From an OGA news release
The Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) issued a decision July 15 in Minihan v. the Presbytery of Scioto Valley that reaffirms the right of a session to determine the distribution of a congregation's benevolences, including the payment of per capita to presbyteries.
LOUISVILLE — The mandate from the Bible is clear — love God, love one another — but the path is not. What is God’s vision for the world today? What does it mean to be faithful to that vision? How are we called to live?
Those questions, in all their complexities, are what about 4,000 followers of Jesus from around the globe were trying to wrap their minds and their hearts around July 9-13, as Presbyterian Women convened its Gathering, held every third year.
ATLANTA— An investigative committee of Greater Atlanta Presbytery has concluded that former moderator Fahed Abu-Akel, a minister member of the presbytery, did not slander Virginia attorney Paul Rolf Jensen in public remarks Abu-Akel made in April.
LYNCHBURG, Va. — Peaks Presbytery has voted to dismiss the almost 900-member Rivermont congregation to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The action came Tuesday, July 1, during a special meeting at First church, Roanoke, in response to an administrative commission recommendation of terms for the dismissal.
Robert H. Bullock Jr., editor and CEO of The Presbyterian Outlook for 15 years, has announced his retirement effective Oct. 31.
Noting that his decision to retire followed more than a year of prayerful consideration and consultation with board officers, Bullock said, "At the heart of it is the firm conviction that the work that I was called to do has now been completed."
CINCINNATI — Some people say A. Stephen Van Kuiken got exactly what he asked for when this pastor of 18 years refused, out of conscience, to follow the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
On June 16, by a vote of 119 to 45, Cincinnati Presbytery voted to declare that Van Kuiken, pastor of Mount Auburn church, had renounced the jurisdiction of the PC(USA)
When an elder from a suburban Chicago congregation read in the local newspaper that the Ku Klux Klan was planning a rally in a park nearby, the elder said: "If this is true, I think we should volunteer our church to have a prayer service."
So the congregation set to work, organizing ecumenical support. And at 1 p.m. on May 31, as the Klan was outside trying to light the fires of racism, about 200 people gathered inside the Presbyterian Church of Berywn to pray for unity.
In his study, Three Centuries of Presbyterians along the Potomac (1989), William E. Thompson sites 1774 remark of Nicholas Cresswell of Alexandria, Va.: 'Went to a Presbyterian Meeting. They are a set of rebellious scoundrels, nothing but political discourses instead of religious lectures.' Of course, those were rebellious years. The Spirit of '76 was in the air.
Now, more than 225 years later, the New York Avenue church in the nation's capitol is celebrating its 200th birthday. This provides an occasion to recall the importance of this congregation and its pastors to the Presbyterian church and nation.
Late in the 18th century a group of Scottish stonemasons who labored in the area, worshiped in a shed they built for their tools and used for a church on Sundays. But New York Avenuers identify themselves with the history of the F Street and the Second Presbyterian churches, organized around 1803. The F Street congregation grew under the long-term leadership of James Laurie (pastor 1803-1853), a Scottish emigrant who was not only an eloquent preacher but a supporter of the Bible, Tract, Mission and Reform Societies organized at the time to Christianize the new nation and the world. At tunes associate pastor Septimus Tustin served as chaplain in the House of Representative and Senate.
Stephen Van Kuiken, the Ohio pastor who was rebuked in April by the Permanent Judicial Commission of Cincinnati Presbytery for performing same-sex unions and who has said, as a matter of conscience, that he will not stop, has been charged with blasphemy and heresy.
Paul Rolf Jensen, the lawyer who has filed more than 20 disciplinary cases in the courts of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), now has filed a civil lawsuit in California against a top Presbyterian leader — suing Fahed Abu-Akel, moderator of the PC(USA)'s 214th General Assembly, for slander.
Paul Rolf Jensen, the lawyer who has put in long hours over the past year filing Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) disciplinary cases, has filed another one — this time not involving ordination and homosexuality, but the theological views of a pastor trying to transfer his membership to another presbytery.
Presbyterian researchers involved in a major study of U.S. congregations have found there isn't one "silver bullet" that will make a congregation succeed. Strong congregations can be large or small, there's no single formula for what works. But they say congregations that want to become extraordinary need to develop multiple strengths — to figure out what they do best — and to intentionally focus on those things.
