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The Presbyterian Outlook

The Presbyterian Outlook

Creating and curating trustworthy resources for the church, the Presbyterian Outlook connects disciples of Jesus Christ through compelling and committed conversation for the proclamation of the Gospel.

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Voices

How effective is your church’s Web site?

An effective Web site is the heart of Communications Strategy.

To see how your church's Web site stacks up, try this simple method:

Open a search engine, type in the name of a church you admire, and open its Web site. Bookmark it. Find six or more, including your church's likely competition. Open your church's Web site.

Now click from one to the next. Scan it for five seconds -- the amount of time the normal Web user will give to a site's home page -- and then click to another.

Make note of your immediate reaction. First impressions are everything on the Web.

Voices

FOG Task Force, others, preparing answers to report questions

Recognizing that it's something of a hard sell to convince folks that it's a terrific idea to rewrite the denomination's constitution, the Form of Government Task Force of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is planning its strategy for communicating to a broader audience the gist of its complicated work.

Questions people are asking include: "Who formed the task force?" and "Why do we need a new Book of Order? Doesn't the PC(USA) have more important issues" to deal with, said task force co-moderator Sharon Davison, who's an elder from New York City.

A draft introduction to the Revised Form of Government the task force is proposing states that "we have asked two core questions throughout this work: Who does God call the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be (the identity of the church)? and What does God call the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do (the polity of the church)?"

Voices

A proposal to make meetings more Christ-centered and Spirit-filled

I  Introduction
A. As a Church, our whole focus is to serve God by becoming the Body of Christ that reveals the kingdom of God that is among us (Luke 17: 21). As members of the Body, we are to find ways to maintain unity while integrating the different gifts of the Spirit in our individual and communal ministries (I Cor. 12: 12-31). 

B. The reality is that while many in the Church are Christ-centered in their faith, human pride and sin lead all of us still to become self-centered. This self-centered pride often leads us to strive for power and control within the church. The battle for power can spread division throughout the church as the desire of certain individuals and groups to wield and maintain that power and influence within the Body becomes a stronger motivation than the desire to seek the will of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

C. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has adopted Robert's Rules of Order as its standard guide to practice in conducting its meetings. Robert's Rules of Order, while an effective program for conducting business and political meetings, is a wholly secular program. It is not a program that seeks to discern God's will. It was created by a military general as a way creating a standard procedure for debate in order to conduct meetings in a more effective and efficient manner. It is rooted in the desire to channel the human tendency to fight, rather than in the spiritual yearning and to seek God's truth and will.

D. The purpose of the following guide to discerning God's will as the Body of Christ is to offer a way of conducting meetings within the church -- within the Body -- that emphasizes seeking the will of God rather than the will of the people (as Robert's Rules of Order does); that emphasizes pastors and elders exercising spiritual leadership rather than temporal leadership; and that emphasizes discernment over debate. 

Editorials

The Form of Government Task Force: Co-Moderators speak

An appreciation of the late Professor Bruce Metzger in the March 12 Outlook included an anecdote recounting how a North Carolina pastor had, in the pulpit, used a blowtorch to burn a copy of the then-new Revised Standard Version of the Bible, with the ashes eventually being bestowed upon Dr. Metzger when he became chair of the RSV committee.

It's possible that the only thing that could get some Presbyterians more "fired up" than a new translation of the Bible is a new version of the Form of Government. So perhaps we, as co-moderators of the Form of Government Task Force, should brace ourselves for some ashes to come our way from those who want to take a blowtorch, either literally or figuratively, to what the Task Force will present to the church in September.

 

Voices

Creating a Robert’s Rules of Discernment

After reading the final report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) of the Church, I was astounded. I never imagined that they would offer our heady, theology-obsessed denomination an emphasis on humble and prayerful discernment of God's will. 

Those of us Presbyterians steeped in the Christian mystical, spiritual tradition have long recognized the glaring absence of an approach to church polity emphasizing humble, communal discernment. Our denomination has been trapped in a cycle of continual debate and disagreement over issues such as the definition of "Reformed," what the essential tenets of the church are, worship styles, ordination requirements, and scriptural interpretation. What has been missing is a willingness of people on both sides of the debates to sit down with their theological adversaries, and to humbly ask together what Christ is calling us all to do, and what the Spirit is leading us to do. 

Editorials

FOG: Overreaching, Underperforming

 

The problem with General Assembly task forces is that they always seem to try to do more than we originally asked them to do. 

Example: The attempt by a task force to study ordination foundered when it tried to define new language for God to save us from "him/her." The rather useful suggestions by that group that could have helped us move forward were lost because they tried to go beyond their mandate.

Now the Form of Government Task Force has gone beyond its mandate. 

Assigned the task of simplifying the Constitution that has mushroomed into a voluminous, clumsy collection of detailed, statutory laws, they have gone the extra, unneeded mile. They added a "Foundation" document, which simply attempts to write another confession of faith. If we had intended to form a task force to write a new confession I doubt these worthy folk would have been included. Their gifts and experience are in the area of administration and polity, and for that purpose they were selected. Regrettably they have stepped beyond their mandate.

Uncategorized

Synod courts hand down mixed messages on ordination standards

LOUISVILLE -- A church court has concluded that Pittsburgh Presbytery cannot "elevate" language from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution to make compliance with ordination standards "essential" and that it must apply the guidelines to ministerial candidates on an individual basis.

The May 16 ruling by the Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of the Synod of the Trinity followed a two-day hearing in Camp Hill, Pa., regarding a resolution that Pittsburgh Presbytery adopted on Oct. 12, 2006.

The presbytery's resolution called compliance with the PC(USA)'s ordination standards from the Book of Order, which require chastity in singleness or fidelity in heterosexual marriage, an "essential of Reformed polity." It stated that no exceptions would be permitted within the jurisdiction of Pittsburgh Presbytery.

This ruling runs contrary to one handed down March 20 by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Alaska-Northwest. 

Editorials

Half the way to San Jose

So what's really gone on since the last General Assembly? What is the state of the PC(USA) today?

If ever there were an uncertain sound, yet a cacophony of competing interpretations, it is today. Some reassure while others remonstrate. Some warn of impending disasters, while many are enjoying sunny skies. Some fear we'll drop off the right edge of the planet. Others worry that we're falling off the left edge. How's a person to know?

This edition of the Outlook has been prepared to provide accurate and insightful reporting so informed leaders can really lead the church well in this season between the 2006 Birmingham General Assembly and the 2008 San Jose GA.

So where are we now?  

A sea change has been reshaping our national office. The restructure of the General Assembly Council and the election of Linda Valentine as GAC executive director have drawn an influx of fresh eyes and voices into the mission agencies of the church (read article). A new vigor is flowing through those ministries.

Uncategorized

Korean Presbyterians shave their heads to protest school law

 

SEOUL, South Korea -- At least 365 ministers, elders and missionaries of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) have shaved off their hair to protest a controversial revision to South Korea's law regulating private schools.

Joan S. Gray, moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), learned of the ongoing outcry surrounding the reform bill during a recent visit here. The PCK and other private school owners have staged campaigns to stop the measure while threatening to close down schools.

The revised law requires private schools from elementary to university level to fill 25 percent of their boards of directors with outsiders who are unrelated to the institutions.

The aim, supporters say, is to produce more transparency in management and reduce corruption among those who control the schools.

Uncategorized

LCWE hosts Church leaders to plan 2010 meeting in Capetown

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY -- More than 360 Christian leaders from 60+ countries participated in the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) Bi-Annual International Leadership Meeting, a week-long planning session that ended here June 22. The meeting was an opportunity for leaders to pray, plan, and work together toward Lausanne III: Cape Town 2010, the Third International Congress on World Evangelization to be held October 16-25, 2010.

The Budapest meeting of global Lausanne leadership discussed the potential barriers and opportunities of global evangelization, and how the Church can share the hope of the Gospel to every nation on earth. The Rev. S. Douglas (Doug) Birdsall, LCWE Executive Chair, urged the leaders to work together for the cause of Christ, "Because there is so much at stake. The task is bigger and the urgency more obvious."

Uncategorized

MRTI facing ‘legitimate issues’ after 2006 GA divestment action

©2007. Used by permission.

