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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

Thinking outside the box

 

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.

Editorials

Recommendation Five: Pros and cons

The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity (PUP) has made seven recommendations to the 217th General Assembly (2006) meeting in Birmingham in June. The report as a whole is brilliant, subtle and balanced, and deserves careful study by commissioners to the General Assembly and by the church at large. The vote of this Assembly on the recommendations will have a profound effect on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The heart of these recommendations is number 5, and this analysis and opinion will focus on it. Recommendation 5 proposes an Authoritative Interpretation of section G-6.0108 of the Book of Order. This section states the Church's understanding of our freedom of conscience within certain bounds. The authoritative interpretation reminds the Church of its Reformed tradition dating back to 1729 that establishes the principle of freedom of conscience within bounds and applies the test of adherence to essentials of Reformed faith and polity to those being examined for ordination as deacons, elders or ministers. In recent decades, the Church has applied the test of essentials primarily to matters of faith. The authoritative interpretation retrieves its use in matters of polity, meaning practice or behavior.

Editorials

Recommendation Five’s fatal flaw

 

For years I have taught confirmands and officers-elect with some pride that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a constitutional form of government. The constitutional rule of law is one of our denomination's greatest gifts. It is also in serious danger of being undermined if recommendation five of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church is adopted as written.

On the whole, the report is a first-rate product. It provides the church with clear guidance on matters of Christology and biblical authority. The Task Force worked hard to model for the church how to resolve differences while building Christian community. Even regarding ordination standards, task force members wisely turned to the historic methods Presbyterians have used to resolve such disagreements, set forth in the Adopting Act of 1729 and the reports of the Swearingen Commission of 1925. For all these, they should be commended. However, in applying these historic methods to our current context, the Task Force both violates the original intent of the documents and sets a dangerous constitutional precedent. 

Voices

Clergy coaching: A new approach to beginning a pastorate

Starting a pastorate is extremely stressful. Sky-high expectations abound! At risk is much more than a job and financial security, but also the emotional and spiritual well being of a family and congregation.

Most pastors recall surprises as they discovered their congregation's unwritten rules. Early in my first pastorate I asked where the pulpit was typically located. I was told the interim pastor had moved it around, which I took to mean that I could as well. I was wrong. The pulpit belonged in the center of the chancel, as everyone knew. I'd been "had" in a game of "gotcha." In this case it only cost me a few credibility points. In my next pastorate, I served "communion wrong" for months before finally figuring out the "right way." I was a source of esoteric entertainment as "those in the know" chuckled at my awkward ways. Hey, I don't mind being a fool for Christ, but some mistakes can be very costly. 

Enter clergy coaching.

Book Reviews

The Wounding and Healing of Desire: Weaving Heaven and Earth

by Wendy Farley. Louisville, KY:  WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22976-X.  Pb., 208 pp., $19.95.

 

On the back of Wendy Farley's new book, The Wounding and Healing of Desire, the brief description of her project uses appropriate descriptive language like "inspiring" and "passionate" to invite the reader into this beautiful work. The description ends by calling Farley's book a "theological memoir." If this categorization entices you to pick it up and read it, then I am happy with the choice of genre the publisher made. As a theologian, however, I find the description unsatisfying even as I grope for an alternative way to capture what Farley has accomplished. Indeed this book does pour forth from an intimate integrity that connects her experience with the way she constructs theology. Her project, however, is more ontological than it is a narrative of or theological reflection on her life. 

Book Reviews

Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul

by David L Goetz. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN-13-978-0-06-075670-3 Hb., 214 pp., $23.95.

The inspiration behind this new book is fascinating. Author David L. Goetz asks whether or not life in the suburbs is harmful to a living faith. As an answer, he claims it can be, but with the deliberate method he delineates in this book it does not have to be. 

We recognize the concerns he raises: that showiness and barrenness are the suburbia stereotype. In the lovely bedroom communities of America, it can appear that the inhabitants are more worried about orderly landscaping than they are the landscape of the soul. Such a message is intriguing to me and would be to many clergy. If you serve a congregation in which a large number of your members are suburbanites, the question is there, even if unasked: In the hectic pace and everyday diversions of the suburbs, is it possible for people to discern, to have a word with and have a word from the Living God?

 

Book Reviews

Song of Songs

by Robert W. Jenson. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, John Knox Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8042-3117-6. 106 pp, $24.95

 

"It may be," says the author, "that the chief purpose of a commentary on (the Song of Songs) is not to provide interpretation but to provoke it" (p. 12). In this masterful commentary, Robert Jenson does both.

From the author's engaging preface, through a most informative introduction that makes one eager to read on, and throughout the commentary, Jenson leads the reader on an extraordinary adventure in the study of Scripture.

Uncategorized

Company of New Pastors group supports first-time pastors

The young woman told the story of her first call, as the associate pastor at a mid-sized church. She was learning a lot, starting to hit her stride, beginning to earn respect from the congregation. That's about when the senior pastor started showing -- sometimes in not-so-subtle ways -- that he didn't much appreciate her being in the limelight.

She began to wonder, "Is this really where God has called me to be?"

That experience, which the woman shared during a workshop recently, may not be all that unusual -- first calls often bring some jolts, some rough roads along with the thrills and adventures.

And now some serious work is being done to help first-call pastors deal with the bumps -- to put them in networks with mentors seasoned in the ministry and with peers who are also starting out; to give them a sounding board to figure out what's typical and what can't be tolerated; to help them develop spiritual disciplines that can last a lifetime.

Uncategorized

Peacemaker tells presbytery about CPT work in Iraq

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -  Beth Pyles, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams group that suffered the loss of member Tom Fox in Iraq, recently described her spiritual journey at a workshop during the Presbytery of West Virginia's annual Festival of Faith educational event.

The decision to join CPT was "mostly spiritual, partly political," acknowledges Pyles, who set aside a 22-year legal career in Parkersburg, W.Va. to attend Princeton Theological Seminary. It was spiritual because "we follow a Savior who was killed for the greater good for the greater number. We are a people who do not follow a cause, we follow a person," she said. It was political because "what we're doing in Iraq is problematic," Pyles stated.

Editorials

Who will lead us now?

William Sloane Coffin. James E. Andrews. Both gone.  After spending a lifetime on a mission, they joined the Church Triumphant, leaving big shoes to be filled.

Coffin and Andrews each embodied a particular kind of churchmanship.  

Bill Coffin was the activist: a chaplain and pulpiteer who stirred the masses to take action against what he declared to be the evils of the day. Many disagreed with his diagnoses. What he called a "disastrous cult of power" others cast as an international "police action." While others spoke of the force of law, he warned of the law of force. He provoked much rage. He also provoked action by those he persuaded with his arguments.

Uncategorized

Law and Gospel

Editor's Note: This essay is Part 2 in a series aimed at giving a voice to the center in the current theological debate within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. 

 

The General Assembly's Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church has called us to the task of theological dialogue, and its report has given us a lead in starting the discussion. We might be tempted merely to re-polarize around this report, as some have done. A more constructive response is to reconfigure the issues with which we are dealing, and press forward--together.

Uncategorized

GAC releases names of those laid off

LOUISVILLE -- General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick today (May 2) formally released the names of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff employees who have lost their jobs in the "reduction in force" needed to reduce the 2007-2008 General Assembly mission budget by $9.15 million.

Seventy-five employees lost their jobs May 1, the largest single layoff at the Presbyterian Center since 1993, when 140 jobs were eliminated.

Uncategorized

GAC approves 2007 budget; details on cuts May 1

LOUISVILLE -- Without releasing any specifics of a $9.1 million budget cut, the details of which are expected to emerge May 1, the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has unanimously approved a budget of $97.2 million for 2007 and of $95.9 million for 2008.

What exactly that will fund -- what programs will be kept and which will be cut -- remains to be seen, as virtually all the council's budget discussions over four days took place behind closed doors.

When the council finally pushed open the doors, about a half-hour before they were scheduled to adjourn for worship April 29, they handed out only overall budget figures they had approved. More details will be released May 1 after employees being terminated are informed.

Uncategorized

GAC requests diplomatic response to divestment

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council is asking the General Assembly in Birmingham to respond to more than two dozen overtures on Israel, Palestine and divestment by setting up a process for monitoring what's happening in the Middle East.

The council wants the assembly not to jump to action -- but to set up a seven- member "working group" that represents a range of views on divestment. That group would spend time listening carefully to Christians, Jews and Muslims concerned about the difficulties in Israel, and would "develop guidance that honors each of their concerns" to present to the assembly in 2008.

Uncategorized

PDA hurricane response plan

LOUISVILLE -- Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is proposing a long-term strategy for responding to the hurricanes of 2005 -- a plan that would organize the Presbyterian response for five to seven years in Mississippi and for eight to 12 years in Louisiana.

"The affected area is so large that responding to all communities is not feasible," states a report to the General Assembly Council outlining the plan. 

But Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is working now in 15 communities in Mississippi and seven in Louisiana. It has set up six "Volunteer Villages" where volunteer teams from churches across the country stay when they come to assist with the relief work.

The volunteer tent villages each cost about $8,500 a month to operate. And the response from churches has been terrific, said Susan Ryan, who leads Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Volunteers have come to help from 40 states and three other countries, she said in an interview. In March alone, the villages hosted 1,890 volunteers who gave 12,372 days of work valued at $1.48 million.

Voices

An Easter tribute to William Sloane Coffin in his own words

[In Memoriam:  William Sloan Coffin

June 1, 1924 -- April 12, 2006]

 

Note:  Bill Coffin died four days before I delivered this tribute to him at the Presbyterian church.  It is a composite of his own words in sermons, books and interviews over the years -- g.a.w.

 

 

"To Bill with Great Love and Appreciation" -- Gary

 

 

"I am reminded of all the undergraduates I knew and loved, many now crowding sixty, even seventy.  Some of them have aged like vintage wine, heeding Albert Camus's wisdom:  'To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion.' 

 

A few of them, however, looking back on the springtime of their lives, say, 'Ah, those were the days!' --- and the worst of it is, they're right!   It was not the days, I suspect, but they who used to be better! 

