I am both humbled and daunted by the confidence the search committee and board of the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation has shown by naming me editor. Standing on the shoulders of Aubrey Brown (1943-1978) George Hunt (1978-1988) and Robert Bullock (1988–2003) reminds me of the awesome responsibility that attaches to this position. The PC(USA), the denominations that birthed and nourished us into existence, the Reformed and Presbyterian family of churches in the United States, and even the holy universal church owe these past three editors an immense debt of gratitude, as do our readers.
Please don't call me contentious. Don't call me disloyal. I'm just confused over the conviction deeply held by some of my dearest friends about their right to withhold or redirect funds that normally would go to the denomination. What I hear them saying is that the church courts have affirmed our legal right — which is accorded us by our polity ...which is based upon our theology — which issues from our God-endowed freedom — to determine where our money goes. Where all of our money goes.
Across the denomination there is much interest concerning Western North Carolina Presbytery's Jan. 31 meeting, when the peers of Presbyterian Layman editor-in-chief and CEO Parker Williamson will consider a recommendation that his ministry with the Lay Committee not be revalidated.
While attending a preaching conference in Atlanta last year, I had the opportunity to visit the Ebeneezer Baptist Church and the National Park Service grounds that are dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory. Yet as I strolled through the streets there and gazed at the adjacent neighborhood, I was forced to wonder: Had Dr. King’s dream truly come to fruition?
In perhaps the most famous story in the New Testament, a lawyer stands up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" We all know the answer he gets: Love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself. "Do this, and you will live," replies our great Christ.
In late October the Presbyterian Lay Committee issued what it called "A Declaration of Conscience." It takes that group’s traditional "you can’t trust Louisville" stand a bit further. I understand they say it's not a call to withhold funds altogether, but when they say that GA mission and per capita budgets are not "worthy of support," and ask sessions to prayerfully consider redirecting contributions elsewhere, it sure sounds like "Don’t give your money to the PC(USA)."
A recent survey of public expectations claims that pessimism prevails in opinions about ethical values. According to a report cited in the Christian Century, more than two-thirds of Americans feel that general morality is on a downhill slope. A vague and unspoken assumption seems to be that American society was once much more keenly centered on high and praiseworthy ideals, but that with the slippage in attention to religious and noble motives, and the seductive attractions of consumerism and a newly permissive amorality, we are gleefully submitting to social corrosion.
Not least of the problems in the PC(USA) is that we Presbyterians seem unable to talk about our faith in clear and useful ways. If we do have a confident message to share, I suspect it is often different from the faith of the Reformed tradition.
It was June 1979. Fresh out of seminary, I had accepted a call to three small churches that were yoked together in east central Missouri. I was one of seven persons who were to appear before the Examinations Committee of Missouri Union Presbytery, all of whom were daring to enter the high calling of being a pastor to God's people. Each of us entered the room, one at a time, to be examined separately. We engaged in trivial conversation to ease the tension, listening for any clues from the closed doors of what might lie ahead of us.
Like dozens of men and women before me, I now have the privilege of wearing the moderator’s cross. Most Presbyterians know the story behind the cross — the vision and the generosity of H. Ray Anderson of Fourth church in Chicago, who purchased the crosses on the Island of Iona in 1948.
On the road with God’s Presbyterian people, who are called today to recover their reason for being, their sense of mission, we begin with the recovery of sight — the gift of God.
Jesus’ healing of the blind in the Gospels always points to the fact that blindness — spiritual blindness — is a pervasive reality in the community of God’s people. Only Christ, through the Holy Spirit, can open the eyes long since closed to the light of God’s divine activity. We cannot open our own eyes through our own efforts.
Last week it was suggested that one way to honor the 20th anniversary of Presbyterian re-union in Atlanta in 1983 is to measure hopes against realities in this initial period, and to look forward to what may lie ahead — under the title “New Beginnings.”
Reformed Presbyterian Christians always begin their reflections with the scriptural foundation — indeed, the lens through which experience must always be evaluated.
The year 2003 marks the 20th anniversary of the reunion of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. (UPCUSA) and the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (PCUS). The uniting Assembly was held in Atlanta in June 1983, amidst high hopes and expectations for the future.
The recently concluded 215th General Assembly, convened in Denver, held to a steady course in this time of continuing division in the life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We are and remain deeply divided, and the annual meeting of the General Assembly frequently becomes the arena in which the contending forces do battle.
In three successive editorial series, which began late last year, titled The Real Presence, The Time Between the Times, and Renewing the Covenant, your editor has offered reflections on the state of the church, where we've been, where we are, where the Lord might be leading us. Such an effort is daunting and, perhaps, presumptuous, but has been undertaken in good faith to promote discussion about the most basic elements of faith, the church, life, the world.
This ongoing exploration of what covenant renewal would look like in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the early years of the 21st century has followed many threads of our corporate existence, demonstrating how things have changed in the last 50 years or so, and lifting up some possibilities for collectively, intentionally and prayerfully re-envisioning our life together and the shape of our mission.
Change is a human constant. In recent weeks the idea of covenant renewal in the Presbyterian Church has been discussed extensively, toward the end of suggesting an overall framework in which 21st-century American Presbyterian Christians in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) might reclaim the past and recommit to a new vision of the church and its work, that we might move beyond the paralysis which has descended upon us in recent decades.
In recent weeks, there has been ongoing discussion in this space in support of a conscious effort by Presbyterians to renew the covenant of grace which has been given in the blood of Jesus Christ, which is the foundation for the church to which we belong, and through which Christ's witness to the world is made. If there is no such effort, the future looks pretty bleak.
Editorial note — Reflecting on the recent trip to Selma, Ala., described below, two closely interwoven themes became apparent: First, despite the..
In recent weeks we have been discussing the renewal of our covenant with God and with another, that is, God's covenant of grace, in which God promises to be our God and we promise to be God's faithful people — and are enabled to be such solely by the grace of God.
The congregation of God's people is the heart of Christ's church on Earth. If the Presbyterian Church is to be to renewed by God's grace in the "time between the times," then the members of each congregation need to renew their covenant, individually and corporately, with the Lord, and to reframe life together in ways that exhibit the body of Christ in all of its fullness.
If the Presbyterian Church is to be reshaped and reconstituted for God's purposes in our time, our covenant with God, based on God's grace, must be remembered, sought and renewed.
Faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is at the heart of the Christian life and the life of the church. However, a faith that is devoid of serious content or that is not robust, that cannot be communicated in the language and thought patterns of the people who hear the gospel preached, will not be a faith that endures
We are saved by grace through faith, not by works of the law, according to the Apostle. Faith, the trusting relationship with God our Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is at the heart of the Christian life, and must be the starting point for the renewal of its covenant with God by the Presbyterian Church.
If we Presbyterians are to live faithfully and to the glory of God in the "time between the times," as discussed recently in this space, then some intentional framework will be necessary for the church as a whole. It will be necessary to reclaim its heritage and to go forward in mission to the ends of the Earth.
In recent weeks, the current crisis in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been addressed — the precipitous decline in membership over the last four decades, the dissolution of a strong confessional/theological base resulting from the corrosive effects of a rapidly secularizing culture which increasingly exercises dominance over the mind of the church, and the terrible polarization over human sexuality that brought the PC(USA) to the brink of division.
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