WASHNGTON (Special to the Presbyterian News Service) On July 11, more than 150 U.S. citizens from faith-based, environmental and human rights organizations gathered in front of the White House to protest the pending Colombia Free Trade Agreement. A Presbyterian presence was prominent among them.
HONG KONG (ENI) The Vatican has excommunicated the Rev. Joseph
Huang Bingzhang, a Catholic bishop in Shantou in the southern Guangdong
province in China, for being ordained without a papal mandate.
NAIROBI, Kenya (ENI) Roman Catholic Bishop Caesar Mazzolari of
South Sudan's Rumbek diocese died suddenly on July 16 at age 74, one
week after the mainly Christian and animist region celebrated its
independence from the mainly Arab and Islamic North.
This is the eighth and final installment of the famed “Harry Potter” film
series. There are no more books to provide the basis for more, unless author
J.K. Rowling decides to take pen in hand again for the next generation – an
intriguing possibility which she distinctly leaves open at the end.
OK, so it’s not very exciting. But there’s a sublime kind of satisfaction to watching this
well-made documentary about one loggerhead turtle, who remains nameless, but for ease
of storytelling, let’s give it a shot: Deborah.
You have to enter with low expectations. This is an Adam Sandler comedy,
and Kevin James is in his overweight, slightly bewildered and occasionally
overwhelmed Everyman persona. He plays Griffin, who works at the zoo,
and is one of those “gentle with animals” guys who talks to them when he
feeds them and brings them little gifts just to do something nice for them.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PNS) Concerned that the Obama administration and Congress are working on a budget deal that will place an undue burden on the poor “while shielding the wealthiest from any additional sacrifice,” leaders representing the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths on July 14 launched a new campaign to encourage policymakers to maintain a robust U.S. commitment to domestic and international poverty programs.
LOUISVILLE – The Rev. Brian Heron is embarking on a pilgrimage. And
though his congregation will stay home while he’s out on the 10-week
cycling trip, they’ll make a journey of their own.
INDIANAPOLIS (PNS) More than 75 Presbyterians in town for the
denomination’s Big Tent event demonstrated their support of immigrants at
the Indiana Statehouse July 2.
The moderator’s July column
LOUISVILLE (OGA) When I welcomed everyone to the Big Tent in Indianapolis recently, I said that the Big Tent is like a General Assembly in that the halls are teeming with Presbyterians, either connecting for the first time or reconnecting with one another.
As editor of a magazine that speaks to the whole church, I feel compelled to write to Presbyterian friends in particular groupings of conviction — while allowing the rest to eavesdrop. In the last two editions, I addressed those celebrating and those grieving the adoption of Amendment 10-A. In this final correspondence, I write to those caught somewhere in the middle.
I think people are leaving. I know that there are people in my church who are considering it. What bothers them the most is the departure from viewing Scripture as authoritative and instead viewing Scripture as merely guidelines. We might as well replace Scripture with the Pirates’ Code. Remember the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean”?
LOUISVILLE What will the Presbyterian church of the 21st century look like?
The votes are in. After roughly five years of discussion, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved a new Form of Government, intended to be more flexible and to give congregations and presbyteries more latitude in deciding how to do ministry.
Once again, Presbyterians could have discussed how race operates among us and how it could operate. The most recent opportunity came through a solid, dynamic theological statement — the first from the Southern Hemisphere considered for inclusion in our Book of Confessions.
Seattle (PNS) Like a massive ocean-liner, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Middle Governing Body Commission has begun the long, slow turn from gathering data to formulating recommendations for the mission and function of presbyteries and synods in a rapidly changing church and world.
College Ministries: The 219th General Assembly in 2010 voted to restore the denomination’s Office of Collegiate Ministries after an era of declining activity. A “strategic and sustainable plan” will be presented at the 220th GA in 2012.
(RNS) Religious leaders are hoping to hit a home run in a campaign to get Major League Baseball players to ban tobacco use on fields and dugouts of the national pastime.
LOUISVILLE (PNS) William P. Lytle, a staunch supporter of Presbyterian reunion who served as moderator of the General Assembly of the former United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA) in 1978 — five years before it combined with the Presbyterian Church in the United States to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — died May 27 in Los Gatos, Calif., after a lengthy illness. He was 87.
RALEIGH, N.C. Presbyterian elder and longtime Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leader Youngil Cho, 77, died May 22, 2011.
LOUISVILLE Two conservative PC(USA) groups have announced an agreement to share the services of the evangelical leader Paul Detterman. In addition to his duties as executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal (PFR), Detterman will also serve as administrative consultant for Fellowship PC(USA) for at least one year.
LOUISVILLE (PNS) “Watermarked,” an album renowned Presbyterian singer/songwriter David M. Bailey was working on when he died last fall, has been released posthumously.
ALBION, N.Y. — As church ladies plant flowers, I’m standing in front of the First United Methodist Church thinking about that warm September day decades ago when I was married here.
I’ve been wondering about the church. Not my local congregation, or even Presbyterians as a whole (although the PCUSA does play a role in this discussion), but the whole ball of wax — the church, in all of its varied configurations.
by Marcus J. Borg
HarperOne. 248 pages.
reviewed by TIMOTHY B. CARGAL
Marcus Borg is a prolific writer of books that present a progressive (some would say “liberal”) approach to biblical scholarship and Christian life in a style easily accessible to a mass audience.
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