20 years ago — July 19-26, 1999 Approximately “200,000 African-Americans sailed back from World War I - after fighting to make the ‘world safe for democracy’ - they found it was not safe at home for them.” In 1919 blacks rioted in major cities protesting the discrimination and violence to which they were subject. Presbyterian elder John Eagan was concerned and organized the very first Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation in Atlanta and in the South. “Armed with common sense, he did not try to tell blacks what they needed or wanted. Rather, he encouraged commissioners, black and white, gathered from all over the South and meeting in Atlanta, to find out from African-Americans what they felt and thought about their problems.” Though the commission championed justice under the law and prevention of lynchings – and promoted education, housing and economic justice for blacks – it stopped short of calling for the repeal of “Jim Crow” laws. Eagan was called to develop the Commission of … [Read more...]

10 Years ago — May 25, 2009 “Toxic forms of religion are killing us — sometimes literally, sometimes spiritually. It’s time to look into our own hearts. Are we part of the problem? … Toxic religion is all around us and is not limited to the disciples of Osama bin Laden who hide behind a distorted version of Islam to justify their violent ideology.”  Many of these toxic forms of religion rest on a “false sense of certitude.” Doubt is too often seen as being faithless. We can help by teaching that doubt is okay. “We can suggest … that the path to lasting faith inevitably runs through the valley of the shadow of doubt.” We can acknowledge our own doubts and help others rest with theirs. “Faith … does not answer every question. Rather it assures us that we can live confidently without all the answers. It means we recognize with the Apostle Paul that now we see through a glass darkly. It means, as Scripture insists, that now we walk by faith and not by sight.” From the “The right … [Read more...]

70 years ago — May 23, 1949 “The week of November 28 through December 2, 1950, bids fair to stand as one of the signal weeks in the history of American Protestantism. At that time, in some city yet to be announced, the most far-reaching merger of interdenominational agencies will be effected which has yet been seen. Then will the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. be a fact. Then will be provided more nearly than we have ever known the kind of interdenominational structure that we would have from the beginning, if we were starting all over.” Each denomination remains independent, but with this new body it affords greater cooperation including the educational and mission programs from the “Federal Council of Churches, and almost certainly, the United Council of Church Women. …. The National Council presupposes complete mutual respect for differences in faith and order while it seeks to develop the most efficient channels possible for cooperation in Christian … [Read more...]

60 years ago — May 4, 1959 Following the address given by the retiring moderator, Philip F. Howerton, the 99th Presbyterian, U.S. General Assembly elected Ernest Trice Thompson, church history professor at Union Seminary in Virginia and co-editor of the Outlook, as the new moderator. … In a brief induction service, Dr. Howerton presented Dr. Thompson the gavel and a Celtic cross - one of three presented in 1949 by Harrison Ray Anderson of Chicago to the U.S., U.P and USA Assembly moderators with the expressed hope that the three crosses might some day be made into one. Two of them were welded together in Pittsburgh last year when the U.P and USA Assemblies united. …. [Thompson] said he comes from a family of ministers. His grandfather and his father were ministers and his son is a minister. … He called the assembly to a spirit of devotion and commitment, seeking the mind of Christ for the difficult assignments before it. From “Assembly names seminary professor moderator” by … [Read more...]

50 years ago — March 31, 1969 The issue of separation of church and state once again emerged when state proposals attempted to financially assist parochial schools. “The public school systems are those which are open to all children, regardless of class, race or religious affiliation; paid for by all citizens regardless of class, race or religious affiliation; and supervised, controlled, and criticized by all citizens regardless of class, race or religious affiliation. … [They] constitute in a pluralistic society, to borrow Jefferson’s felicitous term, one of our ‘elementary republics’ in which American children begin their adventure in free government. It is in the public school systems that we come to know one another out of our various traditions, respect one another as persons, and begin to work out some of our problems together in producing, hopefully, a responsible citizenry.” Religious liberty not only includes protection against one person having to support another person’s … [Read more...]

40 years ago — March 19, 1979 The Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM III) met in Puebla, Mexico, January 28 to February 13. Though the document is not as bold as the Medellin document drafted in Medellin, Columbia, in 1968, it still takes a stand for the poor. The bishops seemed to be aligned into three groups. There is a conservative group that seeks to avoid conflict between the church and the dictatorial governments and systems. There is a group of progressives that encourages a church that aligns with the people and seeks to be a liberating community of faith and hope. And then there is a third group, a dominating group, “which accepts and rejects in part both of the other two sector’s positions.” The document does stress that the church needs to understand the Latin American people in their historical context, which has been one of abject poverty. This poverty is the result of “economic, social and political situations and structures” and demands “a … [Read more...]