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.
The "gracious separation" outline which came to me should be reduced to six letters: SCHISM. That's right, "gracious schism." Is there such an animal in God's economy?
I was in seminary 1961-64 in the PCUS. I don't know how I knew, but I'd have bet the farm the denomination would split. I just did not know when.
What is the function of doctrinal truth in the church?
One view of the church defines it as a group of Christians gathered out of the body of professing Christians, under the confessional flag of a fully developed orthodoxy. This was the view of J. Gresham Machen and those who seceded from mainline Presbyterianism to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church in America followed a similar pattern.
In 1954, George Docherty preached a sermon at New York Avenue church in Washington, D.C., and suggested that since morality is based on a Judeo-Christian foundation, the Pledge of Allegiance should include a reference to God. President Eisenhower was seated in the congregation and was moved by the sermon. As a result, Docherty’s sermon was influential in the movement to change the Pledge of Allegiance to include the phrase "under God."
A decade ago, Craig Dykstra and James Hudnut-Beumler asked whether the nature of the Presbyterian General Assembly was in the midst of changing. It had been a resource for congregational life through the first half of the 20th century. Was it becoming more like a "regulatory agency," providing little resource but lots of rules for Presbyterians?
The name of William Ames (1576-1633) is never mentioned among Presbyterians today. He’s long dead, was a Puritan of the Reformed persuasion (though a Congregationalist in polity), and he wrote theology in a way many today would call "dry and dusty."
Andrea Catherine Stokes, 20, is committed to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and is planning to go to seminary — she wants good things for her church. But here’s what she’s found, from personal experience, that college students can expect from the PC(USA). "I have never been in a congregation that has extended a hand to college students or young adults, I’ve never had that luxury," Stokes said. "I don’t want to go bowling and eat pizza, I’m past that. But I don’t want to knit. There’s nothing in between."
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.
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.
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.
For a number of years in the 1960s my missionary father-in-law sponsored a small program for theological students of Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa. His primary purpose was to provide room and board for 30 young men who had no money and no scholarship support for the summer months. The secondary purpose was to provide instruction in Bible and theology. The tertiary purpose was to provide American Presbyterians with an unpaid Christian evangelistic opportunity overseas.
Everyone, even those least familiar with medicine, knows that, in most cases, treating symptoms is a vain pursuit if the actual disease is ignored. No amount of Tylenol will conquer a serious bacterial infection; it will only give temporary relief for the suffering associated with it. Ignore the disease long enough, and death, even from some minor infections, is possible.
When word came to me that Robert Bullock was retiring as The Outlook’s editor, I realized that I had been the beneficiary of the skills of four Outlook editors who gave their lives to a ministry of writing. I speak of Aubrey Brown, George Laird Hunt, and the present retiring incumbent who is storing away his sharp pen and bold blue pencil in order to move on to other things. I mention with reverence the quiet and commanding figure of Ernest Trice Thompson, who was my teacher, and whose influence gave The Outlook its particular sheen.
I want to express my personal appreciation for Jennifer Files’ attention to the Presbyterian Foundation, a unique and important entity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) . As a current member of the board of trustees of the foundation, I add the following comments.
As members of the church, we have been and are being greatly blessed by the foundation. For more than 200 years, Presbyterians have entrusted gifts, in large and small amounts, to the foundation's care and management.
Upon my departure in April, 1999, after six years as President and CEO of the Foundation, I made a commitment to myself to continue to love the Presbyterian Church and the foundation — and to keep my mouth shut! Like many, I had seen the examples of hangers-on who, after leaving full-time involvement in an organization, continued to make their "contribution" by meddling, without responsibility or accountability for the performance, or even for what they said.
As disputes in our denomination are wending their way through the judicial system, there are frequent expressions of confidence in the "independent judiciary" to resolve the disputes in progress and to help us escape some of our most pressing difficulties. It would appear that this notion has its origin in the system of governments in the United States, where there is a "separation of powers."
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO
