The Presbyterian Publishing Corp. -- responding to criticisms of a new book it has published that asserts American military and political leaders were involved with planning the 9/11 attacks -- issued a news release Aug. 11 stating that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) does not endorse the claims the book makes.
The controversial book -- Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action -- was written by David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of philosophy and theology at Claremont School of Theology in California.
Since its publication by Westminster John Knox Press earlier this summer, Griffin's book has riled up Presbyterians who have argued that Westminster shouldn't have published the book and that it is bringing more trouble down on an already divided, declining denomination.
© 2006. Used by permission.
BARRANQUILLA, Colombia--While accompaniment of Latin Americans by North Americans is generally understood to protect bodies threatened by illegal armed groups and berserk military strategies, people here say it is equally good for the soul.
"We probably won't know what the changes are within ourselves until we look back, but it is impossible to come here and not be changed," says 27-year-old Traci Smith of Batavia, Ill., and a spring graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, who is ending six weeks of accompaniment of threatened church human rights workers this week.
She's sitting in the rain-soaked courtyard of the Presbyterian secondary school here, where a spectacular thunderstorm has abruptly soiled an outdoor dance, one event amidst the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (PCC). The storm turned the city's concrete streets into gullies and cut the electricity in this middle-class neighborhood, where the school has operated for more than 100 years.
Sometimes it's hard to look at the news. What's happening in the world, in places like Lebanon and Israel and Iraq and the Sudan, is often so painful.
And Presbyterians who are serious about wanting peace in the world sometimes don't know what to do.
But as complicated as world politics can be, many Presbyterians do feel an obligation, sometimes a calling, to work for peace and for a more loving and just world. In times of turmoil, what does that look like? What can "ordinary" Presbyterians and congregations do to be peacemakers?
The answer, to some extent, depends on the person. Some are comfortable with quieter involvement, with prayer and reading and discussion, trying to understand. Others feel pulled to action and advocacy. For some Presbyterians, the pain of the world is so strong that it demands that they do something to try to make a difference.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
Jihaad Abdul-Majid has often found inspiration in the words and deeds of Islam's prophet Muhammad, from his acts of compassion and charity to his counsel that followers treat women fairly and help the poor.
At the same time, other sayings that implied female inferiority and intolerance toward other religions troubled the 23-year-old student at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
"These issues have pushed me to seek more knowledge," said Abdul-Majid, who recently enrolled in an online course about the hadith, the collected stories of what Muhammad and his closest companions said and did.
Muslims hold the hadith second only to the Quran as a source of Shariah law and personal guidance. For centuries, Muslims have hotly debated the hadith, often coming to vastly different conclusions about what lessons to draw from Muhammad's life.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
The Verse: "A nation led by a woman shall not prosper."
The Context: This verse is part of a longer hadith, or narration about the life of Muhammad, recounting the story of how a Persian king executed one of the Islamic prophet's messengers, sparking his anger against the empire. Muhammad made the statement after the king died and his daughter became ruler.
c. 2006 Religion News Service
Advocacy groups are pressuring Congress to take broader action to alleviate the plight of refugees who have been caught in a tangle of new regulations designed to keep terrorists from entering the United States.
Refugee Council USA, which includes numerous faith-based organizations, estimates that as many as 20,000 refugees worldwide are being denied asylum in the United States because their activities fall within broad new U.S. definitions of helping terrorist organizations. Many of the refugees, from countries like Myanmar, Colombia, Liberia, and Cuba, are living in refugee camps in other countries.
LOUISVILLE -- Linda Valentine, the new executive director of the General Assembly Council, is working to assemble her new administrative team -- and to reconfigure the pared-down national offices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
A plan that will be presented to the council at the end of September for its approval calls for the top leadership to be structured with three deputy executive directors (an earlier version of the plan had called for just two). They would be:
· A Deputy Executive Director for Mission.
· A Deputy Executive Director for Shared Services (responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution).
· And a Deputy Executive Director for Communication and Development (responsible for development, communication, mission education and promotion).
There also would be an executive administrator, responsible for a range of activities, including General Assembly coordination, relations with General Assembly agencies and with the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns and the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns.
It is good news that the 217th General Assembly approved the production of a new denominational hymnbook by Presbyterian Publishing. Although The Presbyterian Hymnal has been an excellent tool for worship and praise it is sixteen years old and it is time for its retirement. The publication of new hymns and updated arrangements of old favorites will be a welcome complement to the many worship resources already available. The addition of an e-mail version, one that presumably will permit the quick publication of new hymns on a periodic basis, is especially needed. Since many churches now use computers and projectors to display hymns in church, digital versions will be very useful on a weekly basis.
