Having been going to GA's for thirty years and serving on the GAC for five years and as an executive presbyter in the past, I offer to you four barometers of where the PCUSA may be going. I do not think that they will happen as described, but they may. It is much more likely that some of them will happen.
Conspiracy Theory. Loved the movie. Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts put on a show.
This year's conspiracy theory installment, The Da Vinci Code movie, based on the wildly popular book out for several years, promises to sell many more tickets than the Gibson-Roberts film.
Americans love conspiracy theories. Attributing the worst motives to "those other people"--especially if they represent the bureaucracy of government, law enforcement or the religious establishment--pulls readers and viewers into a web of juicy intrigue. It makes high entertainment.
But conspiracy theories prove less entertaining to those falsely accused of such conspiring.
Popular fascination with Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code continues unabated. The book has been on the bestseller list for more than 160 weeks with more than 10,000,000 (that's 10 million) copies sold. The May 19 release of the feature film based on this fast-paced adventure story and starring Tom Hanks as the handsome scholar Robert Langdon exposes Brown's provocative and disturbing ideas about Jesus Christ and early Christianity to an even larger audience. A directive from the Vatican urging Roman Catholics to boycott the movie will probably only increase the desire of some people to see the film.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
I'm not sure if I've ever seen such an explosion of public interest in Jesus -- from a variety of angles old and new (some would say odd). Whether this fascination simply means that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has created a new industry, or whether it signals something deeper -- that's up for debate. As a pastor with 24 years of ministry experience in a nontraditional setting and as an author on related matters, I think it's a good measure of both.
Through this resurgence of interest in the known Gnostic gospels, through intrigue surrounding the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, as well as through interest in all things Da Vinci, Americans are expressing, I believe, a simultaneous spiritual disappointment and hope -- and each has live political ramifications.
Both films feature, prominently, the country's president--a fit, trim, handsome, well-dressed, well-manicured white man somewhere in his 50's. Both feature terrorist plots against the president. In both, the terrorists themselves are somewhat shadowy foreign figures whose motivations are uncertain, but seem more political than personal. In both, an affair not only undercuts the integrity of the participants, but puts everyone else at risk, as well. One is a deadly serious drama and the other a completely satirical goof, but both have somber, sober, cynical undertones.
(RNS) A Gallup poll of eight Muslim countries has found that only a small minority of their residents said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were justified.
Between 5 percent and 18 percent of residents polled in those countries said the attacks were justified, Dalia Mogahed, executive director of Gallup's Muslim studies said May 2 at a forum that revealed some results of the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World.
The results were based on polling in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan.
by Anne Rice. New York: Knopf, 2005. ISBN 0-375-41201-8. Hb., 336 pp. $25.95.
Jesus has lived the first seven years of his life in Alexandria, Egypt. The novel covers his family's move back to Galilee after King Herod's death and Jesus' first year in Nazareth. The plot concerns how the boy Jesus discovers his birth story and true identity.
Two incidents found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas open the novel. Jesus' blunt words to a bully result in the bully's death. In view of the ensuing ruckus caused by the dead boy's family, Jesus decides to raise him from the dead. In the context of that incident, we also learn that the child Jesus had earlier fashioned sparrows out of clay on the Sabbath day, and then clapped his hands to make them fly away after he was criticized for working on the Sabbath. In an afterword, Rice defends her decision to embrace these apocryphal accounts because she finds a deep truth in them that speaks to her.
LOUISVILLE -- In what's being described as a "huge transition" in the way the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does its work, the denomination is cutting $9.1 million from its budget -- which means 75 workers on the church's national staff have lost their jobs and the positions of 55 overseas missionaries are being eliminated. (link to list of names)
But John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, said the real story isn't only the numbers -- the deepest budget cut and most extensive reordering of the denomination's staff in nearly 15 years -- but the intent of a shrinking mainline denomination to reconfigure itself to be more responsive to Presbyterians at the local level.
"We are at a watershed," Detterick said during a news conference May 1 -- shifting from a denomination that tells congregations from on high which programs the PC(USA) will offer to one that supports the mission work being done by individual Presbyterians and congregations.
The advisory board of the Cross Cultural Alliance of Ministries (CCAM) has challenged the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to focus on critical issues faced by the denomination at the 217th General Assembly this summer.