 

You have to unlearn as well as learn, to clear away the weeds and thickets in order to see more clearly the various paths ahead.  [The same applies to our faith.]

Voices

At “Decade of the Child” midpoint, decline; new worship resources

The story of Jesus and the children is the passage often cited as one key biblical foundation for child advocacy. This is a story beloved by curriculum developers and by artists who illustrate Bible stories for children. There are many winsome paintings that depict beautiful laughing children, hair shining with cleanliness and spotless clothing. Such illustrations are attractive, but I've often wondered if we don't do an injustice to the power behind the narrative when we show the children in this way.

So I was struck with the way Joyce Ann Mercer explores that story in Mark's gospel. In her book, Welcoming the Children: A Theology of Childhood1, Mercer examines specific stories from Mark's gospel to address the question of how children appear in Mark's telling of the story. Child advocates most often use the story of Jesus welcoming the children from Matthew or Luke. But in focusing on Mark's account instead (Mark 10:13-16), Mercer helps us to examine the place of children in the context of a culture dominated by the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. The farming peasant population of that time was crushed under the weight of economic privation. Family structures, and in particular women and children, were under enormous economic pressure. So it's likely that the children in Mark's account were street children who may have straggled after Jesus from place to place, children that Mercer calls "other people's children."

Uncategorized

Auburn Seminary launches the Auburn Coaching Institute

 

Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City introduces a new program bringing the best of business and professional coaching into the sphere of theological education and ministerial support. 

The Auburn Coaching Institute is designed by and for people dedicated to furthering the mission of the church through effective leadership and ministries. Church leaders from across a spectrum of backgrounds and locations have experienced coaching through classes at Auburn and through the New York Sabbatical Institute, a program funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. and administered by Auburn in partnership with Union and New York Theological Seminaries. 

Uncategorized

Immigration in America: What will churches do?

Presbyterians concerned about immigration, who are watching closely the Senate debate over immigration reform and feeling the press of an estimated 12 million undocumented workers on cities and congregations, know this: whatever legislation gets passed, this issue won't just go away.

A new "Presbyterians for Just Immigration" e-mail network https://www.pcusa.org/acrec/immigrationreform.htm  is jumping with conversation about what's happening -- with folks tracking the status of proposed legislation and lobbying efforts, and brainstorming about what, in local communities, can and needs to be done.

If legislation is put in place that would impede churches from helping undocumented immigrants -- a version of this has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives -- then "we aren't going to obey," said Mauricio Chacón, pastor of Iglesia Presbiteriana de la Misión in San Francisco. "We are going to have civil disobedience. ... as Christians, we have a higher law than the law of man. ... This goes against my principles, against my beliefs, as a religious person."

Uncategorized

Bill would ban protests at soldier funerals

(RNS) Legislation that would slap protesters at funerals of U.S. soldiers with hefty fines and federal jail time is on the fast track in Congress.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the bill's main sponsor, said he hopes the House and Senate will approve the bill by May so President Bush can sign it into law before Memorial Day.

In the last month, protests at military funerals around the country have angered state and federal officials. The protests were led by the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., which argues that the war in Iraq is God's way of punishing the United States for tolerating homosexuality. The church is led by its controversial pastor, Fred Phelps.

Voices

Israel/Palestine issues loom large at GA

(PNS) Nearly 20 overtures about how the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) should deal with the conflict in Israel and Palestine will be considered by this summer's 217th General Assembly.

The majority call for the GA to rescind the process of phased, selective divestment of PC(USA) stock in multinational corporations whose business practices contribute to violence in Israel and Palestine -- a process launched by a decision of the 216th GA (2004).

Those measures would suspend the process now under way in which the Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) is "engaging" such companies in an effort to get them to change their business practices.

The PC(USA) Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation oversee a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of investments on the denomination's behalf; only a very small fraction is at play in Israel/Palestine.

The portfolio includes stock in five corporations -- Caterpillar Inc., Citigroup, ITT Industries, Motorola and United Technologies -- now being "engaged" by MRTI in the phased, selective divestment process.

The GA deadline for overtures with financial implications was April 17; for those with no financial implications it is May 1.

Voices

Addressing the “youth problem” in Presbyterian churches

The lack of youth in churches is a common lament. Many in our congregations complain that today's families don't emphasize church attendance, and they point to the 1960s as the beginning of the age of youth disinterest in church life. Clergy struggle to explain why the youth population has fled, pointing to parental laxness and competing cultural events. How many of you have heard -- or even expressed -- the following sentiment voiced by F. E. Clark, Pastor of the Williston Congregational Church in Portland, Maine:

We in this generation are just beginning to feel the evil effects of this loose family government and home training in regard to church-going. The generation immediately preceding ours slackened the reins, and the empty pews in many churches show that the young colts have run away. What shall we expect in the generation which is to follow ours, when, as in many cases, the reins have been thrown entirely away and the colts allowed to roam at their own sweet will? This, I say, ... is the great cause of the lack of attendance at our churches; and this cause, unless the evil is checked, will decimate our churches in the future.

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