You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
— Exodus 20:4–6 (ESV)
Does your board have a line in the sand when it comes to personal, professional, ethical or administrative behavior of church members and officers? How long will you permit unruly or fractious actions by one or two individuals to disrupt the important work of the congregation? What do you do if one of the church's officers clearly violates his or her ordination vows?
On the Supreme Court's docket for the current session is a review of the Ninth Circuit Court's judgment of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. If that phrase is removed, it would return to the version I memorized in public school. During World War II no one complained about a deficiency in the 29 words we voluntarily repeated during our daily flag raisings. Our generation swelled with patriotic pride and could hardly wait to enlist in our armed services to help topple those totalitarian regimes intent on conquering other European or Asian nations.
Please don't call me contentious. Don't call me disloyal. I'm just confused over the conviction deeply held by some of my dearest friends about their right to withhold or redirect funds that normally would go to the denomination. What I hear them saying is that the church courts have affirmed our legal right — which is accorded us by our polity ...which is based upon our theology — which issues from our God-endowed freedom — to determine where our money goes. Where all of our money goes.
Surely by now it is clear that we are standing under the judgment of God. Nothing else could account for the precipitous and calamitous decline of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) over the last 40 years. And while we stand under the judgment of God, this indeed is our only hope: the judgment of God is righteous.
Mel Gibson's labor of faith is not a popcorn and candy movie. It's gruesome, it's brutal, it's bloody, and it's sobering. For the faithful, it's a stark reminder of just how much Jesus sacrificed, and at what great cost our redemption has been paid.
"The Passion of the Christ" depicts the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (played by Jim Cavaziel), from the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to the tomb.
As a Presbyterian who claims but also hopes to transcend the label "liberal," I was heartened by The Outlook's reports (Nov. 3) of two addresses offered at the recent Presbyterian Coalition Gathering in Oregon. Jin Kim, newly-elected board president of Presbyterian's for Renewal, challenged his audience to look forward to a more racially/ethnically inclusive church, not backward to the supposed glory days of our 1950s segregated congregations.
As Western North Carolina Presbytery prepares to vote Jan. 31 on a recommendation not to revalidate the ministry of Parker Williamson with the Presbyerian Lay Committee, the present struggle for the soul of the Presbyterian Church is looking like a replay of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1920s. If the editor of The Layman eventually loses his ordination because of his encouragement to sessions to withhold per capita contributions, the decision would mirror the 1935 defrocking of J. Gresham Machen by New Brunswick Presbytery over his leadership of an independent mission board that appeared, like the Layman, to threaten the purse of mother church.
Across the denomination there is much interest concerning Western North Carolina Presbytery's Jan. 31 meeting, when the peers of Presbyterian Layman editor-in-chief and CEO Parker Williamson will consider a recommendation that his ministry with the Lay Committee not be revalidated.
With other news and controversial issues taking up much space in Presbyterian publications, I would like to call our attention to one of the amendments that is being sent down for vote by presbyteries. Amendment 03-G will require a minister or church employee to be placed on immediate administrative leave as soon as a sexual misconduct complaint is filed with the clerk of the governing body when the issue involves someone under 18 years or who is mentally unable to make decisions for him/herself.
I read with interest William H. Harter’s guest viewpoint entitled, De-Triumphalizing the Gospel. I commend him for his efforts both to be a Christian friend to Jewish persons and to humbly recognize that Gentile Christians have been grafted into Israel. However, I find myself disagreeing with him in his assertions that Christians should not seek to evangelize Jews and that trust in Jesus as Messiah, for a Jew, is apparently not a completion of what God always intended for Jews.
While attending a preaching conference in Atlanta last year, I had the opportunity to visit the Ebeneezer Baptist Church and the National Park Service grounds that are dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory. Yet as I strolled through the streets there and gazed at the adjacent neighborhood, I was forced to wonder: Had Dr. King’s dream truly come to fruition?
The serious problem posed by denominational funding of the Avodat Israel congregation in Philadelphia Presbytery has significance far beyond what Harold Kurtz describes as a "splash" (in "De-Westernizing the Gospel").
This congregation understands itself as part of the self-described "Messianic Jewish" movement. This nomenclature is distressing and demeaning to Jews because messianism has always been and continues to be central to Jewish self-understanding as well as to Christian.
I have the privilege of serving Jesus as the president of the University of Dubuque, a Presbyterian-related college and theological seminary that,..
These are cynical times, and this is supposed to be a season of hope.
We have the president of the United States flying off in fierce secrecy at Thanksgiving to greet the American troops in Iraq — an unabashedly Hollywood patriotic moment — followed almost immediately by more deaths of more soldiers far from home.
Wise men from afar, angels visiting shepherds in the night, a child cradled in a manger — through what lens shall these stories be viewed? Are they fact or fiction? Kenneth Bailey reflects.
Christmas is both "the best of times" and "the worst of times." It is best when its spirit kindles the light of Christ’s compassion and love in the hearts of believers. It is worst when it brings to mind the loneliness, melancholy and sorrow that is felt by all who grieve their losses, unable to touch the hands and faces of those whom they once loved. It is worst, too, for those whose life at the margins, in deprivation, impoverishment and disenfranchisement, casts a long shadow upon the future.
Being now among their number, I am nevertheless not especially fond of old people. That is, I object mightily to church activities that separate the old from the young, the married from the single, the male from the female. Naturally, if the church camp has only one shower, segregation delivers the U.S. Male from strain to eye and whiplash to the neck. However, in general segregation is a bad idea because families, including the family of God, are by nature, and by nature's God, multigenerational.
In perhaps the most famous story in the New Testament, a lawyer stands up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" We all know the answer he gets: Love God with everything you’ve got, and love your neighbor as yourself. "Do this, and you will live," replies our great Christ.
The opinion piece entitled, "Whose Church Is It Anyway?" is one of the most significant articles written recently for all Presbyterians to consider. In this brief article the author, whose name was withheld, outlines the pattern of a "whisper campaign" that undermines many new pastorates and forces new pastors to leave before real ministry can ever begin. This occurs at great spiritual and financial cost to minister, congregation and presbytery alike.
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 late October the Presbyterian Lay Committee issued what it called "A Declaration of Conscience." It takes that group’s traditional "you can’t trust Louisville" stand a bit further. I understand they say it's not a call to withhold funds altogether, but when they say that GA mission and per capita budgets are not "worthy of support," and ask sessions to prayerfully consider redirecting contributions elsewhere, it sure sounds like "Don’t give your money to the PC(USA)."
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.
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