"We are leaders from the various racial ethnic caucuses, and speak for ourselves. While we have varying opinions about the final recommendations of (PUP Task Force) report, we are of one mind that the issue of ordination standards must not monopolize the agenda and resources of the church. ... We need also to grapple with the matters that are at the heart of our decline," they said.
One week after "March Madness," Presbyterian seminaries held their own version of the Final Four on April 8 at the second annual Ultimate Frisbee Revival held at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va.
More than 70 players from five seminaries participated, along with dozens more who came as spectators or participated in the weekend's other events. Players participated from Princeton Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and Columbia Theological Seminary, Union-PSCE and its neighbor, the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, for a double elimination tournament.
LOUISVILLE -- At the opening of the General Assembly Council's meeting April 26, John Detterick, the council's executive director, predicted that "virtually every council member will find something to be unhappy about."
That's because a denomination that prides itself on caring for the world doesn't have enough money to go around.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is facing a $9.1 million budget shortfall. The denomination is cutting its budget and eliminating dozens of jobs from its national staff. The exact number of positions lost hasn't been announced yet, but the cuts unquestionably will be deep and painful.
The budget proposal presented to the council called for a mission budget for "essential work" in 2007 of $97 million, including more than $4.4 million drawn from reserves.
Several years ago, in the early months of my new position as a seminary president after 23 years of parish ministry, my older daughter, then a ninth-grader, came home from school one afternoon and shared with me a conversation she had had that day with a teacher. In the midst of discussing something else, the teacher had startled her with the question, "What does your father do?" She told me she began to swell with pride as she answered, "My father is the new president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary here in Austin." There was a pause, she said, after which the man asked, "What's a seminary?"
LOUISVIILLE -- Seeking to calm the storm over divestment and get people talking constructively about the Middle East, Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, is proposing a plan.
First, the General Assembly this summer in Birmingham would create a task force to carefully monitor events in the Middle East -- a task force whose members would be committed both to working with Palestinian Christians who want to end the Israeli occupation and to deepening relations with Jews and Muslims in the area. That task force would present ideas on "how to move forward on these sensitive areas" to the assembly in 2008.
Second, the assembly would refer all overtures regarding divestment (and there are a truckload of them) to the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee. Many of those sending overtures want the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to revisit the assembly's highly controversial decision, made in 2004, to begin a process of phased, selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel.
What is the shape of good pastoral ministry, and how is it nourished for a lifetime? How can pastors develop and sustain vital ministry that nimbly navigates the shifting sands of the world in which we live and the wide-ranging expectations of congregations, while remaining steadfastly faithful to the Gospel? Pastors are expected to discern and respond appropriately to their congregation's particular culture, to shape their ministry in ways that fit the situation while remaining faithful to Jesus Christ. Negotiating emerging ministerial challenges gracefully and effectively requires of pastors the capacities to discern the real needs of the moment and to exercise whatever skills and manners are needed to meet those needs appropriately. Moreover, the will to learn and adopt these skills and manners requires that pastors bear the dispositions of eager learners and willing servants.
Editor's note: In the March 20 issue of the Outlook, part of this poem appeared as the lectionary for March 26, 2006. It was not until it was printed that the writer and the Outlook discovered that it was an earlier version and a later version including a further section had not been transmitted to the magazine. We are now running the poem in its complete form for further inspiration and edification.
I've never been bitten by a serpent
although one early dawn hour
I was awakened by my brother
who appeared quite happy
having just recovered his lost snake
under my bed.
Perhaps I, unlike the poor Israelites,
was spared because I don't ever remember
complaining about my mother's cooking,
but complain about the food the Israelites did.
Seminaries hold baccalaureate services, Commencement ceremonies for 2005-06 summarized for the following seminaries:
Peace River Presbytery unanimously endorsed H. Timothy Halverson (Tim) as a candidate for moderator of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Nov. 17, 2005. In support of his candidacy, General Presbyter Graham Hart said, "We need a strong and articulate voice from the center to hold us together in these difficult times. ...Tim's education, ministry and spirit reflect the breadth of the church."
(PNS) Fifteen committees will process the business of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in June, according to the Office of the General Assembly (OGA).
Committee leaders for the eight-day Assembly, which starts on June 15 in Birmingham, Ala., also were named recently by OGA and Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase. Each committee will have elected commissioners as moderator and vice-moderator, plus an appointed assistant and a parliamentarian/recorder.
The 534 commissioners -- 267 elders and 267 ministers -- will be randomly assigned to the 15 committees. Nearly every item of business before the Assembly will be processed by one of the committees, which will make recommendations to the full Assembly. The committees will meet all day on June 16 and 17, and on the afternoon of June 18 if necessary.
Some Assembly committees will be more closely watched than others.
Stewardship is a subject everyone in the church seems to think is extremely important, but in most churches it is the one aspect of ministry we do the poorest. All too frequently ministers blame the seminaries for failing to teach them how to develop a good stewardship program. Everyone tends to blame someone else--the seminaries, one of the governing bodies of the church, the ministers, members of the church--for being stingy.
Where does the blame belong?
If forty-one years in the ministry have taught me anything about stewardship it is this: people need to be taught the why, the how and the when of a healthy stewardship program.
Editor's Note: Before each General Assembly, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly shares what he considers to be the top ten issues coming to the assembly, based primarily on overtures that have been submitted and his travels and conversations with Presbyterians across the denomination. Here is Clifton Kirkpatrick's non-prioritized list for this year's assembly:
Biblical scholar David Lull was discussing the Gospel passage in which Jesus tells a wealthy man asking the path to eternal life to sell all he has and give the money to the poor.
When the man walks away sad, according to the passage in Matthew, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Lull suddenly looked up and asked the class at Yale Divinity School:
"Who is the rich man?"
In I Samuel 24 we read about a piece of cloth with a wonderful history and a powerful symbolism.
The chapter begins with the news that Saul has returned from fighting the Philistines. He is told that David and his men are hiding out in the wilderness of En-gedi. Saul has also been after David and wants to eliminate him from the kingdom. Saul immediately takes off for the wilderness of En-gedi with three thousand men. It is a large force, but it is not only the size the text wants us to notice. The reference to the men being from "all of Israel" is to suggest that Saul has support from all the people for his campaign against David and his followers.
Can a disintegrating organization of Christian believers find a way to reverse its downward spiral? Our national leadership needs our help to find a way.
That downward spiral strikes a distinct resemblance to the deterioration of Main Street in many an American town. That hub of the community's commerce, with its pharmacy, supermarket, clothing, and shoe stores faded when developers built the shopping mall or Wal-Mart on the highway just outside town.
by Thomas G. Long. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22943-3. Pb., 267 pp., $24.95.
In the preface to this Second Edition, Tom Long writes that when he first wrote The Witness of Preaching in the late 1980s, he was attempting to do two things. First, he sought to provide a basic textbook on preaching that would be both accessible to new preachers and yet still helpful to experienced pastors. Second, he hoped "to create a textbook that was in direct conversation with other voices and opinions in the field of preaching" (p. ix).
It is easy to see that Long delivered on his first promise. The textbook immediately found its way into introductory preaching courses in divinity schools and seminaries of all types, and countless experienced preachers found renewed passion for their preaching after reading The Witness of Preaching. What made the original particularly helpful was its rich theology of proclamation that clearly gave life to the nuts and bolts of sermon crafting that Long espoused.
As we near the end of another school year, those of us in theological academia ready ourselves for Baccalaureate and Commencement exercises yielding yet another crop of pastors who will soon stand behind pulpit and table in churches all over the country. This will be my first opportunity as the new president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to pass out diplomas and wish our graduating seniors well as they take on a new mantle of responsibility.
What will I be thinking as I shake their hands? I will be thinking about a line I said to our program staff at First Church, Dallas at the end of every staff meeting. It was, "Praise the Lord," to which they replied, "The Lord's name be praised." Then I always added a phrase from Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there." My reason for saying this line to 2006 graduates is that I've just come back to the academic world after 22 years of parish ministry in one congregation, and I know it's not easy being a pastor these days.
In many ways the church that today's graduates are heading into is not the same one I faced 33 years ago. The world is not the same either. As a result I want to encourage our soon-to-be clergy to "think outside the box" in two ways as they leave their places of learning.
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