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Voices

A vision for the GAC

Thank you for your recent editorial about the General Assembly Council recommendation to restructure its internal organization. Through this effort we seek to create a flexible, responsive system for discerning the guidance of the Spirit as we coordinate the mission activities of the General Assembly.

You have correctly sensed several of the shortcomings of the current model: unfunded program initiatives, trying to be all things to all people, and an internal structure that encourages Council members to become specialists rather than to envision the broad scope of ministries we enable. These issues were among those that led the Council over the past several years to focus energies on self-assessment, conversations with middle governing bodies, and ultimately to clarify the basic function of the Council, along with the role of staff.

Book Reviews

Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace

Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, by Miroslav Volf.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.  ISBN: 0-310-26574-6.  Pb., 247 pages, $12.99.

Read this book; it will strengthen your Lenten preaching. Free of Charge is the Archbishop of Canterbury's "Official 2006 Lent Book." In the Forward, Archbishop Rowan Williams says, "This is a book about worshipping the true God and letting the true God act in us." Volf captures the essence of his book in a more engaging way in the Postlude, a conversation with a skeptic who questions all Volf's assumptions, even his view of God. Volf responds, "I don't mean to insult you, but I wrote this book mainly for myself and maybe for folks like me, not for you. Most books I write, I write for myself as a spiritual exercise almost. And to tell the truth, my biggest problem is not with the arguments that may pull the rug from beneath the whole Christian way of life. In a sense my biggest problem is not an argument at all." (p.229)

Volf and the skeptic continue the dialogue. Volf says, "I am what we Christians used to call a 'sinner,' though we are now a bit embarrassed by the term." (p.230) "In the book, I argue, among other things, that we should embrace our enemies as Christ has embraced us. Well, an 'enemy'- a small one -- arose in my life after I wrote the book, and I sensed in myself the propensity to return in kind and exclude rather than forgive and embrace. And then I heard myself saying, 'But you argued in your book ...' It was like an academic version of the still small voice my wonderful and godly mother so often speaks about."

"Did that help?" the skeptic asked.

"It did! It reminded me that I was failing, that I wasn't true to God and to myself. It helped me resolve to act differently, to love my 'enemy.'" (p. 232)

Editorials

The Wheels of Justice …

One need watch only a few episodes of "Law & Order" or "CSI" to know that the wheels of justice roll on bumpy roads. Many an omniscient viewer has shouted the right answers at celluloid investigators, detectives, and prosecutors while the actors have painstakingly dragged through the evidence to build a case that can hold up in court. In TV World, justice usually does get served--about three minutes before the end of the show.

In the real world, those wheels roll on even bumpier roads. Many a crime victim discovers that the local gendarmes don't have the time or the will to pursue the evidence. Or, if they do, the prosecutor responds with a shrug, "We have no case." Screaming at those officers of the law can be even more counter productive than shouting at a TV.  

Judging by this editor's e-mail inbox, many Presbyterians are shouting at their ecclesiastical TVs these days. Some are lifting up their voices in jubilation, others in anger. They all have been watching the same program, the recent ruling of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Redwoods in response to the presbytery's case against the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr. Charged with performing same-sex marriages in violation of the Constitution, she acknowledged before the court that she had indeed officiated such services. However, the PJC acquitted her, stating that the constitutional definition of marriage between a man and woman need not bind the conscience of a minister. Only constitutional prohibitions need be obeyed, they said. Definitions need not be.

Voices

Just as we do

The sound of Hosannas still sings in our ears!

The laughter of the crowd,

so excited,

so filled with passion,

so uncommonly joyous,

for it is the Messiah who rides the donkey

 just as Zechariah had said:

        "Shout loud, O daughter Jerusalem!

         Lo, your king comes to you;

         triumphant and victorious is he,

         humble and riding on a donkey ...

         and he shall command peace to the nations!"

Palm branches waving,

coats thrown on the ground in front of him,

this One who comes in the name of God,

this Jesus who comes to save.

Oh, how we love a parade!

Oh, how we love this Jesus!

What then happened?

What did he do?

What did he say

to cause such wrath?

 

What strange stories:

a hungry Jesus curses a fig tree

because it bears no fruit.

Where, O Israel, is the fruit of your faith?

Where are those who have kept covenant?

Where are those who have walked with God

in justice and mercy and humility?

Uncategorized

British astronomer wins $1.4 Million Templeton Prize

c. 2006 Religion News Service

   

John D. Barrow, a British cosmologist and astronomer whose work has helped scientists and theologians find common understanding about the nature of life and the universe, was named the winner of the 2006 Templeton Prize on March 15.

 The prize -- officially called the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities -- was founded in 1972 by philanthropist and global financier Sir John Templeton and is perhaps the most prestigious award in the field of religion.

At $1.4 million, the award is the largest annual monetary prize given to an individual.

Uncategorized

In a church-denomination “divorce,” who keeps the property?

It's like the moth that keeps darting through the room -- flickering at the periphery of things, always moving on, hard to see clearly. But there's a growing sense in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that property issues -- and particularly the question of whether a church that wants to leave the denomination can take its property with it -- are worth keeping an eye on.

The property question is being debated openly in the PC(USA) and in other denominations as well -- most noticeably in the Episcopal Church. Some congregations, furious about the denomination's decision to consecrate V. Gene Robinson as an openly gay bishop in 2003, say they've withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church in the United States, in some cases have affiliated with conservative Anglican bishops in Africa.

Some of the congregations that leave are determined to take their property with them. They've hired lawyers and initiated legal challenges to the idea that congregations hold their property "in trust" for the denomination -- challenges that in certain cases have been successful.

Voices

WCC and global Christianity: Stated Clerk explores ecumenist role

(Editor's Note: This is the second portion of a recent interview with Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick on topics ranging from ecumenical concerns to issues facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at the General Assembly coming in June. The first installment ran in the March 27 issue.)

 

Ecumenical issues, continued

 

Outlook: Tell us about your visit with the pope (Pope Benedict XVI).

Cliff Kirkpatrick: I got added respect--they called me "Your Excellency" there. I don't get that around here!  This really has been several months period of a sense of blessing that we are moving to a greater sense of Christian unity.  ... When this pope was elected, I, among others, had some real concerns that the Roman Catholic Church was selecting a pope that might not move us forward in the cause of Christian unity. There are still obviously major differences we and other churches have. But I have been struck with the energy Pope Benedict has taken toward wanting to grow Christian unity. I went obviously in my role as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches--the body that relates to the Vatican. I had a good conversation with the pope about a mutual commitment to moving forward in Christian unity, to building on three rounds of dialogue we have already had with the Catholic Church. ... I was fascinated by the interest both with the pope and with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, which is the group we work with most closely, on how we might together commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Calvin's 500th birthday is in 2009. Luther's 95 Theses 500th anniversary is in 2017. And they were very interested to see if together Protestant and Catholic Churches might do an assessment of where we have come together and where we are still apart. As they see it, some of this recent work on justification by faith,  the Catholic claiming of the role of Scripture--many of those things Catholics would see as their appropriation of some of the gifts of the Reformation. I think they would hope we would appropriate more of the gifts of the historic Episcopate. We had a fruitful time both theologically and practically where the celebration of the Reformation could be seen as something that divides us is a time to do an assessment of where we have come together, to find those common points that do reflect the steps we need to take on the path back to Christian unity without, at the same time, setting aside some of the deep convictions that are at the heart of who we are, growing out of the Reformation.

Book Reviews

Where the Light Shines Through: Discerning God in Everyday Life

by Wes Avram. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005. ISBN 1587430886. Pb., 156 pp., $14.99.

 

In the first of the sermonic essays in this collection, Wes Avram recounts a story from a physician's memoirs about a young man who lost his leg to bone cancer. The young man went through long and difficult therapy to learn to live without his leg. During his physical therapy, the doctor sometimes asked the young man to draw a picture of how he was feeling. On one occasion he drew a picture of a cracked vase, depicting his feeling of being broken right at the center of his being. As the years went on, the young man gradually accepted his new life and learned to find joy again. Much later, the doctor met the patient again, and had an opportunity to pull out of his files the old picture of the cracked vase. The former patient took the picture back and said, "This isn't finished." He added something to the drawing. "'Now it's complete,' he said and turned it back to the doctor. He had drawn rays of light shining from inside the vase. He said, 'Now I know that the crack is where the light shows through.'" [p. 31]

Uncategorized

CEDN organizes against divestment

A new Presbyterian affinity group--the Committee to End Divestment Now (CEDN)--has organized around an effort "to correct" what they believe was a mistake made in 2004 by the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

They are seeking repeal of the resolution calling for "a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel." That repeal could occur at the 217th General Assembly this June.

Uncategorized

ACC concludes Task Force report “consistent” with PC(USA) principles

The Advisory Committee on the Constitution recently issued its formal advice regarding the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- and has concluded that what the task force is recommending "is clear and within the power of the General Assembly to approve if it chooses."

That leaves the assembly, which will meet in Birmingham in June, free to decide what it wants to do about the task force report, which so far already has inspired both strong support and intense criticism.

The ACC traced in its advice the history of Presbyterian decision-making regarding the ordination of gays and lesbians. The denomination's constitution limits ordination to those who practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they are single.

The task force is recommending that those national ordination standards remain in place, but asks the assembly to issue a new authoritative interpretation that would allow local governing bodies to determine whether departures from those standards would violate essentials of Reformed polity and faith, or should be permitted.

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