Given that most growing mainline denominations began to shrink around 1964, what was it that made that year such an unhappy turning point? In the Outlook's "Just the Stats" issue (Sept. 11), columnist Tom Ehrlich says, "'What happened in 1964 ... was that post-war Baby Boomers began to graduate from high school.'"
What did they do after graduating from high school? One thing they did not do was to wake up before noon on Sundays. Some attended on-campus Bible studies that fit into the eyes-open hours on their body clocks. Like 10:30 p.m. Others squeezed a chapel service between classes in their church-related colleges. Way too many simply suffered spiritual starvation. Years later, when they felt a need to return to worship they found other, non-mainline, churches more to their liking.
Religion and science have had a testy relationship ever since Galileo was convicted of heresy and put under house arrest by the Catholic Church for daring to publish his beliefs that the earth circulated around the sun. But in the last 30 years or so, a sort of détente, and even appreciation, has occurred. Scientists (some of whom secretly practice their faith, but don't discuss it) and religious leaders (who vary all over the map in their own scientific training) have realized that these differences pale in contrast to their shared concern and values for the condition of the earth.
Collaborations are occurring from a new sense of urgency. Threats to the environment are no longer abstractions whose effects might be felt sometime in the future. We can see the damage occurring before our eyes. When glaciers are melting, deserts are spreading, and the Arctic ice is disappearing, we as people of faith see the degradation and changes occurring around us and we wonder not only what our faith has to say but also about how we are called to act. In order to respond, we will have to connect outside of the church culture into new collaborations.
Let's play the imagination game. Let's imagine that your maternal great-grandparents were charter members of the church you presently attend. In fact, your mom's folks were Sunday School friends, then high school sweethearts, then tied the knot--in this very sanctuary. Your dad first attended the church as a young adult, which led to your parents' courtship and wedding, and in time, to your baptism and confirmation, too.
Let's imagine that those four generations of family all have spent enormous energy building up the church. Many have served on the Session. Those so talented have sung in choir. Most have taught church school classes. Those great-grandparents and a couple grandparents were buried in the church graveyard just to the west side of the sanctuary.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
When Amanda Adams was growing up, she considered a number of professions: doctor, nurse, writer, teacher, psychologist and bareback rider.
She eventually became a Presbyterian minister because it includes all the things she wants. "Ministry," said Adams, 26, "is an extraordinary balancing act between what we do every day -- the mundane paperwork and meetings, sitting at people's beds when they're ill -- and personal time, time for our own devotions."
Adams and two other young ministers arrived at First Church in Ann Arbor, Mich., last September, committed to two-year residencies. They're part of the Transition-Into-Ministry Program funded by the Lilly Endowment.
I have been trying to show that, while Mark aims in his Gospel to call people into, and cultivate in them, mature discipleship -- that is, discipleship that faithfully joins the confession of one's life to the confession of one's lips -- it's the "little people" in his narrative, and not (ironically) the disciples, who model this trust in Jesus as the Son of God. The initial picture of such faith, up through the appearance of Bartimaeus in the narrative, is a steady stream of "little people" who stop at nothing to get themselves and beloved others into Jesus' presence. They ask of and expect from him the impossible, and prostrate themselves worshipfully before him. This picture changes, however, as the last of Mark's "little people" appear and disappear in the passion narrative concluding his Gospel.
A current television commercial shows two men fishing on a dock. One asks the other, "What are you going for?" The camera then pans back to show a vast array of fishing poles lining the dock as the other guy answers, "I want it all."* This thinking may well serve as an apt metaphor for the two sides in the debate over ordination standards within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Both sides seem dissatisfied because no one "got it all" at the last General Assembly. Even more ironic, by looking at the General Assembly's actions on most issues, it appears the more conservative side of the church gained considerable ground, yet now acts the most dissatisfied. The General Assembly strengthened its position opposing late-term abortion, back-peddled and apologized on divestment regarding Israel, only "received" the Trinity Report, and reaffirmed the "fidelity and chastity" clause. Yet, when one reads material from some of the more conservative groups within the church, one would think the liberal element really won the day.
Editor's Note: The author worked in Xela, Guatemala, from August 20 through September 3, volunteering with the Highland Support Project of Richmond, Va. The following thoughts stem from two separate interviews with a former guerrilla fighter and the president of a Presbyterian women's organization.
Before arriving in Guatemala, I knew that the country's recent history was horrific: over thirty-six years, a quarter of a million citizens lost their lives, including more than four hundred villages wiped off the face of existence in the "scorched earth" policy of ethnic cleansing. Over the previous semester, I had studied John Calvin's doctrine of total depravity at Union-PSCE; after a few minutes of testimony with a veteran guerilla, I had gained an education.
When I was a youngster, there was an ongoing argument about the "professionalization" of the Olympics. Americans carped that we sent amateurs to compete against professional athletes from Eastern Europe, whose full-time work was their athletic pursuit.
That complaint has largely died down, of course, now that Americans now send highly paid professionals to Olympic events. In popular usage, amateur often means "second rate" while professional means "excellent." Both, though, are superficial understandings of the words. "Amateur" comes from a Latin word that means doing something "for love."
Editor's Note: For the past few issues, the Outlook has highlighted the ministries of church pastors. Here Presbyterian pastors recall members' expressions of thanks. Also in this issue, we publish individual expressions of appreciation from churches to their pastors.
Unexpectedly a member stopped into my office a few weeks ago carrying a large, professionally framed photograph of a beach sunset. She said that the minute she saw it she thought of me. Looking at the photo of the beach scene, with a somewhat broken wind fence in the foreground and a rainbow in the background, I asked, "Why?" She replied, "Because you often break down barriers and think out of the box. Or, it could have something to do with mending fences. But for sure, the rainbow in the background is for God's Hope you remind us to remember." -- Lisa Rzepka, associate pastor, Providence Church, Fairfax, Va.
Editor's Note: For the past few issues, the Outlook has highlighted the ministries of church pastors. Here we publish individual expressions of appreciation from churches to their pastors. Also in this issue, Presbyterian pastors recall members' expressions of thanks.
Arkansas
We love you, Clare Kelley, and are so fortunate to be able to share you. First Presbyterian, Eureka springs and Holiday Island Presbyterian Churches, Ark.
California
The Rev. Sandy Tice: First Presbyterian of San Bernardino, Calif., loves you and looks forward to many years together.
Thank you, Interim Pastor Jeff Cheifetz, a skilled and dedicated pastor, a gifted peacemaker and caregiver. The Session and members of Old First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco.
Editor's note: This article was written in response to "What the amended PUP report actually means" by Clark D. Cowden, which appeared in the September 4 Outlook issue.
Much has been written about General Assembly's new Authoritative Interpretation of Section G-6.0108 of the Book of Order. Among other things, that Authoritative Interpretation provides that sessions and presbyteries, in conducting their examinations, must determine whether a candidate for ordained office "has departed from scriptural and constitutional standards for fitness for office" and "whether any departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity." Chief among the questions being debated is whether a candidate or officer-elect can declare a scruple with respect to matters not only of belief, but also of practice. The answer is clearly "yes."
I have been suggesting that, while Mark's Gospel aims to bring disciples into ever more full and mature faith -- to turn them into those who faithfully confess Jesus to be God's Son, both with their lips and with their lives -- the irony is that disciples do not model faith in his Gospel. It's "little people" who do. It's a "little person," in the form of an unnamed, Roman soldier presiding over his execution, who models the faithful confession of one's lips. Similarly, it's a whole string of "little people," making mostly cameo appearances in the narrative, who model the faithful confession of one's life.
