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.
I walk over to the bookcase. The top shelf is crammed full of 49 volumes of a series with similar spines. The authors date from the third through the 17th century and include some of the most arcane and least-read material on earth. I have purchased them over the years, and I have had to fork over at least a thousand dollars for them.
I read with great interest the article by James Goodloe ("Righteous Judgment") and the endorsing letter by Eddie Soto. Though the term is never used, I assume that both are being critical of "Lectionary Preaching."
Both are correct when they say that lectio continua (preaching through a book of the Bible "in course," chapter by chapter) was used back to the earliest days of the church, and that the reformers, especially the Genevan reformers, urged pastors to preach through books of the Bible.
In some parts of the country we have endured a long, cold winter and the blizzards are still coming (after several weeks of sub-zero weather). Many people are sick of it and feel like they are caught in a frozen trap.
Some of this normal depression will pass, of course, when spring comes; when we get rid of the ice, the heavy coats and gloves, the constant aggravation of getting into a freezing car. Then we will feel better again.
In response to declining membership, a strategy report of a major presbytery several years ago emphasized new church development. Although anticipated, it was still rather disconcerting. How many commercial enterprises would respond to falling sales by opening new franchises? Instead, if they hoped to survive, they would concentrate on product improvement.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
— Exodus 20:4–6 (ESV)
Does your board have a line in the sand when it comes to personal, professional, ethical or administrative behavior of church members and officers? How long will you permit unruly or fractious actions by one or two individuals to disrupt the important work of the congregation? What do you do if one of the church's officers clearly violates his or her ordination vows?
On the Supreme Court's docket for the current session is a review of the Ninth Circuit Court's judgment of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. If that phrase is removed, it would return to the version I memorized in public school. During World War II no one complained about a deficiency in the 29 words we voluntarily repeated during our daily flag raisings. Our generation swelled with patriotic pride and could hardly wait to enlist in our armed services to help topple those totalitarian regimes intent on conquering other European or Asian nations.
Surely by now it is clear that we are standing under the judgment of God. Nothing else could account for the precipitous and calamitous decline of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over the last 40 years. And while we stand under the judgment of God, this indeed is our only hope: the judgment of God is righteous.
Mel Gibson's labor of faith is not a popcorn and candy movie. It's gruesome, it's brutal, it's bloody, and it's sobering. For the faithful, it's a stark reminder of just how much Jesus sacrificed, and at what great cost our redemption has been paid.
"The Passion of the Christ" depicts the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (played by Jim Cavaziel), from the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to the tomb.
As a Presbyterian who claims but also hopes to transcend the label "liberal," I was heartened by The Outlook's reports (Nov. 3) of two addresses offered at the recent Presbyterian Coalition Gathering in Oregon. Jin Kim, newly-elected board president of Presbyterian's for Renewal, challenged his audience to look forward to a more racially/ethnically inclusive church, not backward to the supposed glory days of our 1950s segregated congregations.
As Western North Carolina Presbytery prepares to vote Jan. 31 on a recommendation not to revalidate the ministry of Parker Williamson with the Presbyerian Lay Committee, the present struggle for the soul of the Presbyterian Church is looking like a replay of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1920s. If the editor of The Layman eventually loses his ordination because of his encouragement to sessions to withhold per capita contributions, the decision would mirror the 1935 defrocking of J. Gresham Machen by New Brunswick Presbytery over his leadership of an independent mission board that appeared, like the Layman, to threaten the purse of mother church.
With other news and controversial issues taking up much space in Presbyterian publications, I would like to call our attention to one of the amendments that is being sent down for vote by presbyteries. Amendment 03-G will require a minister or church employee to be placed on immediate administrative leave as soon as a sexual misconduct complaint is filed with the clerk of the governing body when the issue involves someone under 18 years or who is mentally unable to make decisions for him/herself.
I read with interest William H. Harter’s guest viewpoint entitled, De-Triumphalizing the Gospel. I commend him for his efforts both to be a Christian friend to Jewish persons and to humbly recognize that Gentile Christians have been grafted into Israel. However, I find myself disagreeing with him in his assertions that Christians should not seek to evangelize Jews and that trust in Jesus as Messiah, for a Jew, is apparently not a completion of what God always intended for Jews.
The serious problem posed by denominational funding of the Avodat Israel congregation in Philadelphia Presbytery has significance far beyond what Harold Kurtz describes as a "splash" (in "De-Westernizing the Gospel").
This congregation understands itself as part of the self-described "Messianic Jewish" movement. This nomenclature is distressing and demeaning to Jews because messianism has always been and continues to be central to Jewish self-understanding as well as to Christian.
I have the privilege of serving Jesus as the president of the University of Dubuque, a Presbyterian-related college and theological seminary that,..
Christmas is both "the best of times" and "the worst of times." It is best when its spirit kindles the light of Christ’s compassion and love in the hearts of believers. It is worst when it brings to mind the loneliness, melancholy and sorrow that is felt by all who grieve their losses, unable to touch the hands and faces of those whom they once loved. It is worst, too, for those whose life at the margins, in deprivation, impoverishment and disenfranchisement, casts a long shadow upon the future.
Being now among their number, I am nevertheless not especially fond of old people. That is, I object mightily to church activities that separate the old from the young, the married from the single, the male from the female. Naturally, if the church camp has only one shower, segregation delivers the U.S. Male from strain to eye and whiplash to the neck. However, in general segregation is a bad idea because families, including the family of God, are by nature, and by nature's God, multigenerational.
The opinion piece entitled, "Whose Church Is It Anyway?" is one of the most significant articles written recently for all Presbyterians to consider. In this brief article the author, whose name was withheld, outlines the pattern of a "whisper campaign" that undermines many new pastorates and forces new pastors to leave before real ministry can ever begin. This occurs at great spiritual and financial cost to minister, congregation and presbytery alike.
According to our Constitution, the office of deacon is primarily involved with giving since it is defined as one of "sympathy, witness and service after the example of Jesus Christ." "It is the duty of deacons, first of all, to minister to those who are in need, to the sick, to the friendless, and to any who may be in distress both within and without the community of faith" (G-6.0401-0402).
In recent days, I have heard affirmed, with great seriousness and fervor by a rather discouraging number of Christians in this country, that the freedom we Americans have to worship God is due to the efforts of men and women prevailing over their enemies on the battlefield. This assumption reflects at minimum a very simplistic concept of freedom; at worst, a misplaced, and therefore, sinful, attitude toward the relation of human effort and God’s gracious work on our behalf in Jesus Christ.
The 215th General Assembly (2003) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) sent 12 proposed amendments to the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes. Presbyteries must vote on each proposed amendment, though they may place some or all in a consent agenda or omnibus motion that identifies each amendment separately. A vote must be reported for each one, even if taken in omnibus fashion.
It takes a Thanksgiving meal to remind us of what happens when we sit down at the table and enjoy a meal that is carefully prepared and attractively served. It takes a Thanksgiving meal to remind us that those with whom we eat define as much about who we are and what we believe as does anything we do.
A splash has occurred on the pages of religious publications about a new Presbyterian church being established near Philadelphia called Avodat Yisrael. It is a new-church development supported by the presbytery, synod and new church development funds of the denomination. A Jewish Presbyterian, Andrew Sparks, is pastor. and is designed to appeal to the Jewish people in the area who have become Christian and who, Sparks feels, need their own culturally sensitive forms and symbols of worship.
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