Voices

The Trojan Horse

I was overjoyed when I read that one of the proposed amendments coming out of this year's General Assembly was aimed at simplifying and shortening Ch. 14 of the Form of Government. It has seemed for years that every edition of the Book of Order was bulkier than the last. Much of that bulk came from items better handled in a manual of operations. My delight turned to horror, however, when I found hidden in the midst of the revision of Chapter 14 a provision that would allow the interim pastor of a congregation to become its next installed pastor by a two-thirds vote of the presbytery.

Voices

The Costs of Splitting: Some Historical Reminders

We Presbyterian evangelicals like to appeal to the past in our ongoing debates with those who claim to have received "more light" on certain important subjects than was available to the biblical writers and the 16th-century Reformers. And rightly so. A defense of both biblical authority and the normative status of our confessional heritage has never been more urgent.

Editorials

Breaking the Cycle of Violence in the PC(USA)

With the end of Christmas, the celebration of Epiphany – the gift of the gospel to all peoples and all nations – and the dawn of the second year of a new century and millennium, the issue of breaking the cycle of violence presents itself to us on many fronts.

Voices

Being a Woman

On this subject more than usual a reader might wonder what possible insight I could possess.  Until now, I have been quite content to recognize the mystery of feminine wilds without devoting any imaginative energy to reflection on what it must be to have them.  Most likely this restriction comes from being told as a little boy that if you kissed your own elbow you would turn into a girl.

Book Reviews

African American Christian Ethics

By Samuel K. Roberts
Pilgrim. 2001. 307 pp. Pb. $26. ISBN 0-8298-1424-8

—reviewed by A. Elaine Crawford, Atlanta, Ga.

Sam Roberts' book builds a strong case for the development of a unique African-American ethical consciousness. While he focuses on the African-American community, Roberts understands various cultures as singular, but none, including African-American culture, as exclusively normative. He argues that African-American ethical consciousness has been shaped through the particular historical and cultural experience of African Americans in America.

Voices

A Christmas Story

He's been coming to our church lately. Not very well dressed, obviously from the street. Totally out of place in our fine building. We've got lots of street people who come into and out of our life.

Voices

The Helpful Stranger

Criss-crossing the country by car the way I do, I've been fortunate to have had few breakdowns. Other than hitting a cement abutment along the Ohio Turnpike and locking my keys in my car while stopping along a deserted stretch on the Pacific Coast Highway, nothing notable has happened.

Voices

The Church as Refuge

This is an activist generation. It is reflected in civil life, national politics and the ecclesiastical scene. In a way this is good: many things need to be done, but too often we try to do too many things or even the wrong things -- so long as we're getting something done.

Voices

The Bitter Frost and the Wild Snowflake

Despite late November spring-like temperatures, the fiery red, golden passion of October's glory has fallen fast. From the mighty oak, maple and ash, the crippled stem and crinkled leaf have tumbled down to the hard, hard ground, where they are crushed like fodder under the hoof of the deer and the boot of the hunter.

Uncategorized

Incarnation and the Slaughter of the Innocents

Shakespeare's Romeo said, "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love." When love and hate reach a certain intensity they both demand incarnation. The Christmas stories have two incarnations; one of hate and one of love. The difficulty is that neither one touches us until it touches us.

Voices

Christmas Message 2001

We live in a world without mercy, where more and more people feel trapped. Time and money have established their merciless rule. The secret of their power is scarcity. Time is money, they say. Those who have a lot of money never have time, and the poor perhaps have time but no money. Yet they need money in order to live, so they borrow, and then they find themselves trapped in the relentless grip of debt.

Voices

Gabriel’s Gifts

Angelic University Graduates and Faculty:

Thank you, graduates, for allowing this old angel, class of '04, to address you on graduation day. And I thank the president for granting me the degree of Doctor of Celestial Deeds (DCD). Think of it! I, Gabriel, a doctor!

Let me recall some of my big jobs, since I have been asked to share memories of my life with you. I was a Special Cosmic Messenger, delivering the Fear not! master message on at least three big occasions.

Voices

12-24 midnight after 9-11-01

The baby grows up into
Mercy
"Jesus" by name -- the Lord saves, or will, as it reads
in the original
His denizens give dozens of titles --
"Lord," "Almighty," "Prince of Peace" even this year,

Voices

Christmas 2001

I head into Greene's Discount Beer, Wine and Liquor. A Salvation Army guy wearing a camouflage cap and jacket over blue dungarees and ringing a bell holds the door open for me. The multiple incongruities slip into my brain. I check; he has a Salvation Army name badge.

Inside, the cashier asks for my I.D., startling me. It's not my age -- 58 -- she wants, but verification of my credit card. I laugh and thank her for checking.

Uncategorized

Elders support rejection, ministers split on Amendment A

A large majority of elders support rejection of Amendment 01-A -- which would delete the "fidelity and chastity" ordination standard from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order -- but ministers split evenly between approval and rejection.

Uncategorized

Presbyterian redevelopment officer loses home to fire

A Mankato (Minn.) Presbyterian church has started a fund to help a PC(USA) redevelopment associate recover from a Christmas Eve fire which destroyed his home.

Editorials

The Broadening Church

The gospel is intended for all people. The church is to go to all nations. God's will is that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

As the late Lefferts Loetscher of Princeton Seminary in a book titled The Broadening Church taught us, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been a broadening church -- an inclusive church -- throughout its history, but becoming the people God wants us to be has not been easy.

Outlook Features

Cuban Christians have done ‘so much with so little,’ says mission volunteer McAtee

This is the gist of what 14 trips to Cuba have taught Bill McAtee, a retired presbytery executive from Kentucky. In Cuba, where for decades the practice of Christianity was discouraged, "they have done so much with so little. And we have done so little with so much."

Voices

The Gift of Enthusiasm

Are you looking for something special to lift your spirits this Christmas? What about a gift that can't be purchased? Namely, the gift of enthusiasm. The seed of genuine enthusiasm is God-given, lying deep within the soul of everyone. The emergence of enthusiasm depends on the maturity of one's walk and talk with God. The nature of enthusiasm (see your dictionary) is to be God-possessed and infused with new energy.

Voices

Responding in a Time of Need

Recently I watched on television as President Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, making airport security a direct federal responsibility. A week earlier, Congress seemed to be deadlocked regarding airport security, with neither party willing to compromise on their own strongly held positions. But, within days, the Senate and House had both agreed to a bill which the Senate passed without opposition and the House passed by a vote of 410 to 9.

Uncategorized

Task force members contemplate the job ahead

Before they gathered for their first meeting, the members of the Theological Task force on Peace, Unity and Purity wrote down some of their thoughts about the task force -- what they hoped for, what they were concerned about, what they expected. Here are a few excerpts from those statements, which were distributed without the writers' names attached.

Book Reviews

Introducing Feminist Theology

By Anne M. Clifford
Orbis. 2001. 287 pp. Pb. $21. ISBN 1-57075-238-9

— reviewed by by Isabel Rogers, Richmond, Va.

The goal of Christian theology, says Anne M. Clifford, "is to bring faith to understanding for a Christian community" (p. 179). That is what she aims to do in this book -- to help the Christian community understand its faith, especially in light of the experience of women.

Uncategorized

Task force encouraged to think in terms of managing – not resolving – conflict in church

DALLAS -- A task force charged with leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment was encouraged at its first meeting, Dec. 6-8, to think in terms of managing conflict rather than resolving it -- recognizing that the Christian church has had conflict almost from its beginning -- and to stop equating conflict with combat, in which some other person or idea has to be destroyed.

Book Reviews

Rethinking the Beloved Community: Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, Social Theory

By Lewis S. Mudge
WCC Publications and University Press of America, Inc. 2000.312 pp. Pb. $27.50 ISBN 2-8254-1332-1

— reviewed by Louis Weeks, president, Union-PSCE, Richmond.

This collection of articles and essays by Lewis Mudge -- which have previously appeared in a variety of publications during the past 30 years -- offers a good summary of his thought. He believes that the whole church needs to think fresh thoughts about its identity as the body of Christ. More, it must develop its identity in the world. Ecclesial life for Mudge is a reality, and social theory can illumine its existence.

Editorials

The Need for Constitutional Reform

Among those efforts that can be undertaken by the denomination to address our current malaise and drift toward fragmentation, none is as important -- or as elusive -- as the need for a major overhaul of the Book of Order.