Over the past eight years, I have had the opportunity to work as a consultant with numerous congregations and presbyteries around the country, trying to help them face directly into the adaptive challenges all churches face. Each church presents a unique case based on factors like size, average age of its membership, financial resources and location. However, there are also a few basic issues with which all churches wrestle in common. One of these basic issues is a shift in our polity that took place many years ago, but into which we have not yet fully lived. Two stories will help illuminate this issue. Case study: Committee on Ministry I was asked by a presbytery to work with its Committee on Ministry. Like almost all Presbyterian leaders, the members of the COM knew they need to do things differently in the future than they had done in the past. Almost everyone across our denomination agrees things need to change; we just don’t know what those changes ought to be. These COM … [Read more...]
Call me by name: A lifetime of race and relationships
The charge is armed robbery. The defendant’s lawyer declares at the outset that this is a case of mistaken identification. I had done everything I could to avoid being selected as a juror: my best Italian-wool suit, my French-cuffed shirt and my natty bowtie. Attire I had worn as a law professor to meetings with Wall Street lawyers before I retired. My outfit screams to the prosecutor, prompting him to ask the entire panel, “Have any of you ever been involved in a criminal case before?” I rehearse a response in my head so as not to appear too eager to avoid my civic duty. During my early career as a law professor, I served as the court-appointed lawyer for three different defendants’ appeals of their convictions. I plan to leave out the part about teaching criminal law for over a decade, unless the prosecutor asks. I remain silent during the jury selection process until the prosecutor asks if any of us knows other prospective jurors. My neighbor Lynn glances at me and volunteers … [Read more...]
“Late we come” — The Presbyterian Outlook and Southern Presbyterians on race
Speaking at the March on Washington in August 1963, Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA), began with an apology to Martin Luther King Jr. and others gathered: “We come and late we come.” Blake, who had recently been arrested in a demonstration to integrate a Baltimore amusement park, spoke the truth. With notable exceptions – African Americans, some other people of color and numbers of prophetic whites – Presbyterians did come late to the struggle for civil rights for all Americans. Nationally, most Presbyterians may have come tardily to the movement, but they provided strong leadership from the early 1960s onward. They still do. Southern Presbyterians were, for the most part, the latest of the late. Representatives of the Presbyterian Church U.S. (PCUS) formed in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War in the South, failed even to endorse that March on Washington — the only so-called mainline denomination to demur. But change … [Read more...]
Slavery and the genealogy of The Presbyterian Outlook
“I am owned by the blood of all of them Who ever were owned by my blood. We cannot be free of each other." – Wendell Berry, “My Great-Grandfather’s Slaves” We are struggling as a nation to know ourselves better, to tell our stories more honestly and to acknowledge the profound ambiguities of our history. This is no easy task in our consumer culture with its entertainment empires seeking to distract us and in our political culture with its lies and tawdry deceits. Nor is it easy to know ourselves better when we think we have no deep connections with our ancestors — that we modern, individualistic Americans appeared in the present moment through the miracle of self-generation like frogs springing up out of the waters of the Nile. Nevertheless, we are – despite the odds – struggling to know ourselves better. And nowhere is this struggle more clearly visible than in our attempts to understand and acknowledge the role of slavery and racism in the history of the nation. We are … [Read more...]
The process of rejuvenation: Krislund Camp and Conference Center
Krislund Camp and Conference Center is settled in the rural northern stretch of the Appalachian Mountains in central Pennsylvania. Like many faith-based camps, Krislund began a slow decline in summer participation in the late 1990s, and by the turn of the century was facing significant economic concerns. As one of the several camp and conference centers located in the Synod of the Trinity, Krislund hit financial distress about 10 years ago. Today, however, there’s a new story to tell. Krislund is thriving — the result of what volunteer leaders and staff have done together. Krislund is owned and directed by three presbyteries: Carlisle, Huntingdon and Northumberland, and serves rural central Pennsylvania, stretching from the New York border south to Maryland. Those who oversee the ministry of Krislund come from each of the presbyteries, forming what is called the Joint Camp and Conference Committee (JCCC). The committee has taken several steps that have resulted in greater … [Read more...]
Recommended reading
What’s on your summer reading list? A novel? A heavy-duty work of nonfiction you’ve been wanting to dig into, but have not yet had the concentrated time? Maybe something completely outside your normal genre or preferences? We hope these recommendations might help you decide which direction you want to go as you vacation or simply slow down a bit. We invited a variety of people we admire to share with us books that made an impression on them and that they think others will find meaningful. Some of these books have been previously reviewed in our pages, others are classics and still others you may not yet have on your radar. We’d love to hear if you take us up on any of these suggestions and what you think of the content within. Also, if you have suggestions of your own, let us know! – Jill Duffield Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America James Fallows and Deborah Fallows Pantheon, 432 pages Would you like to travel with James and Deborah Fallows this … [Read more...]
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