The first duty of responsible citizenship is prayer – even before we wind our way into the voting booth. Timothy’s mentor gave him this advice: “I urge you that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that [the Christian community] may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” [I Tim. 1 – 2]
Hundreds of thousands of non-Presbyterian Christians, Palestinians, Israelis – and stockbrokers – now know how to “spell Presbyterian.” Not long before, when the 216th General Assembly convened in Richmond, Virginia, that was not the case. The first report I received about the Assembly’s actions regarding Israel: ending construction on the security wall, studying the possibility of divestment, and the funding of Avodat Yisrael (the messianic Jewish congregation in Philadelphia) was from a church member who picked up a distorted, scurrilous story on the Internet.
The Assembly this year will go down in the annals of the Kirk, as the first time a woman occupied the Moderatorial Chair. Though press coverage concentrated on Dr. Elliot's gender, equally significant was the fact that for the first time for more than four hundred years, an elder was called to this high office. For some time now there has been ever increasing media pressure on the Church to elect a woman Moderator.
The idea goes something like this.
A small congregation, in need of a new pastor, looks at new seminary graduates -- a pastor seeking a first call would be just fine with them.
A student, eager to dive into ministry, is delighted with the idea too.
The congregation needs a pastor; the pastor needs a job.
A match is made.
Everybody's happy.
Except here's the problem: a lot of the time, it doesn't work like that at all.
People familiar with the system say there are multiple, serious problems with the path that students take during and after seminary -- problems that are often frustrating for students and churches alike.
Some students don't move into the inquirer and candidacy process quickly enough, or don't pass their ordination examinations, so when they graduate they're not ready to take a call to a church.
More than a few people go to seminary, but don't want to go into parish ministry, or don't want to serve the kinds of churches that have the most vacancies -- small congregations in rural areas or little towns.
Loren Mead presented the challenge well: “In all the denominations, by whatever names we call it, we badly need a better functioning system by which local churches, clergy, and laity are strengthened and encouraged into their ministries. The old system of oversight approaches collapse”(Mead 1991. 55).
In March, a letter came from the Editor and CEO of The Layman, Parker Williamson, requesting that The Presbyterian Outlook “publish corrections and apologies for erroneous statements made in two of our editorials, titled “Ministry of Fear” (January 26, 2004) by John Sniffen, former Associate Editor of the Outlook, and the editorial, “Addressing the Issues” (March 22, 2004) by Interim Editor O. Benjamin Sparks.
Due to the mid-August to early September publishing hiatus at the Outlook, the Uniform Lesson Helps for Sunday, September 5 were not printed. We are posting it on our web site for immediate use.
September 5 Bible Study (Uniform Lesson)
UNIT I “Created for a Purpose"
"From the Dust of the Ground"
Background Scripture and Lesson Focus: Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-24
Without doubt, the most heated plenary debate at the 216th General Assembly was the debate about whether to discard the Authoritative Interpretations on homosexuality. The tactic of the majority report, to abandon the A.I., was keenly designed to attract votes from the theological center. Instead of saying that this would make gay ordination a local option (although this was the claim of a Witherspoon Fellowship newsletter), the majority report sought more “moderate” grounds: that the language of A.I. was “antiquated” and “offensive,” thus it should be eliminated.
Our moderator, Rick Ufford-Chase, is urging the church to take risks, to "get in the boat with Jesus." One of the risks he encouraged sent chills down the spines of some seminary presidents. He called for sacrifice. He believes pastors are paid too much, and that we need to learn, alongside Hebrew and Greek, a living language such as Spanish or Korean.
One of the "holy moments" on the floor of the 216th General Assembly came when the minority report on Authoritative Interpretation became the majority vote by only four votes. There was a spontaneous moment of silence, prompted by the sadness of those who had prayed and worked for the majority report which would have invalidated the 1970s authoritative Assembly statements. There was also the humble recognition by everyone present who saw how deeply divided our church remains on the issue of ordination.
There is an invitation on The Outlook Web page inviting guest viewpoints on the war in Iraq, in response to the reports of torture and abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. One of you remarked that I had not declared where I stand.
This editorial is a declaration, taking its cue from the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God, and shall come to judge the living and the dead. For (1 Corinthians) Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
In late 2003, a Messianic Jewish congregation, Avodat Yisrael, was approved within the PC(USA) by the presbytery of Philadelphia. In response to the possibility of Jews, who also believe in Jesus, evangelizing other Jews, a group of concerned Presbyterians organized. They were led by Cynthia Jarvis, also of the Philadelphia presbytery.