Although most of us enjoy singing well-known hymns that bring back fond memories and awaken the beginnings of faith, we also need composers and poets who will commit themselves to the systematic writing of hymns that are contemporary, as fresh from the oven as daily bread. Most of our hymns refer to outdated concepts and events that young people today find totally foreign to their own experiences. Seldom do we sing spiritual songs that contain references to recent events or current scientific discoveries, much less images of things we take for granted, like cell phones, DVDs, digital cameras, or explorations of outer space.
The following hymn accompanies an article by Earl S. Johnson Jr in the August 28, 2006 issue of the Outlook. (link to Hymns as fresh as daily bread)
Tune: Nun danket alle Gott
6.7.6.7. 6.6.6.6 .
Text: Earl S. Johnson Jr.
The universe is God's, Who framed the whole Creation,
All praises be to God, Who made the constellations.
The distant space reveals, An outline and intent,
Faint blueprint of a plan, Its wonder and extent.
A $1.5 million endowment to establish a faculty chair in Bible will be named in honor of Thomas W. Currie III, dean of Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education at Charlotte, and the four generations of his family who have served as ministers of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, it was announced recently.
Jack Barden joined Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary on September 1 as director of admissions. Barden previously served as pastor of First Church of Fulton, Mo.
Barden received a BA in religion from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.; an M.div. from Austin Seminary; and a D.min. in preaching from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
LOUISVILLE -- The droning voice of an anonymous news anchor is background noise as 75-year-old Salim Sahiouny talks into a sputtering telephone, with only a tenuous connection to a U.S. line.
"Today is the worst day we have passed through until now," he says, speaking from his house in western Beirut, his voice tired and low. "The shelling has been extended to places that were not hit before."
Shells from more than 50 Israeli air raids pummeled Lebanon Thursday night and the night before. Five major bridges linking the north to the capital were blown to smithereens. Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Beirut's southern suburbs, asking the population to leave, he says, citing the newscast in the background, his voice ricocheting with shock.
The president of the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Church in Syria and Lebanon, Sahiouny, a Presbyterian pastor, isn't leaving the house or the city, no matter what they say. "To me, it is a matter of principle. I feel," he says, pausing to sigh, "that a pastor stays with the congregation."
As the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches -- a day that is seared in the nation's memory, and has reconfigured the lives of people from an entire region -- faith-based groups have learned some important lessons.
They understand that the recovery in the Gulf region will take years -- and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is committed to be there.
They have learned the importance of partnership -- of working cooperatively with other faith-based groups and denominations, with government and community groups. They have learned that some groups are better at certain tasks than others -- the PC(USA), for example, is concentrating on the long-term response, on recovery and rebuilding, rather than being first on the scene with food and water.
Katrina drove home that planning and preparation are key, both at the national level and locally -- for this disaster and the next ones to come. One year after Katrina, as a new hurricane season has arrived, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance hopes to teach presbyteries and congregations the importance of having a plan in place for the next hurricane, flood, tornado, or fire.
And Katrina has made it clear that, in tough times, church folk show up. They will drive across the country to sleep in tents or on floors, taking time off from work, bringing tools and Bibles, their pockets stuffed with donations and gift cards for Lowe's or Home Depot. They are retirees and college students. They show up to fix someone's home without caring what race or religion or economic group that person comes from.
Tracking the itineraries of volunteers who have gone to the Gulf Coast is like tracking the progress of the recovery effort itself -- from the earliest days of providing for basic survival to more recent efforts to get people back into their homes.
"One of the greatest blessings we could receive is people from all over the country -- Presbyterians from all over the country -- sending work crews and staying in our building," said Cliff Nunn, pastor of First Church in New Orleans.
Volunteers cleaned the sanctuary, put up sheet rock, painted, drained the elevator shaft, and the basement. And when that was done, they started working on the neighborhood.
"We have collaborative relationships with the neighborhood association that we never had before," Nunn said. "We have an Episcopal church down the street that we barely knew existed, that we now have a very good relationship with. ... My whole ministry has been changed," as work groups venture out to rebuild houses of people living all around the church.
"Theology After Disaster" is the topic of the inaugural issue of @ this point, an online journal launched last May by the faculty of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga.
