The 212th General Assembly affirmed the fragile unity of our denomination by rejecting one of the Beaver-Butler overtures and by delaying for one more year consideration of the overtures dealing with sexuality and ordination. One can infer from their decisions the belief that Presbyterians are neither ready to divide the denomination nor to continue debating the issues surrounding sexuality and ordination.
Long time pal Phil is retiring. I write, inviting him to join me in forming a senior step ball team. We were champs in seminary -- in the game where the batter throws a tennis ball against the Alexander Hall steps at Princeton and the fielders have to catch it before it bounces.
A professor friend at Union-PSCE some time ago sent me a tape recording of one of his classes. The visitor for the day was a Methodist bishop whose assignment was director of worldwide evangelism for the United Methodist Church. He described in detail his experience in his first parish in a small church in a poor neighborhood in Sydney, Australia:
There are some questions which need to be asked:
* Are denominations any longer viable? Or are they archaic? Or are they "The moral failure of Christianity?" (Richard Niebuhr)
Actions by recent General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are beginning to force many of our members to consider a choice between God and our denomination. We are not alone. Other denominations are doing the same. If denominations continue to force their members to choose between their deeply committed personal religious beliefs and their denominational affiliation, the denominations will lose.
There is an increasingly urgent voice in the church, calling for our governance to be more enabling and less regulatory. Chapter 14 of the Form of Government, which deals with ordination, certification and commissioning, is the most severe focal point for this frustration, and is a major source of the disconnect between congregations and the denomination.
Today there are a number of conflicting accounts as to the status of Christianity in China. One persistent version begins with the assumption that an atheistic Communist government will not tolerate the presence of a true Christian church. Consequently, Christianity in China must be sharply divided between an "apostate church" -- represented by the China Christian Council which is supported by the atheistic government -- and the "true underground church," which is subject to continuous persecution and harassment.
Mission is not something done "to" or "for" others, but "with" others. We participate in God's mission in loving communion with: (1) the Triune God who empowers, sends and directs us; (2) one another in the local- global church; and (3) those to whom we are sent and those whom we receive.
In baptism every parent promises to bring up a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The Greek term for nurture is paideia, which was really a dynamite word for the Hellenes, especially those who were kept in the Attic. One needs only to mention the magisterial three volumes of Werner Jaeger's study of that topic. Paideia was the unlocking key to the glory that was Greece. It means the intentional transmission of values and may be translated as civilization, culture, education, nurture and tradition.
Editors' note: Andrew Stehlik of the Czech Republic recently served a year as a mission-partner-in-residence with the PC(USA) Worldwide Ministries Division in Louisville. He wrote about his impressions of the PC(USA) in the Czech Working Group newsletter for July 2000. The working group, created by the General Assembly Council in 1995, works closely with the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren to improve and expand the relationships between the two churches.
Two years ago I spent a semester teaching Christian ethics at Gujranwala Theological Seminary in Pakistan. Participating in the life of the Christian community in a Muslim country -- faculty discussion with Pakistani professors and others sent by the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand or the United States, or one of the Korean churches; getting to know students, many of them women -- was a rich experience.
In many ways the response to the General Assembly's call for Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences is like Jonah's response to God's call to go to Nineveh. He did not want to go, neither do many of us. From what little evidence is available, it seems safe to say only a small portion of our presbyteries are planning Unity in the Midst of Diversity conferences.
I resonate with William Saum's reminiscence of General Assemblies focused on "great issues confronting the church and the world." I lament with Saum that little at this year's Assembly reflected the enthusiasm of last year's cutting-edge report from the Church Growth Task Force, "Hey, I am doing a new thing . . . . Do you get it?"
John Haberlin's "A Response to the Continued Membership Decline" has opened the door for a serious discussion of the continued membership decline in the denomination.
He suggests that we focus on attendance rather than membership for appraisal of church growth or decline.
That's the question I have been asking all my pals since I read the wonderful article in Sunday's paper by Henry Allen. He is a professor at the University of Maryland. In his honors seminar on meaning and culture he asks students with whom they identify in those classic cartoons: Wile E. Coyote or the Roadrunner?
Baseball is, of course, a biblical game because we are taught "the homer shall be the standard measure" (Ezekiel 45:11, RSV). Jesus was looking for the diamond when he asked, "Where are the nine?" (Luke 17:17) Baseball is congenial to Christians because it is played in green pastures and often beside still waters (in Pittsburgh, however, we can cross three rivers to get to the park).
Our son Gary was born in a hospital connected with the prison where his mother was serving time for grand theft. With a birth weight slightly more than three pounds, Gary could whimper softly but was too weak to cry for his first year on Earth. We were told Gary would never walk because to his mental retardation was added cerebral palsy affecting all four limbs.
Is the center -- the 75-80 percent of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) between the theological/ideological ends of the spectrum -- finally finding its voice? The actions of the 212th General Assembly which recently concluded in Long Beach, Calif., indicate a new self-consciousness on the part of the great majority of Presbyterians and new possibilities for moving forward in faithfulness to our calling.
When he was a teen-ager, my son, who was not wearing a shirt, approached his mother and said,
"Look, Mom." "I'm looking." "What do you see?" "I see your chest." "Yes, but what do you see on my chest?" "What am I supposed to see on your chest?" "You're supposed to see a chest hair named Fred."
I am often, and rightly, described as an athletic supporter. I love all sports but especially track and am proud to say that I am one of the few persons in the world to see Bobby Morrow (1956 Olympic gold medals at 100 and 200 meters and the 4-by-100 relay) run a full quarter mile.
Fundamentalist and Modernist; Liberal and Conservative. Sadly, these clumsy assignations are still made by Presbyterians. I regret to say that I am myself victimized by this distinction, and I regret even more that I perpetuate its use. The Apostle Paul discusses the broader problem of "we" and "they" (or to be more objective -- "us" and "them") in Philippians 1:15-18, coming to the remarkable conclusion that we should rejoice because Christ is being proclaimed, whether by "them" in pretense or by "us" in truth.
As a lifelong student of muliebrity, I have learned that Earth has few intellectual delights to compare with the satisfaction of embarrassing the woman you love. Although I. Kant say it out loud, an axiom of both pure and practical reason holds that a woman will never get angry at you if you are trying to express your devotion to her.
Most of us learn to preach by imitation and we imitate what we admire. When I was in seminary, the preacher I most admired wrote his sermons in a black, 6 b 9 notebook -- so I bought a 6 by 9 notebook.
Moreover, I noticed that when he was ready to turn a page, he made a dramatic gesture toward heaven and while everyone was looking up, he flipped the page. I practiced that maneuver too.
On August 11, 1991, after 37 years of devoutly offering burnt offerings to heaven, I smoked my pipe for the last time, quitting, as they say, cold duck. I had taken up pipe smoking because I thought it denoted a kindly, reflective, manly person such as I considered myself to be.
Last year a billboard emblazoned the conviction that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Surely, by now, every father has figured that out although, given human weaknesses, it is not always possible. Certainly love is a big subject. For the rationalists, Dante, reflecting Aristotle, declares in the lst line of The Divine Comedy that love makes the world go around. For the romantics, King Arthur by way of Camelot insists that the way to handle a woman is to love her, love her, love her.
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