Sometime in the early 1980s, when I was a recent graduate of Union Presbyterian Seminary, I had a conversation with an uncle. It was in the context of a family funeral, when we were all together. He has gone to glory now, but he – like my dad, and my brother and so many generations of ancestors before me – was a Presbyterian minister. We got to talking about the church, and he told me of an occasion that happened at a General Assembly when he was a commissioner from his presbytery in South Carolina. It was in 1968 at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), which was held in Montreat, North Carolina. Those years were fraught with social issues like civil rights and Vietnam and the role of women in leadership, and even though such fraughtness is not unusual at Presbyterian General Assemblies, this particular assembly, said my uncle, fairly crackled at every moment with the tensions of the late 1960s. My uncle shared with me a story of such tension … [Read more...]

In wishing the Presbyterian Outlook a happy 200th celebration, I have to first say I cannot remember a time when the Outlook’s most recent issue was not on the coffee table in my home — both as a child growing up in Richmond, Virginia, and now, some 75 years later, at our home in Black Mountain, North Carolina.  My parents were not church professionals, although later on my mother worked as a church secretary. Thankfully, our family was active in a Presbyterian (PCUS) congregation whose session included in its budget an Outlook subscription sent to every member. It was not a radical church but a church that cared deeply about witness and justice and compassion. It recognized the Outlook as being a venue that encourages the faithful not to just give lip service. It offered solid theological and social perspectives on various issues confronting the church, both as an institution and as members of a congregation. As early as my early elementary school years, I remember how my … [Read more...]