From 43 retired Presbyterian pastors, mission workers, educators
and church executives now residing in Santa Fe, N.M.
We are deeply troubled. We are alarmed about problems in the life of our nation, issues illuminated by the Bible. For several reasons, Santa Fe, N.M., is the home of a large number of retired Presbyterian church workers, including pastors, missionaries, Christian educators and executives. And right now we find ourselves united in concern and anger about issues in our national life.
See if this scenario sounds familiar.
A small handful of angry detractors mount a "whisper campaign" against a recently installed pastor. For a year the congregation and the pastor engage in a process designed to bring healing and resolution to the situation.
Historically, Presbyterians value higher education. In the best traditions of our Reformed faith, this commitment is always being challenged, examined and restated. Prospective students and their parents, along with professors, alumni/ae and governing bodies frequently ask, "What does it mean for a college to be related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church?" The question deserves a thoughtful response.
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.
He and I hold so much in common. How can we see things so differently? We are both pastora of vital PC(USA) churches. We both proclaim the gospel with passion. We both serve boards of renewal organizations. Yet whenever news breaks in the denomination, he seems to see it as a harbinger of doom, whereas I often see the hand of the Holy Spirit. Time and again, in board meetings we argue against one another and vote in opposition to each other.
In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we are short on members but still have substantial funds for mission. Churches in the "Two-Third’s World" have greater and greater numbers of people but are short on funds for ministry. How can we best become partners in mission? Surely some special "theological education" is required.
Short-term mission trips are a popular form of ministry that bring different parts of the body of Christ together.
Recently a religious fortnightly heralded a certain conservative school’s organized deployment of its best M.A. graduates into prestigious philosophy programs nationally and internationally. From there, earned doctorates in hand, these same students are assisted into the academy becoming leaders in the current revival of metaphysics, philosophy of religion, business ethics and philosophical theology.
Deep in the South Georgia forests, perched up on the fender of a Ford tractor at eight years of age, I was surprised when Henry slammed it to a halt. Moving carefully, he took his single-shot .22 rifle from where it had been stowed behind his seat and fired a bullet through the brain of the largest rattlesnake that I had ever seen. We carried the dead snake with us back to the house, where Henry, the plantation superintendent, proceeded to skin it and cut off its rattles for all to see.
Let me begin with an act of memory.
I remember — I’ve not just read about, but I remember — a time in the life of the American mainline church when there was a vital understanding of, and deep confidence in, the language of vocation. I can actually diagram the way in which, at various junctures, this language got spoken in practical ways, to the end that a whole churchly ecosystem participated in the discernment and encouragement of my own sense of vocation.
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