LOUISVILLE – The General Assembly Mission Council ended its meeting Feb. 17 with a flurry of votes, looking at both internal church issues and events in the nation. Here’s some of what happened.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 2012 General Assembly is being asked to consider a controversial recommendation that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) divest its holdings in three companies doing business in Israel – companies that a church committee on socially responsible investing has determined are engaged in “non-peaceful” activities.
Update: On Feb. 17, the full General Assembly Mission Council approved by a voice vote the recommendation from the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee. The recommendation on divestment now will go to the 2012 General Assembly for its consideration.
LOUISVILLE – It’s sure to be a controversial issue before the 2012 General Assembly: whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) should divest its holdings in three companies doing business in Israel.
Three churches in Mission Presbytery may all lack a center for worship this Sunday as their presbytery has responded to their “renunciation of jurisdiction” by serving an eviction notice.
LOUISVILLE –
Saying that questions remain about whether women are being treated as “equal partners” in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a task force is asking the 2012 General Assembly to fund a research study to look more carefully at women in leadership in the denomination.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Over the next few months, leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will consider whether to make changes in the denomination’s four special offerings.
Wynn Kenyon (64), whose ordination by Pittsburgh Presbytery was rejected by the national church in 1974 because he wouldn't ordain women, died..
SAN ANSELMO, Calif. (PNS) Theological seminaries exist to serve the gospel of Jesus Christ, not themselves or the institutional church, the Rev. James L. (Jim) McDonald told the packed First Presbyterian Church here Feb. 11 as he was inaugurated as the 11th president of San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS).
The Mid-Councils Commission advises that nongeographic presbyteries be given a trial run and that that synods be stripped of ecclesiastical authority.
(ENInews) Following the re-introduction in Uganda of a bill that would harshly punish homosexuality, gay rights activists, including some church leaders, are uniting through Twitter and Facebook to oppose it.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (OGA) One question I’m asked almost more than any other is, “So, where do you see hope in the PC(USA)?”
A comprehensive answer would take up more than the word limits of this column. But two things stand out.
Although giving has been declining for a decade for the special offerings of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a task force – saying there is “tremendous untapped potential” – is recommending that the church set a goal of raising $20 million from those offerings by 2020.
HAVANA (PNS)
Cuba and the United States have so much in common that despite political differences it’s “overtime” to normalize relations between the two countries, a Cuban foreign ministry official told a group of 15 visiting U.S. religious leaders here Nov. 30.
Churches in Egypt are praying and helping migrants who flee their homes due to political turmoil, violence and an uncertain future. If the “Arab Spring” fails to produce democratic societies, it might instead lead to persecution of religious minorities.
Vatican City (ENInews) Ten years after the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in the United States, Catholic bishops from all over the world will meet this week at a Vatican summit aimed at preventing abuse and protecting children.
Grand Rapids, Mich.(Special to PNS) The Bible should be read “as if God was actually talking to us,” the Association of Presbyterian Christian Educators (APCE) was told here at its annual gathering this week.
DALLAS – The General Assembly Mid-Councils Commission is calling for reviews of the denomination's top-level agencies and its racial ethnic ministry.
The Rev. Janet Edwards, a nationally prominent advocate for same-sex couples in a presbytery that consistently opposes gay ordination and gay marriage,..
DALLAS – The General Assembly Mid-Councils Commission has voted 15-5 to permit non-geographic, “provisional presbyteries” as part of a “designated season of reflective experimentation” in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
DALLAS – The General Assembly Mid-Councils Commission made a key decision last fall: it would recommend to the 2012 General Assembly that synods would no longer exist in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as councils with ecclesiastical responsibility.
Louisville, Ky. The Special Offerings Advisory Task Force, commissioned by the 218th General Assembly (2008), is recommending a new vision for special offerings – $20 million in receipts by 2020. Seeking to tap the full potential of special offerings, the task force is also recommending one new offering and revisions in each of the other offerings.
Louisville, Ky. (PNS) The Presbyterian Publishing Corporation has released the cover design of “Glory to God,” the new Presbyterian hymnal to be published in the fall of 2013.
As a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Rev. Pam Driesell was surprised to hear about a professor who was hard on people who asked questions.
Louisville (PNS) Presbyterians, along with other Christians from across the country, will gather in Washington March 23-26 for the 10th annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days, an event that mobilizes participants around a central issue through worship, education and lobbying.
Feeling out of alignment with the direction being taken by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a large Florida congregation has voted to leave the PC(USA) to join the more conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
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