Each issue of @ this point focuses on a particular topic from the perspective of a variety of theological disciplines and includes a lead article, response articles, and teaching resources to guide further discussion.
By a vote of 145 for, 75 against, and 4 abstentions, the Presbytery of New Covenant (Houston, Texas) approved the following policy at its August 22, 2006 stated meeting:
"The Presbytery of New Covenant in its discernment of the essentials of reformed polity and for the sake of preserving the peace, unity and purity of the church does adopt the principle that compliance with the standards for ordination adopted and held authoritative in the Book of Order shall remain essentials of reformed polity and any departure from said standards for ordination set forth in the Book of Order will disqualify a candidate for ordination or installation by the Presbytery of New Covenant. Those provisions of the Book of Order deemed to be standards and therefore essentials of polity include those statements using "shall," "is/are to be," "required," "requirement," or equivalent expressions.
This discernment of the essentials of reformed polity shall remain in effect until removed by a majority vote of the Presbytery of New Covenant."
ATLANTA -- Every day, 25,000 children die of malnutrition.
A billion people have no access to health care.
Millions of children, with no one to care for them, live on the streets.
Women and girls are routinely sold for sex.
Across the globe 27 million people are being held as slaves -- the greatest number in history, a trafficking in human life and dignity that enriches the perpetrators by $13.6 billion a year.
Those are just a few painful statistics -- there are more, according to Sharon Cohn, vice-president of interventions for International Justice Mission, https://www.ijm.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=178&srcid=-2 a human rights agency that tries to rescue victims of slavery, violence and exploitation.
ATLANTA -- It's become a staple for many congregations: the one or two-week mission trip, from which many Presbyterians return saying the experience has opened their eyes and changed their lives.
But Roberta Hestenes, an evangelical who has worked with World Vision International and traveled the globe on behalf of outreach to the poor, tempers enthusiasm for such mission work with practical wisdom.
She recognizes the value of sharing one's faith -- of connecting with Christians from other places and backgrounds.
But the balance between Presbyterians' sending long-term missionaries and congregations supporting short-term mission trips "has reached the tipping point," Hestenes told the Presbyterian Global Fellowship https://69.15.106.21/ August 18.
Thousands of congregations are sending people on mission trips, "or their own people are already going whether or not they have permission from any official anybody to be going," she said.
ATLANTA -- They're good-hearted Presbyterians -- serious about their faith, people who want to show God's love to a suffering world. But it's not as easy as just getting on a plane with a suitcase and a pocket stuffed with dollars.
In a religiously diverse world, in which Americans often enjoy prosperity and peace which others do not share, working in partnership with others can be a complicated thing. And those at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship https://www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org meeting August 17-19 -- a mostly white, evangelical crowd -- were challenged to temper their energy for mission with some hard thinking about realities that are not always comfortable to face.
Lucas de Paiva Pina, a Brazilian who is working with immigrant fellowships in Georgia, looked out across the room and said: "We need to put more color here -- yellow, black, red, all of them."
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has pledged to become 20 percent people of color by 2010, but still is more than 92 percent white.
ATLANTA -- Think of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as a lemon-colored rotary phone in a cell-phone world.
Useful in its time. Not right for now.
That was the image that Vic Pentz, senior pastor of Peachtree Church in Atlanta, used to kick off the first-ever gathering of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (https://www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org) -- an entity that he acknowledged is brand-new, is still taking shape, that no one is exactly sure how to describe.
But more than 800 people from 42 states have come to this meeting at Peachtree -- ready for something different, wanting to "move beyond the old model of mission, which is simply sending great gobs of money from the West to the rest," Pentz told the opening night gathering on August 17.
So he thunked the yellow rotary phone down on the pulpit -- and there it stayed, a visual clue as to what some say is not working with the PC(USA).
ATLANTA -- Even in the Bible Belt, fewer than half the people go to church. In Seattle, it's less than 10 percent.
And "what do the unchurched people think of us?" asked Scott Dudley, senior pastor of First Church in Bellevue, a Seattle suburb. "They don't. They don't think of us at all."
Dudley said research has shown 7 of 10 Americans think of church as irrelevant. "And some of them go to church."
Dudley spoke August 18 to the Presbyterian Global Fellowship about what Christians can do to evangelize in their own communities -- basically, how to reach the unchurched. A while back, he said, a college student doing research on "unusual professions" came to spend some time following him around -- to her, being a pastor seemed to qualify as a truly odd job.