In the Gospel accounts, some of these "little people" have names, but most remain nameless. Only two can be imagined moving among polite society. Quite a few are women. Their number could comprise all the human characters who are not Jesus and who are neither family, nor opponents, nor disciples of Jesus. At a minimum, they include a leper (1:40-45), friends of a paralytic (2:1-12), Jairus and a woman with a hemorrhage (5:21-43), a Syro-Phoenician mother (7:24-30), a half-believing father (9:14-29), blind Bartimaeus (10:46-52), a sympathetic scribe (12:28-34), a poor widow (12:41-44), Simon of Cyrene (15:22), and the women at the cross and tomb (15:40-41, 47; 16:1-8).
"Does anybody here understand what it means to be Reformed?" Those words disrupted the discussion in the meeting of 50 or so conservative-evangelical Presbyterian leaders several years ago. After surveying the room, he spoke more softly but with staccato resolve: "Tell me. What does it mean to be Presbyterian and Reformed?"
Not one to be shy, I blurted, "Grace."
"No," he retorted. "That's not it."
"Sovereignty of God," said another.
"Not that either."
Others followed: "Election." "Predestination." "Reformed, always being reformed." Each time he responded, "No."
With a look of disgust on his face he finally answered his question. "Being Presbyterian and Reformed means having a constitutional form of church government."
That discussion proved to be a harbinger of what would ensue over the next several years.
Both less and more than family and good friends,
still you belong there at the high moments and the low,
included in the laughter and the tears, all
the embraces,
words and gestures of delight and consolation,
across the years even participating in remembering,
noting the absences, the gaps among the circled chairs,
the ones who couldn't make it for whatever reason,
glad or sad.
Editor's Note: This text was originally a plenary speech by Charlotte Johnstone at the 2006 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women. Additional "Dispatches" appear in each issue of Horizons, the magazine for Presbyterian Women. It is reprinted here by permission of the publisher, Presbyterian Women.
There is a young woman at Forbearance Church who is about to take a major step in her life. She is following others who, in the past 50 years, have paved the way for her. I want you to care about her--because she may enter your lives someday, somewhere.
Editor's Note: This article is based on the second chapter of the author's book: Azure Wind: Lessons for Ministry from Under Sail.
I am a planner. I have learned to think ahead, to anticipate, to consider various options and possibilities and to make choices that meet a goal. I've planned programs, workshops, meetings, fund-raisers, and construction projects. When I began planning for my sabbatical, I brought those same skills to the table.
For eighteen months I had been working toward a sabbatical that was to include an active adventure--sailing--and a reflective experiences--reading and writing. I wanted to do this with friends and family and I knew that I would have to organize and plan for this moment with great care. I looked up charts and measured miles and averaged boat speeds, based on the reading I was doing.
What to make of Maher Arar? A Syrian-born computer engineer, now a naturalized citizen of Canada, an ordinary man with a wife and family, Arar was detained by American authorities on September 26, 2002, while changing flights at Kennedy Airport. Arar's infraction? He had a co-worker, who had a brother, who had connections to people whom officials suspected of having links to al-Qaeda. Based on this thin thread of suspicion and without being charged with any crime, Arar was taken from his family, put in chains, handed over to the government of Syria, and for ten months subjected to acts of extreme physical and mental torture. We now know that Arar was completely innocent.
How could something like this happen? Why America's resort to torture? Seasoned interrogators have long known that torture is a poor tactic to elicit reliable information. Under torture a person will say whatever his tormentors wish. In fact, a classic military text on interrogation, based on concrete experience gained during World War II, says that the best way to extract useful information is through kindness, not brutality.
©Ruth Haley Barton, June 2005.
Used by permission.
"The soul is like a wild animal--tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of the tree, and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might put in an appearance."
-- Parker Palmer
I will never forget my first experience with extended solitude. It was a field trip, of sorts, that was part of a seminary class on spiritual formation; our class gathered at a nearby retreat center to spend the day under the guidance of our beloved professor. The morning was wonderful but, in some ways, very similar to what I had already been experiencing in shorter times of solitude. However, when lunchtime came, we were told that we would eat lunch in silence so as not to interrupt our attention to God by being pulled into social interaction.
