Dear Fellow Presbyterians:
Serving as General Assembly Moderator has been one of the high points of our lives. It confirmed our confidence in the thousands of faithful congregations and strengthened our appreciation for the integrity and vitality of our theological heritage, represented most profoundly in the 11 confessional statements in our Book of Confessions.
With students less willing to pick up and move across the country in order to attend seminary, and with technology blasting innovation into everyday life, schools of theological education are learning some new digital tricks. And they are struggling with the question of how the human aspects of theological education
When you were a kid was the "True Church" the subject for a month of church school lessons? Did you hear lots of sermons on it; was there a "True Church Sunday" with a special bulletin cover and all? Did you sit around the Sunday dinner table discussing the "True Church" with Mom and Dad and perhaps Preacher Ned? Did you have the conviction as communicant class ended that soon you would be a member of the "True Church"?
In PC(USA) Polity Reflections Note 43, the stated clerk and the Constitutional Services Department answer questions that have been asked about the amendments to G-6.0106a and which the 213th General Assembly sent down to the presbyteries.
Commenting on the precarious state of relations between the Unionists and the IRA in Northern Ireland, commentator Andrew Sullivan of The New Republic recently stated in his weekly TRB column:
"You cannot negotiate peace with people [the Irish Republican Party] whose power is entirely dependent on the will to wage war.
Amendment A is the latest attempt to permit the ordination of practicing. homosexuals. Having failed to reinterpret the clear and consistent words of Scripture, and having failed to overthrow the church's traditional teaching on sexual behavior and marriage, proponents of homosexual ordination now turn to polity.
As the chair of the drafting committee that prepared the report adopted by the 1978 General Assembly (UPCUSA) on the issue of homosexual ordination, I was stunned by A. J. McKelway's claim that the definitive guidance it provided answered a question that was not asked, and thus "got us into this mess" (Outlook, June 18). Having reread the record, I beg to differ.
Presbyterian News Service
Robert McAfee Brown, 81, celebrated Presbyterian writer and educator, died on Sept. 4, in a nursing home near his summer house in Heath, Mass. Brown, whose health had deteriorated in recent years, suffered a broken hip in a fall about a month ago.
1. We have to get past the idea that we are the answer to the problems in the world, instead of Christ being the answer.
By letting go, we free ourselves to serve. Letting go of what? Fear, ego, pride, self-interest -- our own agendas. Empty yourself of these so you can receive God's gifts. We are not Christ, but we can be his hands and feet.
Many of us know that true peace often comes only after some kind of conflict. In the case of the wars that have made and kept this nation free and peaceful, a freedom and peace we celebrate this week, the conflict has been terrible. It has cost people their lives or the lives of those they loved; it has scarred others for life, physically and emotionally.
One of the most remarkable stories of the 213th General Assembly happened before commissioners arrived in Louisville. Advocates for 33 overtures, from 26 presbyteries, conferred among themselves in the weeks prior to the Assembly. I was one of them.
According to the polymathic Philip Schaff, Lutherans produce the best scholars but the Reformed community produces the best preachers. I grew up agreeing with Schaff about the latter but not the former. Our small Presbyterian Church – located at the beginning and the end of the road for ministers – nevertheless provided appropriately learned pastors for our little fellowship.
Bill Williams has written a very good book for those who wonder why, if God is all-powerful, there is imperfection and suffering in this world. He had good reason to ask such questions. He was one of three children in one family who were born with cystic fibrosis. Noting that the odds of such an occurrence were one-in-four, no wonder Williams asks, "Why?"
ISBN 1-57075-279-6M. T. Winter, widely known as a "singing nun," is also widely appreciated as a friend of God and of all God's children. This book, as the subtitle indicates, is the story of her own faith journey from the blind belief of childhood to the mature faith of a medical missionary as Sister Miriam Therese.
ISBN 0-664-50129I expect devotional books to be sentimental and superficial, at best, and insipid at worst -- this book of meditations on the psalms by Thomas Currie is neither. Instead the reader will find here real theological depth and an authentic wrestling with issues of the spiritual life.
ISBN 0-8006-3240-0On this journey into classical Christian art, readers will not find themselves laden with the baggage of an in-depth history of art nor a catalogue of the greatest works from around the world. Helen de Borchgrave's book rather invites the reader to join her knowledgeable, guided tour of art treasures in sites close to their origin.
ISBN 1-57322-150-3"Everything unborn in us and the world needs blessing. My grandfather believed that the Holy has made all things. 'It is up to us to strengthen them and feed them and free them whenever possible to find and fulfill his purposes for them,
By Brian Wren
WJKP. 2000. 422 pp. Pb. $22.95. ISBN 0-554-25670-8
Reviewed by Melva Costen, Atlanta
By George Hunsinger
Eerdmans. 2000. 375 pp. $39. ISBN 0-8028-4644-0
Reviewed by Robert C. Bankhead, Wilmington, N.C.
ISBN ISBN 0-664-25844-1Lloyd Rediger is on a crusade. He has written his latest book, "Fit to Be a Pastor: A Call to Physical, Mental and Spiritual Fitness," as a challenge to the church to join the quest for healthy leaders. The book is a summons issued to all of us in church leadership, particularly pastors, to seek body-mind-spirit fitness and to do it now.
R. David Steele, 70, a widely known herald of hope and joy among Presbyterians in the PC(USA) died Tuesday, Aug. 28, of cancer in Sun City, Ariz.
A pastor, author, homespun philosopher, poet and humorist, he was known to many readers 
of The Outlook for his regular column "Tuesday Morning" written by him since February 1985.
MONTREAT, N.C. -- Mary Elva Smith, the new director of the Women's Ministries Program Area of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), said here recently that she'd like to see the denomination push for another global women's conference that she said will restore the validity of feminist theology in the church.
The magazine Monday Morning -- which for 66 years provided a place for Presbyterian pastors to shout out on matters in the church and the world -- is ceasing publication at the end of this year, for financial reasons.
Updated 3 p.m. EDT Aug. 16 to include additional information.
A curriculum produced "by Presbyterians for Presbyterians" is continuing to have financial problems -- in part because so few congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are using it -- so the denomination has decided to suspend development of the next phase of the curriculum to try to contain the losses.
ISBN 0-664-50109-5"Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt" is pithy, witty and well-organized. So much did I enjoy it that I bought five copies to give to my Austin, Texas, high school graduates this year. Although Ted and Alex claim the "Bible belt" as the arena for this, their first book together, I would recommend this book to my former youth groups in California and Utah in a heartbeat.
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