Every year I try to explain "Orwellian" to my students. I end up with something like "a systematic perversion of language to hide what is real and replace it with an illusion — an illusion that is often the exact opposite of the reality. Its long-term effects are, first, a sense of unreality, then, cynicism, and finally, apathy and despair." I might do better just to hand them The Presbyterian Outlook's annual Higher Education Issue.
Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments
As you can boast of in the way of polite society
Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?
— T. S. Eliot, choruses From "The Rock"’
The Office of the General Assembly has just completed the collation of the 2003 statistics for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). While the numbers will be readily available to all, the figures themselves do not tell the whole story. Underneath these statistics are real live Presbyterians, who make up our churches and who are faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The fact that there are fewer active members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) than a year ago should call us to prayer and repentance.
There is division among us over what constitutes authentic Reformed worship. I have witnessed this firsthand while — as moderator of the worship planning work group for the Committee on Local Arrangements for the 216th General Assembly — balancing competing demands of representation and inclusivity for the Assembly in Richmond in four weeks. The variety of Presbyterian worship today is extraordinary. We’ve made choices.
I first encountered African Church hostility to our debates over ordination in 1998 from the courageous editor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s newspaper. He and I talked of many things, not least of which was the fact that for years his was the only voice in Ghana that spoke truth to power. He was hounded, threatened, and would have been shut down, had his funding not been from the Presbyterian Church. A Reformed Christian, he was a tireless advocate of freedom of the press.
A couple of years ago an elder at Second church, Richmond, introduced himself, saying he and his wife had lived in Rich-mond for over 30 years, and felt at home in a place they had come to love very much. Then he said, "I know that for many of you, that’s no more than a long weekend." It’s true. We don’t forget history or lineage.
Part of what ails our denomination is rooted in confusion over how we are connected to one another. Over the past 20 years, our shared judicatory mission efforts increasingly have been replaced by congregationally based mission programs. Today, far more mission work is rooted in congregations than judicatories. This process has been enabled and empowered by affordable transportation to any part of the world as well as instant communication through the Internet and e-mail.
What, besides God’s Spirit, God’s providence and God’s purpose for the PC(USA), will hold us together in a recognizable form through the next 20 years? Does God need the PC(USA) to continue to make a Reformed witness that has been our hallmark since long before John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence?
Last month Leslie Scanlon reported on The Greenhoe Lectures given at Louisville Seminary by Nancy Ammerman. I found her summaries helpful in a variety of ways, not the least of which are some interesting demographics. Less than 20 percent of American households are families with children living at home, and nearly 30 percent of American households are occupied by two adults without children. In addition Ammerman commented on the religious perspectives of Americans. We overwhelmingly believe in God, and at least one-third of us are mainline Christians.
Recently, the daily lectionary readings have taken us into Genesis. In the 17th chapter there is an episode that may provide some help us to our ongoing struggle over ordination.
The 17th chapter is part of the larger narrative which begins when God first calls Abram in chapter 12. God promises to make for Abram a great nation and a great name so that Abram will become a blessing. Abram, Sarai and others begin to move in faithful response to God’s call and promise.
Thank God for people of faith who are here today. Our Faith Community is a giant. We’re in every city and town in America. But the Giant is asleep. The Giant also has a powerful, moral voice. But when it comes to fighting gun violence, the Giant is as quiet and timid as a church mouse.
If the U.S. is to reduce its unique level of gun deaths it will be because people of faith awaken their spiritual leaders and demand that they lead the fight from their pulpits and classrooms.
Margaret Flory is "one of the most outstanding leaders of the ecumenical movement of the 20th Century," Rubem Alves, Brazilian theologian and poet, wrote, "because her eyes had the power to see trees when they were only seeds." 
More than 150 people from around the world — not a few of them trees that first encountered Flory when they were seeds — gathered at New York's Riverside Church May 14-15 to honor Margaret Flory on the occasion of her 90th birthday.
It began with a small twinge in her mid section. It was enough to cause Bridget to cancel a couple of appointments for March 8 and decide to stay home. I got her the usual white chalky stuff one takes for such twinges and things seemed to be just fine.
Until the headache hit.
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