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Holy Week resources and reflections

‘The End of the Spear” and “Curious George”

Both are about journeys from the cosmopolitan United States to the jungles of another continent. In both, the central characters are nice, trusting, non-violent, and affectionate. In both, the first foray ends in great disappointment, but perseverance pays off when the second attempt succeeds. In both, there is a kind of determined optimism, almost to the point of suspending disbelief. In both, love triumphs, but it's not always romantic love that matters, but the genuine caring that binds one being to another despite their unlikely alliance.

Budget realities, per capita rates discussed as GAC begins meetings

LOUISVILLE -- The per capita rate for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would rise 15 cents in 2007 and would stay at that rate in 2008, if the General Assembly approves a recommendation coming its way.

That change, if approved, would set the per capita rate at $5.72 per active member for both 2007 and 2008, compared with $5.57 per member now.

Despite that proposed increase, however, there won't be enough money to go around. Both the Office of the General Assembly and the General Assembly Council "faced the reality that major reductions would be necessary unless there was a very substantial increase in the per capita rate, which we determined would create a very real hardship for the church," a joint report to the council and to the Committee on the Office states.

So a lower rate of increase was proposed, and both the Office of the General Assembly and the council "are making major reductions in expenditures for the next two years," the report states.

The per capita budget being proposed for 2007, at $12.4 million, and for 2008, at $14.9 million, will be slightly less than the 2005-2006 budget, even with inflation and some necessary additional costs. So cuts are coming from other areas, including staffing levels, ecumenical expenses and funding for the Presbyterian Historical Society.

Intelligent design–a cultural code phrase

Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Reflections on Intelligent Design by Mark Achtemeier

 

Intelligent design has become a common cultural code phrase. It appears in our newspapers. It inspires indignation, delight, dismay, confusion and curiosity. A deeper look is worth the effort to understand what is going on.

To understand how "Intelligent Design" is used in our society today, we need to look back at the history of evolution over the past 150 years, and fundamentalist responses to it beginning in about 1920. We also need to think clearly about the finer distinctions between modern science and religion. 

 

Darwin's Origins

The history of evolution took wing with the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species on November 22, 1859. In it, he outlined the implications of observations made while traveling on the British survey ship Beagle 1831-1836. Darwin's ideas created religious upset in some quarters, and continue to do so to this day.

Unbeknownst to Darwin, Gregor Mendel, a Czech-born Austrian monk, was conducting experiments on the genetics of pea plants that fit well with Darwin's observations. He published two lectures in 1865 and journal articles in 1866. His work was unnoticed, and forgotten for 30 years.

Mendel's work includes some fundamentals we all appreciate: Everyone has two biological parents. Children look like their parents. Children are not identical to their parents. Most of us consider these three obvious facts truisms, and therefore we believe the fundamentals of evolution.

To these basics, Darwin added that, for the animals he observed, not all offspring survive, and that only the progeny that survive to have descendents will pass along their genetic material. Mendel added the notion of genes, the particles of heredity that parents pass to children in a way that a child receives half his genetic complement from each parent, without blending. He worked out the basic arithmetic of inheritance.

In 1902, Walter Sutton of Columbia University found that grasshopper sperm cells had only half as many chromosomes (DNA strands in the cell nucleus) as other cells. He asserted that genes are part of chromosomes, and that they are inherited, half from each parent, just as Mendel described. This notion was widely accepted by the 1950s.

In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published their description of DNA. They revealed the now-famous double helix, a molecule shaped like a spiral staircase in which each step was one of four letters in our basic genetic code. By 2001, the Human Genome Project had decoded a complete copy of the human genome: a spiral stair with 3.2 billion steps! Our DNA is in 23 pairs of chromosomes (seen by Sutton a century earlier) and we inherit half of them from each parent, as Mendel had deduced in 1865.

Modern evolution, from the viewpoint of the biological sciences, consists of far more than Darwin's work. For example, the DNA coding structure is found in every known living thing on our planet. It is one line of evidence for a central tenet of evolution, "Common Descent," which holds that all life on earth is genetically linked by common ancestors. We are members of a single family of life on earth.

Modern evolution also uses lines of evidence from plate tectonics and geology. Plate tectonics is the well-regarded science of how continental plates form and move on the liquid core of the earth's mantle. It provides a coherent explanation for findings of identical fossils at what are today widely distant places. It does the same for some modern animals as well: marsupials in Australia, and the opossum in North America with no apparent connection other than through plate tectonics.

Show me your ID

So what are we to make of Intelligent Design? Perhaps a glimpse at life between two offshoots of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can give us insight. Take a look at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).  

These two denominations hold many beliefs in common: adherence to the inerrancy of Scripture, subscription to five point Calvinism, opposition to higher criticism, rejection of women's ordination, repudiation of modernism and post-modernism. Yet they remain separate denominations. Why?

One reason: They do not read the first chapter of the Bible in quite the same way.  

While both denominations allow some latitude in interpretation, the PCA leans toward a literal, scientific chronological reading of the six days of creation. Ordination candidates who question whether the world was created in 144 hours about 6,000 years ago risk disqualification.

The OPC takes a less certain view. While some of its clergy and elders hold to six 24-hour periods of creation, "those who hold to the day-age theory or framework hypothesis argue that the biblical text is inconclusive as to the length of the days ..." They add that the Westminster Confession (and its catechisms) does not require exacting agreement, so "there must be latitude in this area." Yes, the OPC allows latitude in interpretation; see their Web site: http://www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=131 .

Note the two kinds of latitude they affirm. One suggests that each of the six days may constitute an indeterminate length of time. The other, the "framework hypothesis," requires more explanation.  

Gospel music, singers highlighted at Grammys

 

(RNS) Gospel singer CeCe Winans added two more trophies to her collection Feb. 8 at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards. The Detroit-born artist earned awards for best contemporary soul gospel album for "Purified," her seventh solo album, and best gospel performance for the album's first single, "Pray."

Gladys Knight and the Saints Unified Voices choir earned best gospel choir or chorus album for "One Voice."

Other gospel category winners included:

 

-- Best Gospel Song: "Be Blessed" by Yolanda Adams, James Harris III,

Terry Lewis & James Q. Wright

 

-- Best Rock Gospel Album: "Until My Heart Caves In" by Audio Adrenaline

 

-- Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album: "Lifesong" by Casting Crowns

 

-- Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album: "Rock of Ages,

Hymns & Faith" by Amy Grant

 

-- Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album: "Psalms Hymns & Spiritual Songs" by Donnie McClurkin

 

The show featured several performances by gospel artists, including the Hezekiah Walker & Love Fellowship Choir, who sang with Mariah Carey; Robert Randolph, who lent his guitar prowess to Aerosmith in a tribute to Sly Stone; and Yolanda Adams, who sang during the show's finale in a tribute to New Orleans.

Irish rock band U2 swept up five Grammys. U2 lead singer Bono, an international advocate for the poor, spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Feb. 2.

Reflections on Intelligent Design

 

Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Intelligent design--a cultural code phrase by Walter R. T. Witschey

 

Even a casual glimpse at current headlines leaves little doubt that the Intelligent Design debate has become yet another battleground in the culture wars, with culturally-aggressive fundamentalists and equally-militant secularists well represented among the contending parties. Beneath the surface-level politics, however, there are substantial scientific and philosophical issues at play that ought to be of interest to any thinking Christian. It is the purpose of this essay to highlight some of these more substantive issues, lest they disappear beneath the waves of partisan politics.

One of the founding documents of the Intelligent Design Movement is Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe. Those who have seen Intelligent Design linked repeatedly with biblical Creationism in the popular press may be surprised to find that Behe's book contains no scriptural citations, no references to Genesis, no theological arguments, no appeals to faith, no sweeping rejection of evolutionary theory and no speculation about the nature or identity of a Creator.

What Behe's book does contain is a lot of biochemistry: technical descriptions of the chemical machinery that underlies life-processes such as blood clotting, immune response, vision, etc. These molecular machines turn out to be vastly complex, Rube Goldberg contraptions whose operation depends on the precise interaction of dozens of large, intricately-structured protein molecules.

Behe contends that while evolutionary processes of random mutation and natural selection can account for much of the living world around us, they cannot explain significant portions of what modern biochemistry has uncovered at the molecular-level of living organisms. Why is this so?

 

Out!

When I was a child we didn't have Lent,

not down in Nashville, Tennessee,

where my father was a Presbyterian minister,

That's not to say there wasn't any of that "giving up"

   business going on;

It's just that Presbyterians didn't do it.

Oh, we waved our fronds as we went into the sanctuary

   on Palm Sunday,

and we observed Holy Week,

the most memorable day being Friday

when we had hot cross buns and didn't go to school,

but went instead to the worship service downtown,

and listened to one of those Last Words Sermons

and afterwards ate at the B & W cafeteria.

Church of England disinvests, citing Israel’s “illegal occupation”

(RNS) The Church of England has voted to pull its investments out of companies, including the U.S. machinery giant Caterpillar Inc., that it claims are profiting from Israel's "illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory.

The surprise action came Feb. 6 at the behest of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. It was approved overwhelmingly by the Church's general synod and appears to target the 2.2 million-pound ($3.92 million) holdings it has in Caterpillar. The holdings in Caterpillar are part of the Church of England's overall share portfolio that published figures put at $1.6 billion.

Don’t teach religion in science classes

The recent ruling by federal Judge John E. Jones III that it is unconstitutional for public schools in Dover, Pa., to offer intelligent design as a scientifically valid alternative to evolution is a graphic reminder that our schools are the most visible battlegrounds in today's culture wars.

The divisive struggles deciding our nation's future are being fought at thousands of up-close-and-personal public school board meetings. At such bitter sessions, board members argue with one another and with an audience of often-angry parents.

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted to make certain that "students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design." The clear aim was to present intelligent design (or ID) as a scientific explanation for the creation of the world and the human family.

Although ID adherents rarely mention God, most of them are theologically conservative Christians and frequently speak of their faith in creationism -- the belief that the biblical account of creation found in Genesis is scientifically accurate.

 

c. 2005 Religion News Service

 

GAC discussing spinning off PDA into separate corporation

LOUISVILLE -- At first, it may seem like legal ho-hum, not a question to ignite much passion. Should three church programs, including Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, be spun off into a separate corporation?

But for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), there's a lot at stake in the answer including a public tussle at the General Assembly Council over what to do, and the bigger issue this discussion raises over what the PC(USA) will look like in the future.

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