When Thomas Daniel signed up for the religion class his senior year of college, he did it for one reason: he wanted to take a class from John Kuykendall, then president of Davidson College (N.C.). "He is a truly fascinating guy and I wanted to take a course with him," Daniel said. "If he was teaching physics, I would have taken that."
Even at Davidson College — a Presbyterian-related school — Daniel didn't know anyone who went to church.
Cincinnati Presbytery’s Judicial Commission has found minister A. Stephen Van Kuiken guilty of participating in same-sex marriage ceremony at Mount Auburn church and issued a rebuke.
The censure says he should perform marriage ceremonies "only for a man and a woman." If he performs "holy union" ceremonies for same-sex couples he is "directed to take special care to avoid any confusion of such services with Christian marriage."
LOUISVILLE - The Menaul School -- a Presbyterian-affiliated school in Albuquerque with students in grades 6-12 -- will get another chance to get back on financially solid ground, thanks to a $450,000 loan from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
When the denomination's budget is being cut, it's natural to look inward: to talk about what's getting the axe and what's being preserved.
But Fahed Abu-Akel, moderator of the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), turned attention back to the world outside in his remarks to the General Assembly Council on April 4. Abu-Akel asked each Presbyterian to pause at noon each day to pray about the war in Iraq
LOUISVILLE - The General Assembly Council unanimously approved a budget of nearly $127 million for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 2004 - a budget that includes $3.1 million in adjustments and the elimination of 19 positions on the denomination's national staff. Nine of those positions are vacant, but 10 people will lose their jobs.
LOUISVILLE -- John Detterick, one of the top leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is a little frustrated -- he's tired of hacking away at budgets, and wants the Presbyterian church to come up with a new and more strategic way of figuring out what work it should be doing and what it can no longer afford.
David Stoner, who has been a principal party in negotiations with the Pakistani government, reports that Forman Christian College in Lahore will be formally turned over to PC(USA)-designated college principal Peter Armacost, today, March 20.
KANSAS CITY — Finally, it's final: the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will not be called back into session.
For months, the denomination has been waiting to hear whether Alex Metherell, an elder and physician from Laguna Beach, Calif., would succeed in his efforts to reconvene last summer's General Assembly to take on an issue which he claims could pull apart the PC(USA) — that of sessions and pastors which refuse to follow the denomination's constitutional standards, which limit ordination to those who practice fidelity if they're married or chastity if they're single.
NEW YORK — Holmes Rolston III, professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, whose 30 years of research, writing and lecturing on the religious imperative to respect nature have established environmental ethics, has been named the 2003 Templeton Prize laureate. The prize, valued at more than $1million, was announced Wednesday at a news conference at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York.
KANSAS CITY — During an all-day hearing here Monday, one lawyer said this case "will decide the future of our denomination," another said it's a test of whether there's any trust left in the church.
The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the highest court of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), is expected to decide later this week whether, after months of high drama, the 214th General Assembly (2002) will meet again — maybe the week before the 215th General Assembly.
LOUISVILLE — As the Witherspoon Society — founded in 1973 and built upon the push-for-change energy of the 1960s — celebrates its 30th anniversary, some of its own members are thinking through what it means to be a progressive voice in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) with a nation preparing for war and a church divided against itself.
Editor's note — Following is the Report of the Pastoral Committee appointed by the Presbyery of Northern New England to work with Christ church, Burlington, Vt. The report was accepted without change by voice vote at the presbytery's stated meeting on March 8. It is the final report of the presbytery's compliance under the GAPJC decision in the Londonderry case.
Menaul School, a PC(USA)-affiliated secondary school in Albuquerque, N.M., is facing an economic crisis which must be resolved by April.
To continue operation, the school is seeking $550,000 in loans — $450,000 from the General Assembly and $100,000 from Southwest Synod. [Note — School officials had earlier told The Outlook that the GA request would be for $900,000. It has since been reduced.] The good news for the school is that the synod has approved a $200,000 loan. On the other hand, the GA committee that must recommend the larger loan does not meet until April 1.
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