DALLAS — While some may want answers now — fearing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in danger of splitting or drifting the wrong way, away from God — a theological task force is not rushing to conclusion.
At its second meeting, held Feb. 28-March 2 in Dallas, the 20-member Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity spent a lot of its time considering what are the right questions to be asking
ATLANTA — Maybe Jim Logan, a pastor from Charlotte, summed up the complexities and contradictions of the Confessing Church Movement best when he said — just after stepping up to the microphone before about 800 people at the Confessing Church Movement's national celebration — that "I feel a little bit like I'm in a political rally. [But] I've got to preach."
ATLANTA– Preaching about holy living to a crowd of evangelicals, theologian Mark Achtemeier laid the trap carefully. He cautioned against compromise, saying "there is no place for a middle way," warning that he sees a Christian community where abominations litter the landscape and there are open and clear violations, a flaunting of biblical standards.
ATLANTA — The Confessing Church Movement should try to rebuild the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from the ground up — consider it a "Habitat for Presbyterians," as one pastor put it — and should not flinch from confronting a crumbling denomination with God's truth and pushing those who cannot follow that truth to leave.
If Amendment A goes down to defeat — and it certainly looks as though it will — what's next for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?
Here's some of the common wisdom:
• The defeat of Amendment A would mean the presbyteries will have voted three times in a row, by ever-increasing margins, to affirm the church's current ordination standards: to limit ordination to those who practice fidelity in marriage or chastity if they are single.
In proposing a $40 million campaign to raise funds for international mission work and church growth, John Detterick repeatedly has stressed that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can’t rely on the old ways of financing itself anymore. Detterick, executive director of the church’s General Assembly Council, says the church has been too "passive" when it comes to money — just waiting to see how much comes in and hoping it will be enough.
Here's the biggest surprise of all from the recent PC(USA) General Assembly Council meeting in Louisville.
Neal Presa, a 25-year-old council member who will graduate this year from
San Francisco Seminary, asked for five minutes to make a "point of personal privilege."
LOUISVILLE -- Despite concerns that a new curriculum might be too expensive for some small churches to afford, the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted Friday to spend $750,000 to develop a new curriculum next year written "by Presbyterians, for Presbyterians."
It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock: that we live in a country in which increasing numbers of people say they aren’t Christian, or don’t consider themselves to belong to any particular religious group.
That understanding — that it can no longer be assumed that people grew up in church or that they can be expected to come back some day — is provoking some congregations to consider new approaches to evangelism.
Ernest Gordon, 85, the retired dean of the chapel and university chaplain emeritus at Princeton University, died Jan. 16 at Princeton Medical Center after a long illness.
His 1962 book, Through the Valley of the Kwai, told about the ordeal he and thousands of other prisoners of the Japanese endured during World War II in the jungles of Burma. Despite the cruelty and horrible conditions, Gordon said he began to find his religious faith there.
MEMPHIS - "Does this matter? Can we do it?" asked Chris Whitehead, pastor of a federated Presbyterian and Methodist congregation in Mammoth, Ore., as he moderated a Jan. 19 workshop at the inaugural conference here of Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC). Whitehead continued, "We have been given permission by our national judicatories to create new models of church unity at the congregational level. Now that we have permission, what are we going to do with it?"
San Francisco Presbytery on Jan. 8 endorsed Laird J. Stuart as a nominee for Moderator of the 214th General Assembly (2002). He is the first nominee for the position which will be elected by the commissioners on June 15 in Columbus, Ohio.
Pastor of Calvary church, San Francisco, since 1993, Stuart earlier served churches in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jerse, and Connecticut. He has served on the board of Pittsburgh Seminary, including a term as president, and is currently on the board of San Francisco Seminary.
Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC), the latest incarnation of a 40-year-old effort to unite American Protestants, will hold its inaugural service on Sunday, Jan. 20, at Mount Olive Cathedral Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Memphis.
Those expected to attend the service will include representatives of its nine founding churches, along with well-wishers from across the country and around the world.
Shakespeare's Romeo said, "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love." When love and hate reach a certain intensity they both demand incarnation. The Christmas stories have two incarnations; one of hate and one of love. The difficulty is that neither one touches us until it touches us.
A large majority of elders support rejection of Amendment 01-A -- which would delete the "fidelity and chastity" ordination standard from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Order -- but ministers split evenly between approval and rejection.
A Mankato (Minn.) Presbyterian church has started a fund to help a PC(USA) redevelopment associate recover from a Christmas Eve fire which destroyed his home.
Before they gathered for their first meeting, the members of the Theological Task force on Peace, Unity and Purity wrote down some of their thoughts about the task force -- what they hoped for, what they were concerned about, what they expected. Here are a few excerpts from those statements, which were distributed without the writers' names attached.
DALLAS -- A task force charged with leading the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in spiritual discernment was encouraged at its first meeting, Dec. 6-8, to think in terms of managing conflict rather than resolving it -- recognizing that the Christian church has had conflict almost from its beginning -- and to stop equating conflict with combat, in which some other person or idea has to be destroyed.
LOUISVILLE -- Barbara G. Wheeler, the president of Auburn Seminary in New York, calls herself a liberal and strongly believes that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) should not deny ordination to sexually-active gays and lesbians, and shouldn't cite the Bible as its reason for doing so. But here's some of what she has to say about evangelical conservatives, the people she says she disagrees with "strenuously" in the painful and continuing battle over homosexual ordination.
ATLANTA -- How far must a session go in inquiring into the sexual practice of candidates for elder? If a person has acknowledged that they live in a committed, same-sex relationship, but refuses to answer the direct question if they are sexually active in that relationship, can the session proceed to install them? Or is the examination incomplete?
LAKELAND, Fla. -- Mary Alice Minear Hunt, 82, wife of former Outlook editor George Laird Hunt, died Nov. 26 of kidney failure at the health center of Florida Presbyterian Homes here.
A professional musician, recitalist and church soloist, she studied music under Robert Grooters, Madeline Bartell and David McCormick.
During the 10 days of my senior-year spring break, I participated in Davidson College's "reverse mission experience" journey to Nicaragua led by college chaplain Rob Spach and Kathy Beach-Verhey, associate pastor of the Davidson College church.
A recent mission study trip to the northeastern part of Hungary and Ukraine -- with 10 persons from Missouri Union and Peaks presbyteries -- left me with three distinct images, all relating in some way to our old friend, Daniel Szabo, head curator of the Cistibiscan Church District.
You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God (2 Corinthians 9:11-12, NRSV).
LOUISVILLE -- From the moment he took office as executive director of the General Assembly Council (GAC) in 1998, John Detterick has said that the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s $140 million mission enterprise sooner or later would have to be made leaner, more efficient and better prioritized.
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO
