MONTREAT, N.C. -- Mary Elva Smith, the new director of the Women's Ministries Program Area of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), said here recently that she'd like to see the denomination push for another global women's conference that she said will restore the validity of feminist theology in the church.
The magazine Monday Morning -- which for 66 years provided a place for Presbyterian pastors to shout out on matters in the church and the world -- is ceasing publication at the end of this year, for financial reasons.
Updated 3 p.m. EDT Aug. 16 to include additional information.
A curriculum produced "by Presbyterians for Presbyterians" is continuing to have financial problems -- in part because so few congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are using it -- so the denomination has decided to suspend development of the next phase of the curriculum to try to contain the losses.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- This is high-voltage worship many young people love: the kind where you clap your hands and stomp your feet, shouting over and over, "God will, God will, rock you!"
And this is what they expect when they go back home.
As July comes to a close, some of those who believe the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) made a big mistake in June, when the 213th General Assembly voted to recommend lifting a ban on ordaining those who are not married and not celibate, will gather in Denver to strategize about the future.
A few weeks ago, with the 213th General Assembly of the PC(USA) fast approaching, Bill Hawley knew what he had to do. He didn't think he'd survive the agony of another Assembly fractured over the question of ordaining gays and lesbians. His blood pressure was sky-high.
It would cost him his job, but it was time to come out of the closet.
MONTREAT, N.C. -- Rhashell Hunter stepped to the podium for the Thursday night communion service. Then she stepped out of it right to the center of the Anderson Auditorium stage, preaching away, with slides popping up on a screen behind her, a deliberately off-key duet with the pianist and interplay with a planted trio in the audience.
The Library of Congress and Montpelier, Va., are holding 250th birthday celebrations this year for James Madison, fourth President of the United States. Although not as well-known as more deistic celebrities Washington and Jefferson, the Virginian deserves attention as the chief architect of the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the new United States of America. 
Readers ought to take note of this occasion because of Madison's Presbyterian connections as pointed out in G. W. Sheldon's recent brief but suggestive book, The Political Philosophy of James Madison (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 2001).
Although short physically, Madison stood tall intellectually with a lifelong appetite for knowledge and wisdom. He was nurtured by his Anglican family and Presbyterian ministers Donald Robertson and John Witherspoon, Scottish Presbyterian transplants to the New World.
In 1763 at the age of 12, Madison began five years of study at Robertson's Virginia boarding school. His teacher introduced him to languages, the Bible, with a Calvinist twist probably from the Westminster Confession, Greek and Roman historians and philosophers, and more contemporary greats such as Locke and Montesquieu.
Congregations angered by the 213th General Assembly's controversial recommendation to lift a ban on gay and lesbian ordination are expected to protest with their pocketbooks in the coming months, withholding contributions to the Presbyterian Church's per capita budget.
When Faith church in Medford, N.J., decided to start a new church in Romania, its members prayed hard and went to work. They didn't ask the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for money or permission. They used their own contacts to track down a South Korean missionary working in Romania, a Presbyterian who helped them find a pastor for a new church in Timisoara, Romania's second-largest city.
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