– The General Assembly Middle Governing Bodies Commission has voted not to recommend that the General Assembly change the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to allow non-geographic presbyteries.
Doug Ferguson, head-of-staff pastor of 3,600-member Grace Presbyterian Church in Houston, has announced plans to become pastor of Mountaintop Community Church in Birmingham, Ala. Reformation Sunday, October 30, will be his last in the Houston church.
(RNS) New York-area residents are more spiritually active since 9/11, a new survey shows, but the uptick in faith may be a matter of coincidence rather than a religious response to the terrorist attacks.
Twenty-one years ago, Scott Anderson had a choice. He could continue to serve as a Presbyterian minister but hide his identity as a gay man. Or he could leave the ministry and live, as he says, "with a sense of integrity" about who he is.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (PNS) Top leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have called on the Iranian government to release the Rev. Yousef Nadarkhani, a 33-year-old minister of the Church of Iran and pastor of a 400-member congregation in the city of Rasht, who was sentenced to death in November 2010 by a state court for apostasy (abandonment of a religion) and evangelizing Muslims.
New York (ENI) Partisan politics has disrupted the role of the U.S. religious community in debates about the nation's future, says a prominent broadcast journalist and former White House communications director.
The first candidate for moderator of the 2012 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been announced. The Presbytery of Elizabeth has endorsed Neal D. Presa, a teaching elder and the pastor of Middlesex Presbyterian church in New Jersey since 2003.
GENEVA (ENI) The World Council of Churches (WCC) has launched the first online digital library covering theology and ecumenism, called GlobeTheoLib, saying it will help close the information gap between North and South.
KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia (ENI) Speakers at an international Christian-Muslim dialogue conference organized by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) say religious groups need to do more to combat greed in the global economy.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (ENI) A suicide bomber blew himself up on the porch of an Indonesian church packed with hundreds of worshippers on Sept. 25, injuring 28 people, some critically.
BERLIN (ENI) Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Germany on Sept. 23 featured an ecumenical worship service in the town of Erfurt that was meant to reach out to German Protestants, but for many it felt like a missed opportunity.
EDINBURGH, Scotland (ENI) The Scottish government has drawn fire from Catholic church leaders for launching a 14-week public consultation, starting Sept. 2, on the question of legalizing marriage for gay couples.
Bangalore, India (ENI) A pastor's wife was killed and churches and schools destroyed in the Sept. 18 earthquake that killed more than 100 people in several countries in the Himalaya mountains north of India.
Washington (ENI) The U.S. State Department has designated eight nations as the most serious violators of religious freedom, naming the same countries as the Bush administration.
Berlin (ENI) Pope Benedict XVI's meeting with Germany's Jewish community on the first day of his four-day state visit to his homeland was marked by both good will and honest criticism.
Washington (ENI) The release of U.S. hikers Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from an Iranian prison on Sept. 21 "affirms the importance of the role of religious dialogue and its end product in this case, public diplomacy, as we seek ways to define common ground between our two countries," said Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop John Chane, who returned from a weeklong visit to Iran on Sept. 19.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The General Assembly Mission Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is considering changing its name – something it needs to do to comply with the denomination’s new Form of Government, which reserves the use of the word “council” for actual governing bodies.
LOUISVILLE – The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to feel the international rumblings from its controversial decision earlier this year to allow the ordination of sexually-active gays and lesbians.
