(OGA) In his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker J. Palmer writes about functional atheism, the belief that God is distant and the ultimate responsibility for everything rests on us. Functional atheism confesses on Sunday morning that God is the sovereign Lord of creation, while acting during the rest of the week as if it’s really all about us and what we do. If in our deepest heart we really believe we are pretty much left alone in the universe to fend for ourselves, churches will tend to function like religious do-it-yourself projects instead of being outposts of the Kingdom of God. Usually the viewpoint of functional atheism is not intentionally adopted but rather creeps into minds and hearts unconsciously over time. Those who bear the burden of leadership, who deal with institutional administration, budgets, fundraising, or management of buildings, programs, and volunteers, are especially at risk of coming unconsciously to act as though the … [Read more...]
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Commentary 3 days ago
A visit with Mister Rogers remembered
Guest commentary by Richard Austin Thompson Fred Rogers was the hallmark of a good neighbor. With 2018 marking the 50thanniversary of the launching of the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood TV series, there has been revived interest in Fred Rogers himself. From the making of films about him – the documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” and the forthcoming biopic with Tom Hanks portraying him, not to speak of the recent PBS special about him – to the post office issuing a stamp featuring him, there has been nothing else like this… continue reading... -
Looking into the lectionary 3 days ago
8th Sunday after Pentecost — July 15, 2018
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Mark 6:14-29 Ordinary 15B; Proper 10 For a Gospel into that whole brevity thing, Mark devotes a lot of space to the account of John the Baptist’s death. There is no birth narrative in Mark. Mark begins with (wait for it…) John the Baptist. Jesus’ baptism and temptation are allotted five verses total. The account of Jesus’ rejection in Mark’s Gospel leaves out copious details found in Luke. We don’t even get the story of the resurrection in Mark’s compact recording of the life and death… continue reading... -
Book Reviews 4 days ago
Practicing Pilgrimage: On Being and Becoming God’s Pilgrim People
Brett Webb-Mitchell Cascade Books, 220 pages. Reviewed by Kenneth E. Kovacs Like Brett Webb-Mitchell, I have long viewed the Christian life as pilgrimage. A Christian is a pilgrim – a wayfarer – on a journey. We are people of the Way. We follow, as Webb-Mitchell says, “Jesus, the Pilgrim God,” walking with him and being transformed in the walking. We are people on the way, leaning into God’s future, moving toward the horizon of God’s advent. It’s said that pilgrimage is belief in action. My beliefs about pilgrimage were put… continue reading...
Parties in Stamford case had tried to expedite process in order to get a ruling on the merits of the case January 1, 1995 Uncategorized82 views The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission -- in sidestepping the question of exactly how deeply a session should be required to probe into the private life of a gay elder who has acknowledged being in a committed, life-long relationship but has declined to say whether he is sexually active -- has put the question off but has not put it to rest.- Ministering with the Earth January 1, 1998 Book Reviews89 views By Mary Elizabeth MooreChalice. 1998. 226 pp. Pb. $19.99. ISBN 0-8272-2323-4 Ministering with the Earth is a quiltwork, both the on-the-ground activity and Moore's book about so ministering. Moore, professor of theology and Christian education at Claremont School of Theology, is fond of the metaphor, suitably pastoral and feminist.
- Remembered Voice: Reclaiming the Legacy of 'Neo-Orthodoxy' January 1, 1998 Book Reviews88 views By Douglas John HallWJKP. 1998. 145 pp. Pb. $18. ISBN 0-664-25772-0 It was in this order. I first read Tillich's Dynamics of Faith. Riveting. Next came The Courage to Be. Gripping. Then I went back and read the first volume of the Systematic Theology. Things began to make sense. Next came Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality. Positive.
Human rights advocate claims death threat after speaking to General Assembly panel June 18, 2018 Outlook Reporting3 comments ST. LOUIS — Threats are nothing new for Bassem Eid. During his 26 years of investigating human rights abuses, he’s gotten a lot of them.
He says he received another one on June 18, when he stepped outside a meeting room in the St. Louis Convention Center where he’d spoken in favor of a measure condemning both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for indoctrinating and exploiting children in ways that perpetuate violence and hatred.
Eid, 60, is a rare sort of human rights activist — a Palestinian who speaks out as vehemently against Palestinian abuses as he does against those committed by Israelis. ...
Proposed per capita increase will go to General Assembly February 9, 2018 Outlook Reporting2 comments LOUISVILLE – With no debate, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board voted Feb. 9 to approve a sizeable proposed increase in General Assembly per capita – from $7.73 per member in 2018 to $10.71 in 2019 and to $11.45 in 2020.
That would amount to a 39 percent increase from 2018 to 2019 and a 7 percent increase from 2019 to 2020. The proposal now will go to the 2018 General Assembly in June in St. Louis for its consideration.
Ken Godshall, who is chair of the board and a pastor from Kentucky, had voted against the proposed increase Feb. 8 when it came before the board’s executive committee, saying the increase...
Way Forward Commission takes action regarding trust and transparency June 12, 2018 Outlook Reporting2 comments The Way Forward Commission met on June 12 to take administrative action regarding issues of trust and transparency in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – apparently responding to imbalances it has detected in the way things have been operating in the national church.
The action (leading with the affirmation that “God alone is Lord of conscience”) addresses what information can be openly shared after a closed or confidential meeting of a denominational entity, and the ways in which staff and board members can express their views regarding information that’s not restricted “without real or implied threat.”
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Regarding ruling elders: “It’s not all about us”
The visible signs of Christian faith (Aug. 19, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 19, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 12:9-21 Christian theologians are challenged to connect their theology to the lived experience of believers. We should all be grateful for the many pastors and teachers whose ability to bridge the distance between theological reflection and the realities of daily life help the followers of Jesus lead lives of faithful discipleship. The cynical comment that theologians go down the deepest and come up the muddiest reflects an all-too-common attitude of pragmatic activists who prefer doing to thinking. Even the followers of John Calvin are not exempt from the temptation to minimize the theological basis for ministry. That theological base must be connected to the real world in which believers live every day. No book in the Bible is more explicitly theological than the epistle to the Romans. Its first 11 chapters contain Paul’s most profound theological principles. That is why the first verse of chapter … [Read more...]
Christ-like giving (Aug. 12, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 12, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15 Most people are familiar with fundraising letters that have been carefully crafted to persuade the persons who receive them to make a donation. Professional fundraisers know that no matter how sophisticated their donor research has been, only a small percentage of those letters will result in a gift. Therefore, they typically send thousands of requests for money in the hope of meeting their goal. Political fundraisers send written appeals and numerous email requests for financial support. Churches also depend on contributions they solicit from faithful members. By basing their appeal on a shared commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ministry of the congregation, they get a much higher positive response than the mass mailings aimed at the general public. The results of the annual stewardship drive are eagerly awaited by the budget committee and the leaders of the … [Read more...]
God’s justice (Aug. 5, 2018)
UNIFORM LESSON FOR August 5, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 2:1-16 The focus of our Bible study shifts from passages in the Gospels about the justice Jesus taught to the justice the apostle Paul describes in his letter to the Romans. That letter is reliably dated to 55 or 56 A.D., approximately 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus but 25-35 years before the Gospels were written. Understanding the letters of Paul nearly 2,000 years after they were written is a challenging task. Paul, a Pharisaic Jew whose allegiance to Jesus came about as the result of a life-redirecting encounter with the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road, wrote theologically profound but also very practical letters to new congregations that were inventing what would develop into Christianity. The letter to the Romans was written to a congregation Paul had not established but hoped to visit. It constitutes a carefully argued statement of the gospel Paul preached for some 20 … [Read more...]
The surprising success — and faith — of ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor?’
(RNS) — There’s a moment near the beginning of the documentary film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — as the trolley that transported millions of children to the Neighborhood of Make Believe is taken out of its box and Fred Rogers’ familiar sneakers are set next to a bench — when Margy Whitmer muses on the success of the show she produced for many years. “We had a director who once said to me, if you take all of the elements that make good television and do the exact opposite, you have ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’: low production values, simple set, an unlikely star,” she said. “Yet it worked, because it was saying something really important.” The same might be said of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” itself. Over the weekend, the film, having expanded to 893 screens across the country, topped the $10 million mark at the box office, passing “RBG,” a documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to become the highest-grossing documentary of the year, according to … [Read more...]
Episcopal convention approves a ‘pastoral solution’ on same-sex marriage
AUSTIN, Texas (RNS) — Same-sex couples will now be able to marry in their home parish even if their local bishop has moral objections to gay marriage, Episcopal Church leaders decided on Friday (July 13). Meeting in Austin at their triennial convention, the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, the bicameral governing body of the church, approved the controversial resolution after days of debate. Under the new rule, couples can request gender-neutral marriage rites, which were approved for trial use at the church’s 2015 convention, in the church where they worship. Even if the local bishop opposes same-sex weddings, the priest of the parish can still conduct the ceremony, requesting “pastoral support” from a bishop in another diocese if necessary. Currently, eight of the United States’ 101 Episcopal dioceses — Albany, N.Y.; Central Florida; Dallas; Florida; North Dakota; Springfield, Ill.; Tennessee; and the Virgin Islands — do not authorize the liturgies. Bishop Lawrence … [Read more...]
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