Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments
As you can boast of in the way of polite society
Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?
— T. S. Eliot, choruses From "The Rock"’
The Office of the General Assembly has just completed the collation of the 2003 statistics for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). While the numbers will be readily available to all, the figures themselves do not tell the whole story. Underneath these statistics are real live Presbyterians, who make up our churches and who are faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The fact that there are fewer active members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) than a year ago should call us to prayer and repentance.
In late 2003, a Messianic Jewish congregation, Avodat Yisrael, was approved within the PC(USA) by the presbytery of Philadelphia. In response to the possibility of Jews, who also believe in Jesus, evangelizing other Jews, a group of concerned Presbyterians organized. They were led by Cynthia Jarvis, also of the Philadelphia presbytery.
There is division among us over what constitutes authentic Reformed worship. I have witnessed this firsthand while — as moderator of the worship planning work group for the Committee on Local Arrangements for the 216th General Assembly — balancing competing demands of representation and inclusivity for the Assembly in Richmond in four weeks. The variety of Presbyterian worship today is extraordinary. We’ve made choices.
I first encountered African Church hostility to our debates over ordination in 1998 from the courageous editor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s newspaper. He and I talked of many things, not least of which was the fact that for years his was the only voice in Ghana that spoke truth to power. He was hounded, threatened, and would have been shut down, had his funding not been from the Presbyterian Church. A Reformed Christian, he was a tireless advocate of freedom of the press.
A couple of years ago an elder at Second church, Richmond, introduced himself, saying he and his wife had lived in Rich-mond for over 30 years, and felt at home in a place they had come to love very much. Then he said, "I know that for many of you, that’s no more than a long weekend." It’s true. We don’t forget history or lineage.
Part of what ails our denomination is rooted in confusion over how we are connected to one another. Over the past 20 years, our shared judicatory mission efforts increasingly have been replaced by congregationally based mission programs. Today, far more mission work is rooted in congregations than judicatories. This process has been enabled and empowered by affordable transportation to any part of the world as well as instant communication through the Internet and e-mail.
What, besides God’s Spirit, God’s providence and God’s purpose for the PC(USA), will hold us together in a recognizable form through the next 20 years? Does God need the PC(USA) to continue to make a Reformed witness that has been our hallmark since long before John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence?
Last month Leslie Scanlon reported on The Greenhoe Lectures given at Louisville Seminary by Nancy Ammerman. I found her summaries helpful in a variety of ways, not the least of which are some interesting demographics. Less than 20 percent of American households are families with children living at home, and nearly 30 percent of American households are occupied by two adults without children. In addition Ammerman commented on the religious perspectives of Americans. We overwhelmingly believe in God, and at least one-third of us are mainline Christians.
Recently, the daily lectionary readings have taken us into Genesis. In the 17th chapter there is an episode that may provide some help us to our ongoing struggle over ordination.
The 17th chapter is part of the larger narrative which begins when God first calls Abram in chapter 12. God promises to make for Abram a great nation and a great name so that Abram will become a blessing. Abram, Sarai and others begin to move in faithful response to God’s call and promise.
Thank God for people of faith who are here today. Our Faith Community is a giant. We’re in every city and town in America. But the Giant is asleep. The Giant also has a powerful, moral voice. But when it comes to fighting gun violence, the Giant is as quiet and timid as a church mouse.
If the U.S. is to reduce its unique level of gun deaths it will be because people of faith awaken their spiritual leaders and demand that they lead the fight from their pulpits and classrooms.
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.
These thoughts on the church’s ministry of healing are inspired by the willingness of Lawton Posey and Richard Ray to reflect theologically on their experiences of suffering and recovery for the sake of the church. I had a brush with mortality over Palm Sunday weekend, minor indeed compared with theirs. In the quiet of a two-day unexpected hospital stay, I remembered the Divine Healing Service on the Island of Iona in 1965, and words that introduced the laying on of hands following prayers for the sick and dying.
Nothing could be more timely, or more in the spirit of an Easter faith than the Moderator’s and Stated Clerk’s March 24th letter to the denomination. They deplore the gun violence in this country and its tragic toll in human lives (28,000-35,000 deaths per year since the 1960s). They call attention to the federal ban on assault weapons that will expire this September on the watch of an apathetic, fearful Congress. Since Congress is not expected to act, those million moms, bless their hearts, are on the march again, on Mother’s Day in our nation’s capital.
In previous years this magazine has sponsored what I thought was a wearying debate between those who took a rather relaxed view of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who insisted that belief in the resurrection of the body was essential. Without it we were all doomed to the theological and moral wasteland of Christian thought.
The United States has always been a religiously pluralistic place — now, more so than ever, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion.
In a recent lecture series, Ammerman described how she sees things lining up — saying the United Stattes now has eight major streams of religious leanings, what she referred to as eight points on the compass.
I am new at this business, unaccustomed to writing each week for the whole church. A valued friend reacted quickly to last week’s editorial. He thought it was a little too far on the wild side; he was especially critical of my sweeping, dogmatic claims about validated ministries. Yet he admitted that the editorial opened up an ongoing discussion. Thus doth provocation produce dialogue.
My next few editorials will respond to recent news stories and guest viewpoints that have received no editorial treatment.
This week I will address the Jan. 31 meeting of Western North Carolina Presbyterian at which the ministry of Parker Williamson was not revalidated. This was reported in the Feb. 23 issue of The Outlook and the February issue of the Layman. I want also to respond to reader reaction to the Jan. 26 Outlook editorial, "Ministry of Fear."
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.
have been a member of the Outlook Foundation Board of Directors almost longer than I can remember. It came with the territory; it came very soon after I moved to Richmond in 1982 to become pastor of Second church. I think it was assumed that I would serve on the board because of The Outlook’s long history with this congregation. One of our predecessor journals was brought to Richmond in 1856 by the first pastor of this church, Moses Drury Hoge, and most of the ministers of Second church since 1938 had served on the board as well.
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.
I am both humbled and daunted by the confidence the search committee and board of the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation has shown by naming me editor. Standing on the shoulders of Aubrey Brown (1943-1978) George Hunt (1978-1988) and Robert Bullock (1988–2003) reminds me of the awesome responsibility that attaches to this position. The PC(USA), the denominations that birthed and nourished us into existence, the Reformed and Presbyterian family of churches in the United States, and even the holy universal church owe these past three editors an immense debt of gratitude, as do our readers.
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.
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