Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve/Hachette Book Group, 2007. Hb., 307 pp. $24.99.
John F. Haught, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. WJKP, 2008. Pb., 156 pp. $16.95.
Tina Beattie, The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. Orbis, 2008. Pb., 209 pp. $20.
Mark 1:9-15
Editor’s Note: This devotional is the first of seven to run in the Outlook in observance of the 2009 Lenten season. They are based on the lectionary texts for each week.
The most effective Membership Development Program will be balanced.
Churches will give equal emphasis to recruitment, retention, and transformation. Put another way, that means equal emphasis on helping people through the front door, helping them to avoid the back door, and helping them to discover the new life that they probably came seeking.
Here’s the situation. Available houses on the market have outgrown the number of homebuyers, producing an excess inventory of 1.5 million unsold homes.
Watch the alliances shift and gel.
In the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, folks all across the country, of all political stripes, are watching carefully to assess his style, his views, his impact. People of faith are among those trying to position themselves to have a seat at the table and to make their voices heard.
WASHINGTON — To hear Jean Patterson Cushman tell it, President Bush’s faith-based initiative has been critical for her Baltimore organization that helps ex-prisoners find new jobs.
In my magic castle, guess who’s coming to supper?
So here’s the deal. You are to host a dinner at Edinburgh Castle. You have been given special powers. You can conjure up some influential people from Scotland’s history, but you will have to decide which one of two controversial figures, Robert Burns or John Knox, will be guest of honor.
Amersfoort, Netherlands — (ENI) At a time when financial markets have been battered by the global economic downturn, a church-backed microfinance institution has increased its field investments by one third, reaching out to poor people often excluded by the commercial banking sector.
(ENI)--Russian minority churches have voiced cautious optimism about their prospects under the country's new Orthodox patriarch, Kirill I, after messages of welcome from church leaders worldwide following his installation on February 1.
LOUISVILLE — Johnnie Monroe has labored, loved, evangelized, and advocated for social justice in urban communities suffering from economic and spiritual dysfunction for more than 42 years. He will be honored June 12 in Atlanta, for his ministry at a dinner hosted by the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA) as he receives the 2009 John Park Lee Award.
J. William “Bill” Straughan Jr. has been named vice president for development at Montreat (N.C.) Conference Center. Straughan, who headed the development office from 2001 until his retirement in 2006, has continued to play an active role at the conference center as executive director and then chair of the Montreat Conference Center Development Foundation until 2007. Most recently, he has served as interim vice president for development.[caption id="attachment_20200" align="alignright" width="150"]
J. William -Bill- Straughan Jr.[/caption]
(ekklesia ) World Vision launches its 24-hour famine (fast) today, aimed at raising funds to help children and others in the commercial sex trade.
The annual event will this year aim to raise funds for children in Jaipur, India.
LOUISVILLE — The Office of the General Assembly has released biographical information on the 13 Presbyterians named Feb. 5 to the General Assembly’s Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Unions and Christian Marriage.
New Covenant Presbytery has put out an urgent call for volunteers to come to Texas to help build a Volunteer Village at Port Neches.
The village, along the Gulf Coast of Texas, had been under construction for use by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and was due to be finished by early March. But thunderstorms that blew through the area on Feb. 11 destroyed some of the work that had already been done, so more construction volunteers are needed immediately to keep the project on track.
W. Eugene March, known to OUTLOOK readers as the writer of Old Testament Bible commentaries in the magazine, will share in the teaching of Old Testament courses at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, as interim professor of Old Testament beginning in the 2009-2010 academic year.
The Lilly Endowment, Inc., has awarded Columbia Theological Seminary a five-year grant of $648,863 to support continuation of the seminary’s S3 Project, “Cultivation of Pastoral Excellence through Sabbath, Study, and Service.”
(ENI) — A Christian nurse who was suspended for asking a patient whether she would like to be prayed for at the end of a home treatment session will return to work "as soon as she feels able to do so", a spokesperson for Britain's National Health Service has said.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is shrinking in membership, because we have fewer members in nurseries than in nursing homes. We’re dying faster than we’re birthing. Our demographics are working against us.
MONTREAT, N.C. — They talked about sacrificial love. They talked about the outrageous generosity of God. And they talked about the great adventure of passionate involvement.
The demographics make it clear: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) isn’t exactly a cutting-edge denomination. Too old, too white, getting smaller by the day.
In a number of presbyteries, church property disputes — arising when a congregation decides to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for another denomination — continue to bubble through the judicial system. Some of these cases are being resolved within the presbytery. In others, cases have been filed in the secular courts.
As the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has faithfully sought to develop, grow, and equip leaders for the new millennium, we have simultaneously witnessed in recent decades the expansion of the church’s use of Commissioned Lay Pastors (CLPs). Because the evolving role of CLPs currently claims both its supporters and detractors, it is important that we understand the history of this ministry in order to appreciate its implications for our future.
Editor’s Note: Erin Cox-Holmes is the “mother hen”’ of the Commissioned Lay Pastor (CLP) program in Kiskiminetas Presbytery in Yatesboro, Pa., as part her duties as associate general presbyter. She helped develop their original training program more than 10 years ago; she led the updating of that program two years ago; and she serves as technical director of the distance learning component for it, in cooperation with six other western Pennsylvania presbyteries and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She teaches the Christian Education course for Dubuque Seminary’s program for CLPs. Outlook Editor Jack Haberer sat down with her to talk about trends and developments in CLP programs around the church.
The press has recently been full of talk about the voting habits of evangelicals. Reporters have learned not to call theologically traditional Protestants Fundamentalists. Now all members of “the religious right” are referred to as Evangelicals. But this also is a serious error.
When we use the term “customer-driven,” as opposed to “provider-driven,” to describe best practices in church management and program, we aren’t redefining church members as paying customers in a profit-making enterprise.
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