August 16, 2006
Media Inquiries: contact Mary Pace
GAC Office of Communication
(502) 569-5490
Mark Tammen
Constitutional Services
Office of the General Assembly
(502) 569-5433
George S. Burns
Legal Counsel for Presbytery of Hanmi, Synod
of Southern California & Hawaii, and
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
(949) 263-6777
California courts uphold PC(USA) Constitution on church property issues
Three cases tried or settled, fourth expected soon
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, has recently issued a series of decisions that consistently hold that the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) prevents factions of local congregations from seizing church assets and harassing the faction of the congregation which remains loyal to PC(USA).
Recently, the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, Hanmi Presbytery and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been named as parties to lawsuits in the Los Angeles Superior Court involving particular churches that were in schism. Another was filed against the Presbytery of the Pacific, also within the synod. Those lawsuits involved Korean Hope Christian Church, Serone Church, Torrance First Presbyterian Church and Bethany United Presbyterian Church.
In each of those cases, congregations split into factions over selection and other issues concerning their pastor. After one side appealed to the presbytery or synod, the other faction unilaterally declared that the particular church had quit the denomination, and asserted control and ownership of all church property and funds, to the exclusion of both the other faction and the presbytery.
In all these cases, the courts have ruled that the dissident faction must follow the directions of the presbytery as to control or ownership of the church property.
"The courts applied the rules from our Book of Order which is part of the PC(USA) Constitution. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has clear processes based on its theology, said Mark Tammen, director of Constitutional Services, Office of the General Assembly, PC(USA).
"As such, the Constitution entrusts presbyteries with determining their 'strategy for mission' in their bounds. This is the 'yardstick' for making such decisions. Obviously secular judges would have difficulty in making such a theologically based determination, and in fact, are prohibited from doing so by well established U.S. Supreme Court precedent," Tammen added.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission workers and ecumenical partners in the Middle East have not suffered physical harm from the violence that is gripping Lebanon and Israel.
"All our mission workers, partners and other colleagues are reported safe," said Victor Makari, the PC(USA)'s area coordinator for the Middle East, on July 18. "This includes pastors in southern Lebanon very close to the border with Israel. All our colleagues (in Lebanon) are stuck in their homes, some sleeping in hallways away from windows and outside walls."
The violence between Israel and Hezbollah, which began July 12, has claimed the lives of 210 Lebanese and 24 Israelis as of July 18, according to media reports.
Nuhad Tomeh, a PC(USA) mission worker in Lebanon, was in the United States when the fighting broke out and was scheduled to remain through the end of July. Tomeh serves with the Middle East Council of Churches and is the PC(USA)'s regional liaison for Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Gulf region.
Presbyterian work in Lebanon dates back to the 19th century and the PC(USA) continues close ties to its partner church in the nation, National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon. The denomination also maintains partnerships in Lebanon with the Lebanese American University of Beirut (which it founded) and the Near East School of Theology (NEST). The PC(USA), along with the Reformed Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, supports the mission service of Jon Hoover, a professor who teaches at NEST. He serves in Lebanon with his wife, Jacqueline.
The PC(USA)'s Jinishian Memorial Program, an endowed relief and development program that serves Armenian communities in several countries overseas, works in the Armenian Quarter of Beirut. Its entire staff is safe, Makari said.
Makari reported that conditions are calm in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, where four PC(USA) mission workers and others related to the PC(USA) serve. The denomination's seven mission personnel assigned to Egypt are also safe, he said.
In response to the latest wave of violence in the Middle East, The National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus issued a statement calling for 'all illegal and terroristic activities on all sides come to an abrupt and final end ... an end to Israel's occupation as the first real step toward a genuine peace in the region ... [and] to base US foreign policy on the legal and moral values that our nation and constitution are founded on.'
The complete text follows.
(RNS) As Middle East hostilities entered its second week, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders around the world continued to press the combatants --and the Bush administration -- for an immediate cease-fire.
On July 24, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches called for "an immediate cessation of violent acts by all parties," and said the first step "is for all acts of violence to end immediately." In a July 21 letter to Bush, signed by more than a dozen Roman Catholic and Protestant groups including the National Council of Churches, Churches for Middle East Peace told the president his leadership "and the full weight of the Untied States, acting in concert with the international community, must be applied now to achieve an immediate cease-fire and to launch an intensive diplomatic initiative for the cessation of hostilities.
"This is a necessary first step toward the diplomatic resolution of this crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the way toward a comprehensive Middle East peace," the letter to Bush said.
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