 

LOUISVILLE -- Conversations are under way with three of the five multinational companies targeted by the denomination's Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee -- three years after a decision by the 216th General Assembly to use shareholder pressure to reform corporate behavior that supports the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Basically, the Assembly acknowledged there are legitimate issues here," said Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who staffs MRTI's work, referring to actions taken by the 2006 Assembly that modified language in the original action, calling for investment in "peaceful pursuits" and specifically expanded its mandate to study corporate involvement in Gaza, historically Palestinian East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel.

The original language called for a process of phased, selective divestment of companies who profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Voices

An interview with Linda Valentine

 

Editor's Note: Linda Valentine was elected executive director of the General Assembly Council at the 217th General Assembly, held in Birmingham, Ala., in June 2006. Outlook Editor Jack Haberer recently sat down with her to reflect on her first year in this leadership role.

 

JH: You're coming up on your first anniversary in the role of executive director of the GAC. First the easy question: What have you enjoyed most about this new calling?

LV: The people. Just meeting people all around the church. Seeing the breadth and depth of mission activity that we're engaged in. Truly you sense that this is bigger than any one congregation or any one presbytery.   

 

JH: The obvious second question:  What has been difficult or disappointing?

LV: There's so much to do. There's so much opportunity. Choosing the right ones to pursue. I continue to be disappointed, as so many of us are, with the ... contentiousness in the denomination that is distracting. Some of it is important. But there's so much positive going on that giving equal or more attention to that is a continual challenge.

 

Voices

Presbyteries respond differently after 2006 GA, TTFPUP report

 

When the General Assembly closed up shop in Birmingham last summer, there was a whole lot of shaking going on -- mostly from folks not too happy about the report on the Trinity or another from the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

But now, a year later, the quaking seems to have subsided, at least in some spots on the map. Some presbyteries are reporting relatively little tumult related to the theological task force report, with none of their congregations having initiated steps to leave the PC(USA).

While that may be true, there certainly have been some high-profile cases of churches heading off for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) -- among them, Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa; Signal Mountain (Tenn.) Church; and most recently, the Memorial Church in Pittsburgh. A June 3 congregational meeting produced a vote of 951 to 93, to join other New Wineskins churches in a transitional non-geographic presbytery, in anticipation of ultimate affiliation with the EPC.

Voices

Questions about gay ordination: Answers can be complicated

 

Can practicing homosexuals now be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?

The short answer is "No." The more complicated answer is "Maybe."

 

What has been the Presbyterian Church's rule about ordaining practicing homosexuals?

The current law of the PC(USA) says:

Those who are called to this office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the Confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

This is section G [for Government] 6.0106b of the Book of Order, part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This section, sometimes called Amendment B by its opponents, was adopted by the General Assembly and a majority of presbyteries in 1997. For a decade it has withstood repeated challenges.  

Uncategorized

Simple Way Community Center destroyed by fire

The Simple Way, an inner city Philadelphia community center, was destroyed by fire early in the morning of June 20. The seven-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in the Kensington neighborhood, the Simple Way Community Center on Potter Street, as well as at least eight nearby homes. More than 100 people were evacuated.

There were no casualties; all affected residents reached safety.

Eight families are now homeless, many having lost their automobiles as well.  Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution:  Living as an Ordinary Radical, a resident and leader of the community center, lost all his possessions to the fire. 

For further information, as well as information for making donations, go to www.thesimpleway.org.
 
 

Uncategorized

Browns recall Ruth, Bell family

National and international tributes to Ruth Bell Graham since her death June 14 include the remembrances of a retired Presbyterian couple in Stone Mountain, Ga., G. Thompson "Tommy" Brown and his wife, Mardia Hooper Brown. "We knew and loved her. She was always cheerful," he says.

Uncategorized

African church leader ‘outraged’ at Zimbabwe rights abuses

Cologne, Germany, 13 June (ENI)--The leader of a major grouping of African churches has expressed outrage at human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and has urged the world to help resolve the political crisis in the southern African country.

 

'What is happening in Zimbabwe is an embarrassment even to us as Africans,' said the Rev. Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches, during a recent Protestant convention called the Kirchentag, held in Cologne in western Germany.

