy charge to pin down.

When Elaine Howard Ecklund began asking top scientists whether they believe in God, she got a surprise. Ecklund, an assistant professor at Rice University and author of the book Science Vs. Religion, polled 1,700 scientists at elite universities. Contrary to the stereotype that most scientists are atheists, she says, nearly half of them say they are religious. But when she did follow up interviews, she found they practice a "closeted faith."

"They just do not want to bring up that they are religious in an academic discussion. There's somewhat of almost a culture of suppression surrounding discussions of religion at these kinds of academic institutions," Ecklund says.

She says the scientists worried that their colleagues would believe they were politically conservative — or worse, subscribed to the theory of intelligent design. Ecklund says they all insisted on anonymity.

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When the going gets tough, the tough, um, go drinking. That's the word from a new Gallup poll showing that 67% of Americans are hitting the bottle, the most since 1985. Another sign of challenging economic times: more and more of those rounds are happening in the kitchen, not at the corner pub.

A new report by Mintel International, a market-research firm, shows that a growing number of Americans are guzzling down wine and spirits at home as opposed to in bars and restaurants, and many are trading down to cheaper brands as they seek fiscally conscious ways to party in a sluggish economy.

Read it all.

On Wednesday Kenyans will vote on a new constitution that proposes to take on the corruption, tribalism and impunity that have bedeviled this would-be powerhouse of East Africa since its independence in 1963. But these are anxious days for ordinary Kenyans, despite the peace songs blaring on radio stations, assurances of ample security from the government and even a peace caravan complete with camels. Most people are still shell-shocked after the last national vote, a flawed 2007 poll that led to violence which left 1,300 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.

Jamia Abdulrahim remembers all too well the weeks when frustrated supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, now the Prime Minister, wrought havoc in the slum of Kibera where she lives. Amid the fires and looting, the children of one of her neighbors were burnt to death. Members of Abdulrahim's family have not returned to Kibera to this day. Now, as members of parliament and politicians horse-traded and calculated their next moves, the people in Kibera worry. "For a long time, so many of the MP's were silent," Abdulrahim says. "When we saw that most of the MPs were voting for 'yes' [on the constitution] that was when I slept. Our leaders are our shadows. They reflect whatever we are thinking, whatever we are doing. If they are divided Kenya goes nowhere."

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The other day, a citizen went before a House committee and urged its members to stop their burdensome interference with her business. "At its most basic level," said Annie Duke, "the issue before this committee is personal freedom, the right of individual Americans to do what they want in the privacy of their homes without the intrusion of government."

I know what you're expecting: At that point, the politicians all had a good laugh and told her to get lost so they could get back to meddling in people's lives.

But no. Not only did they hear out the winner of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, they did exactly what she suggested. The committee voted to lift the federal ban on Internet poker and other online gambling, while approving a measure to tax and regulate it.

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Tradition holds that St. Peter was jailed in Rome's maximum security Mamertine Prison before he was crucified upside down and buried on the hill where St. Peter's Basilica was later built.

And now after recent excavations in Rome's oldest prison, archaeologists say they have uncovered evidence that, while not providing direct proof, does support that belief.

The prison, which lies beneath the Church of St. Joseph of the Carpenters facing the Roman Forum, was closed for the past year as experts dug up old floors and picked away plaster.

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In July, Rice decided she had had enough. She announced her decision on her Facebook page:

"For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else."
But, the decision wasn't an easy one.

"It was very painful," Rice tells NPR's Michele Norris. "But I've always been public about my beliefs, and I've always been public about wanting to make a difference."

"And frankly," she continues, "after doing it, I felt sane for the first time in a very long while."

Read or better listen to it all.

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel."

--John 1:29-31

Into thy hands, O Lord, we commend ourselves and all who are dear to us this day. Be with us in our going out and in our coming in. Strengthen us for the work which thou hast given us to do. And grant that, filled with thy Holy Spirit, we may walk worthy of our high calling, and cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

--F.T. Woods

Earlier this year, the American Psychiatric Association released a rough draft of its new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. It's a big book that lists all the mental disorders doctors can use to diagnose mental illness. One of the changes they're proposing is causing controversy.

Traditionally, the manual has warned doctors away from diagnosing major depression in people who have just lost a loved one in what's called "bereavement exclusion." The idea was that feelings of intense pain were normal, so they shouldn't be labeled as a mental disorder.

But the new DSM changes this....

Dr. Kenneth Kendler, who is on the committee that decided to make this change, says it's not that the committee feels everyone who has a loss should immediately be diagnosed with depression. For Kendler, there is a clear, bright line between normal grief and clinical depression. Grief is OK — depression is not. Depression, by definition, is dangerous and should be treated. Grief is normal and should not.

I caught this by podcast this morning on my run--it is a very thought provoking piece. Do take the time to listen to it all if you can (just under 9 minutes). If not, read the whole thing.

An Anglican vicar has been convicted of conducting hundreds of bogus marriages in a scam aimed at helping African immigrants gain illegal entry into Britain.

A jury at Lewes Crown Court, in southern England, on Thursday (July 29) found the Rev. Alex Brown had violated immigration laws by “marrying” 383 couples over a four-year period at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the village of St. Leonards-on-Sea.

In testimony during the seven-week trial, the prosecution said Brown, who denied conspiracy to facilitate illegal immigration, “knew full well that the vast majority of the marriages were shams.”

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Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?

I am a Christian -- I love the Lord Jesus. Christ is the prism through which I interpret everything. I don't interpret the world in terms of complicated bundles of atoms that are ultimately purposeless, but I see everything as an example of the agency and the love of God, and everything held in God's eternal loving gaze.

How can you trust that your Christian beliefs are correct?

The way of the world is that all knowledge is provisional -- it is human constructs in conversation with experience. Therefore, all of us should hold what we believe about the world with some humility.

Now, why I believe what I believe is because it makes more sense of the complexities of human life than the alternatives. My experience of morality, of beauty, of love -- all these things point to the divine, which makes theism more likely than atheism. And then if you ask how can I believe in a God that allows so much suffering? Part of the answer is that I can only believe in God provided I know God knows what it's like to suffer -- and that is the Christian claim, that God knows human suffering. So, for me, it has the ring of truth, more so than the alternatives.

Read it all.