Outlook National Reporter Leslie Scanlon wrote an interesting and informative report on giving to affinity groups in a recent issue of The Outlook: "Conservative groups receive more money; large donors' identities are still kept secret." The article itself was well researched and carefully worded, providing helpful information.
Dear members of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church:
I write this open letter to you to suggest — maybe even plead — that you refrain from using your newly won, and ill-conceived, authority to meet privately.
No good will come of it.
Conservative Presbyterian special interest groups tend to have deeper pockets than liberal ones — although who’s giving the money often isn’t being revealed.
This year, for the first time, groups that wanted to rent display space in the Exhibit Hall at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), held May 24-31 in Denver, were required by the Assembly to submit financial disclosure forms — Internal Revenue Service Form 990s, which the federal government requires nonprofit groups with incomes over certain thresholds to file.
I rise to speak to you this morning as an elder of the church but not for any other elder or the session. I speak as an individual, a Christian, and a Presbyterian in a faith tradition going back thousands of years. I speak because, at the beginning of the service this morning, a member of our congregation, without permission, carried the United States flag down the aisle and placed it beside the altar.
Note - The following sermon was sent by Denton as a response to the guest viewpoint "Of Flag and Faith."
At a recent meeting of the Presbytery of the James, the Peacemaking Committee had stricken from its report this commendation to all the churches — "pray for those fighting in the name of our government. Pray for their protection and safe return home;" in its place was a more generic motion to "pray for all engaged in combat and for their safe return home.
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.
Like almost every pastor, my early years in preparing for ministry were somewhat chaotic, even a bit on the bipolar side, swinging from one theological pole to another — not unlike a steel sphere in a pinball machine — accompanied by swings of mood and attitude.
Start with a centrist Sunday-school theology from my home church; add some revivalist leanings from summer mission experience; then the shock of "higher criticism" in college religion courses, etc.
In his travel classic, Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon recounts this tale:
A woman in Texas had told me that she often threatened to write a book about her family vacations. Her title: Zoom! The drama of their trips, she said, occurred on the inside of the windshield with one family crisis after another. Her husband drove a thousand miles, much of it with his right arm over the backseat to hold down one of the children. She said, "Our vacations take us."
Ushered onstage with a glowing introduction at the 215th General Assembly in Denver in late May, Presbyterian Foundation chief executive officer Robert E. Leech asked the elders in the auditorium to remember the church with a gift in their wills. "Make it 10 percent — it's only money," Leech said.
Leech asked the ministers at the assembly to push their congregations to give even more generously. "Make it 20 percent — it's only money."
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.
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