 

Uncategorized

Future of Christianity under threat in Iraq, church leader warns

Rome, 14 June (ENI)--A Christian leader from Iraq has warned that Christianity may disappear from his country if no action is taken to stem the hardships faced by this minority community in the predominantly Muslim country.

'Members of all religions - including both Islam and Christianity - are suffering now in my country but Christians as a minority are in greater danger of seeing their historic churches disappear,' said Archbishop Jules Mikhael Al-Jamil, the Rome representative of the Syrian Catholic Church.

Uncategorized

Christian Reformed Church agrees to women clergy

© Ecumenical News International

 

New York -- The Christian Reformed Church, one of the North American branches of the Protestant Reformed tradition, has voted to allow the ordination of women after almost four decades of discussion on the issue.

'I've worked and prayed for this moment for years,' said the Rev. George

Vander Weit, an advocate of women's ordination in the denomination. 'I think [this proposal] gives us space.'

The June 12 decision was made at the denomination's annual synod meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. A day later, the synod voted to allow women as delegates to the denomination's synod.

Movie Reviews

Up, Up, & Away

'Knocked Up':  If the title makes you cringe at its crudity, then the movie itself will make you apoplectic.  But behind all the crusty repartee is a character with a good heart.  Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is a classless slacker who spends all his time getting high with a little help from his friends, carefully tracking porn.  He happens to meet a nice girl named Alison (Katherine Heigl), who is actually on a career path, and otherwise wouldn't have given him the time of day, but well, she was a little tipsy from celebrating a promotion, and the next thing you know, they wake up together in the morning wondering who in the world is this person next to me in the bed.  That would have been the end of it, except, you guessed it, eight weeks later she turns up pregnant.  And then they have to try to figure out if they even like each other, much less can raise a child together.  A thoroughly modern reverse love story, told with so much off-color off-handedness as to leave hardly a hint of saccharin aftertaste.

 

Voices

Reaching young adults

Young adults (ages 22-30) are missing from many mainline congregations. Their absence is one reason those congregations' average age is passing 60.

In our opinion, congregations can be successful in reaching young adults. But doing so will require our understanding who they are and what they are going through.

Uncategorized

Is liberalism an endangered species? Lectures seek answers, honor Ottati

 

RICHMOND -- Is there a future for ministry in the liberal church? That question was on the mind of about a hundred Presbyterians who gathered on May 18 at Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education to bid farewell to Douglas Ottati, one of its professors of theology. After 30 years at the school, he is leaving to accept appointment to the faculty of Davidson College in North Carolina. In his honor, the seminary quickly organized a symposium to discuss a topic closely identified with Ottati's teaching.

Liberal theology appears to be on the wane, as acknowledged in the title of Ottati's most recent book, Theology for Liberal Christians and Other Endangered Species.

Lectures on the future of liberal theology were presented by three individuals followed by brief responses by six others.

Uncategorized

First ordained woman begins as Church of Scotland moderator

Edinburgh, 21 May (ENI)--Ecclesiastical history has been made in the Scottish capital with the Church of Scotland welcoming leaders of the Free Church of Scotland to its 2007 General Assembly that was officially opened by Prince Andrew, a son of British Queen Elizabeth II.

'I think this is a tremendous thing,' said the new moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Sheilagh Kesting, who made church unity the theme of her sermon at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. 'I don't think that any of us guessed that we would be able to do such a thing but we have been meeting for a couple of years and it became clear that there were areas where we could say we have common ground.'

 

Editorials

An illiberal’s liberalisms

 

Ottati. Falwell. The twain did meet -- so to speak -- in their departing.

How strange to be honoring Doug Ottati upon his departure from Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education to head to Davidson College as other Virginians were bidding farewell to Jerry Falwell on his journey to the Promised Land. In the minds of its alums, Davidson does resemble the heavenly estate, but that's beside the point.

A symposium honoring the legacy of an icon of liberal theology seemed oddly juxtaposed to the reactions to Falwell's unexpected death, with countless supporters and critics reminiscing or railing over the legacy of an icon of religious conservatism. 

Presbyterians give Falwell mixed marks. Some appreciated his strong stands on conservative values. Many shuddered over what they saw as narrow-minded, reactionary fundamentalism. We could fill a few months' magazines with commentaries on those mixed reactions. Little would be gained for such efforts.

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