"Preach the gospel at all times," urged Francis of Assisi, adding, "if necessary, use words." And we may wonder that the truth he administers -- that actions preach louder, and better, than words -- doesn't paralyze proclamation altogether.
Still, the example of the canonical evangelists should nerve us to keep on. After all, if they knew and observed Francis' rule (and who can believe that they did?), then, by whatever calculus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John judged the necessity to be great. For, of words -- gratias Deo, such marvelous words! -- they used plenty.
We were setting the bar high when we Americans declared, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
That high bar motivates us to pursue honorable purposes in ethical ways. In recent days, as we have paused to remember with tears the horrors of 9/11, our American president has argued that the war on terror exempts us from some particular requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Many of us find such assertions beyond comprehension, beyond justification, beyond ethical defense. We feel embarrassed, ashamed, and angry.
David Ray Griffin, professor emeritus of philosophy and theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, continues his series of books in which he argues that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were "false-flag" operations of individuals within the U.S. government to aid America's imperialistic advances into Afghanistan and Iraq and to spread U.S. power and influence around the world.
Incorporating material from newly-released interviews as well as reviewing information he has previously published i, the first half of this book contains extensively footnoted material formed into a well-crafted argument against the official explanation of the 9/11 attacks given by the 9/11 Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, and various independent media groups. Griffin sums up his argument in this portion by concluding that the evidence he cites is a "conclusive case" (p. 82) that the Bush administration willfully and purposefully committed an act of war against the population and territory of the United States in order to accomplish the goals of a number of its "neo-conservative" members: the absolute primacy of the United States as the unchallenged world power and the institution of a worldwide Pax Americana.
I miss being a pastor. To be entrusted both by God and by a community of faith to represent and proclaim the gospel of our Lord is the most humbling and thrilling vocation I could imagine fulfilling. To have lived out that trust daily for 22 years was a joy.
I will never forget the thrill it was to pray with Ernie in his hospital room as his liver cancer was threatening to take his life. After years of resisting his wife's faith, he now sincerely affirmed Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, and welcomed Christ's presence into his life.
What fun it was to baptize the young, the old, men, women, and children. Never to be forgotten was the time I baptized baby Benjamin along with his 83-year-old grandfather Henry. Never to be forgotten (even though I have tried!) was that other time when I got counter-baptized by slimy, smelly, half-digested baby formula.
Over the years of teaching seminarians and leading them later in continuing education seminars, I have come to realize that we have not prepared clergy to handle criticism.
Nothing seems to demoralize clergy more than personal and professional criticism. It hurts. It throws us off balance. It causes us to question our competence. Long after the initial sting there lingers a smoldering resentment that a parishioner could be so unloving, unjust, and unfair. This resentment grows and deepens in the absence of offsetting affirmation and praise. Often, too, the resentment festers when there is no one to talk to about the injustice except one's life partner who must also endure the insult and pain.
c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
Barbara Brown Taylor has been an Episcopal priest, a teacher, columnist, author and -- according to Baylor University -- one of the best preachers in the English-speaking world.
Her new book, Leaving Church (HarperSanFrancisco), describes her experience of burning out as the priest of a parish she had wanted very much to serve and then leaving not only the pastoral ministry but also many of her former beliefs.
"I wanted to be as close as I could to the Really Real," she said in an interview with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. "And I'll capitalize both of those R's, because God is a word that means different things to different people, but we might agree it's what is most real."
c. 2006 Religion News Service
When church members describe their ideal pastor, they often prefer "a nice young man with a family," as one denominational official said. Nice young men and women do become pastors, but they are a minority in the pool of American clergy. I concentrate here on the word "young." Whether male or female, young clergy are in short supply.
In one sense, this is no surprise. For at least the past 25 years, an increasing percentage of seminary students have been second-career students; that is, they have worked in at least one other occupation prior to seminary.
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO
