Nobody really knows exactly what the Native American word "Neshaminy" means. It was the name of a creek in Bucks County, Pa., after which William Tennent named a Presbyterian church in 1726. The congregation, now Neshaminy-Warwick, celebrates its 275th anniversary during this calendar year.
I don't tell many people I quarterbacked my high school football team because I do not like the incredulous look that appears on their faces just before they laugh out loud. However, there are a few living witnesses, albeit with fading memories, who could testify to the fact that I never received the athletic glory I so richly deserved.
In the previous article, we traced our Reformed theological roots concerning the future. In understanding what we believe, it is often helpful to contrast our beliefs with those of a differing view. One such view is called dispensational premillenarianism.
It is no wonder that few Presbyterians know exactly what our church believes about the end of the world. The issue is complicated and there is no clear consensus within our denomination. It has also been 20 years since our denomination has spoken about these matters.
My friends -- both of them -- have just read Evelyn Waugh's weird little short story, "The Man Who Liked Dickens" with the hope of understanding my latter day enthusiasm. Although I have absolutely no desire to become any kind of expert on Dickens' 14 great novels, I find, to my surprise, that I enjoy immensely an hour a day in his company.
Through the years, I have said it before Presbyterian churches and governing bodies, I have written it in Presbyterian publications and I continue to believe that the ordained Presbyterian pastor is the front line, the cutting edge of our Presbyterian witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the May 14 Outlook William Stacy Johnson presents a very helpful and learned reminder that the situation facing today's PC(USA) is very different from that which confronted the German church in the 1930's. Precisely because of those differences I would argue that any reasonable assessment of the contemporary confessing movement ought to have its primary focus on events taking place in 2001 rather than in 1934.
So far as I can remember, no young preacher has ever asked me for advice. This is a real shame because I have had spectacular success in the creation and implementation of bad ideas. A whole preaching generation could be improved by learning from me what to avoid.
The Christian faith -- certainly as we know it in the Reformed tradition -- is a faith of the community. While we make our individual professions of faith, we do so as we join the company of the faithful, the church of Jesus Christ. Parents may be the primary faith educators of their children, but it is the congregation that promises to guide and nurture the child by "word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging the child to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of Christ's church."
Most scholars agree that after Paul's painful second visit to the Corinthians, during which he was bitterly attacked by someone about something, he left to cool off, then decided not to pay another visit right away and wrote a letter instead, the so-called letter of tears that is either lost or preserved only in fragments in what we now call second Corinthians.
Serious Christian education requires that we not simply teach the Bible, but that our understanding of the text always be open to refinement. For 40 years I taught my Middle Eastern students, "Keep your exegetical conclusions tentatively final." They have to be final in the sense that, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I must live out my discipleship today. Obedience to my Lord cannot wait for me to read one more technical article in New Testament studies.
That's the text.
The occasion? Last week I was kicked out of Valley Hospice. It wasn't for moral turpitude or anything like that. I doubt if I will be brought before any presbytery committee or take up the PJC's precious time. It simply was the halfway point in their six-month program and I was too healthy. I don't really need the kind of crisis care in which they specialize. So why not save the last three months for the days I need them.
Easter is the great day for the church of Jesus Christ. There would be no gospel, no faith, no hope without the resurrection. Everything depends on God's raising Jesus from the dead, Jesus' ascension, his sitting at the right hand of the Father, his promised coming again. His resurrection is the guarantee of our own, and the gift of life after death to all to whom God chooses to give it.
The minister's primary duty -- and the session's -- is to feed and protect the flock over which God, through the actions of the church, has placed them. One of the sad aspects of the church's wars in recent years has been the spectacle of the people of God in the pew being drawn willy-nilly into battles that they really don't need to be a part of.
Before retiring I had the privilege of being the minister of Dornoch Cathedral in the far north of Scotland. Within a few miles of Dornoch and its magnificent mediaeval cathedral is Skibo Castle, which Andrew Carnegie not only built, but in which he spent the happiest years of his life. He called Skibo his "Heaven on Earth."
After only one month of preaching, my senior elder took me aside and said, "Charles, we think we are going to like you a lot, but your sermons are going right over our heads. You should remember that the Lord said, 'Feed my sheep' not my giraffe." I almost responded that I knew about sheep, but I had received no instructions about grubs.
Several strains of thought have converged recently for me and shaped these paragraphs. The Outlook editorial of Jan. 15 by Robert Bullock and William Stacy Johnson brought thoughtful assessment of Amendment O as well as a challenging reminder of work to be done by all the church in the days after the presbyteries have voted.
Living for 15 months in Egypt introduced us to a different world -- Arabic and Islamic; ancient yet modern; a third world, and an industrial nation unable to give up its old ways; a gracious hospitable people who want you to like their country.
If the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is at a crossroads in its life -- a time when many aspects of our life together need to be subjected to careful scrutiny to determine their usefulness to the church -- then certainly a re-examination of the meeting of the General Assembly itself is in order.
We Presbyterians are searching frantically to preserve the unity of our denomination, anything to keep the church from splitting. Let's try this way, that way, a third way. There must be some way we can find! But maybe what we need is to give up our ways and concentrate on what God in Christ has done.
As presbyteries consider Amendment Q, some important questions are being raised. As co-authors of the original overture from Genesee Valley Presbytery, we offer the benefit of our thoughts.
1. It sounds like this amendment is just trying to punish the offender.
Last Saturday evening I spent about an hour and a half sitting crossed-legged on the bed in the basement room of one of my 13-year-old parishioners while she and her two friends fired questions at me non-stop. As soon as I took a breath in an answer, mostly to check my own brain to be sure that I was on track, the next question shot out, hung in the air in a pleading way and fell into my lap.
What will the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) be like in the next 10 or 20 years? Only God knows with certainty. But if young pastors, those age 40 or younger, are any indication, the denomination may very well continue to retreat from causes associated with the Great Society and its heirs, while returning to its theological roots.
The Guest Viewpoint by Jerry Andrews and reply by Robert Bullock and me offers a poignant example of Christian friends engaging each other -- reluctantly -- in disagreement. What are we to make theologically of this fact: that disagreement seems to be a permanent mode of the church's existence?
The theology, constitution and policy of our church, in concert with the church universal and ecumenical, teaches that sexual expression belongs only within the covenant of marriage. The polity of the church is to conform to the profession of the church, as our Preliminary Principles say: "We are persuaded that there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty."
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