The Letter to the Ephesians this Sunday counsels that all bitterness and anger "must be removed from you." That has not happened in Iran, where anger in the streets and bitterness in the halls of the Iranian parliament testify to ongoing resistance to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sworn in for a second term this week.

In his inauguration speech Ahmadinejad hailed what he called an "epic election" but didn't mention the turmoil that has followed for the past two months. "The victor is all the people, the revolutionary values, and the Islamic establishment," he said.

Reformists did not show up at the inauguration ceremony. Instead, they were busy on social networking sites just as they have been throughout the election crisis. They posted messages ranging from defiance to offering an action plan.

One message on Twitter read: "Lots of empty seats in the Majlis (parliament) today. Well done to those who kept away. Now we need leadership committed to regime change."

Experts predict that if the power struggle in the country continues, chances are high some leading opposition figures will be blamed for the unrest and be arrested as a result.

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs backtracked Wednesday from comments he made Tuesday in which he called Ahmadinejad "the elected leader" of Iran, comments that had raised protests from reformers.

Wednesday Gibbs said he wanted to "correct a little bit of what I said yesterday. I denoted that Mr. Ahmadinejad was the elected leader of Iran. I would say it's not for me to pass judgment on. He's been inaugurated, that's a fact. Whether any election was fair, obviously the Iranian people still have questions about that and we'll let them decide that."

Source: Articles by Octavia Nasr for CNN and Foon Ray for boston.com