Bill Maher is funny, but he’s still a fundamentalist
Bill Maher is funnier than Pat Robertson. But he is every bit as dogmatic.
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My summer with the PC(USA)
I had been pondering it all summer, but it didn’t hit me full force until I saw it juxtaposed so starkly. There, lying on my nightstand, were two bookmarks. Not exactly earth shaking, I hear you say. True.
Why do we Presbyterians continue to fight?
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a three-part series. Succeeding installments will appear in later issues of the Outlook The topics include: “Why Scripture divides us,” and “The priority of experience in moral debate.”
Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary
Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Volume 1 (Advent through Transfiguration), edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. WJKP, 2008. Hb., 463 pp. $39.99.
“Listening” leads to fresh conversations
Of the seven factors that nurture health in a congregation, perhaps the hardest to embrace is “Listening Church.”
Seeing gay and lesbian relationships through new lens
MINNEAPOLIS – When conservatives discuss sexual morality, they often focus on rules – as in, “Are you obeying the rules,” said theologian William Stacy Johnson. And liberals often start by asking, “Is this relationship sincere?”
Covenant Network explores how to define, build on “progress”
MINNEAPOLIS – It can be hard sometimes to know what progress looks like.
At the Covenant Network of Presbyterians meeting in Minneapolis Nov. 6-8, certain realities are nudging at the edges of the presentations.
Lundblad to Covenant Network: “God violates Torah for the sake of relationship,”
MINNEAPOLIS – Barbara Lundblad – a Lutheran minister and associate professor of preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York, white-haired, humorous and direct – started her sermon Nov. 7 by saying that the Presbyterians and Lutherans are in full communion, but not always in the same place in the lectionary. For example, last August 17 both Presbyterians and Lutherans heard the New Testament story of the Canaanite woman.
The death of slavery
After a blood-gushing fight to the end, a 389-year-old U.S. monster perished Nov. 4, 2008.
Yes, American slavery finally expired.
Of course, in 1865, when most states ratified the 13th Amendment, Congress had declared it dead. Mississippi's legislature was the holdout, managing to delay ratification until 1995!
Michael Jinkins has posted a blog “A church doesn’t move forward by running from its past.”
To read the full article and respond please click here to visit The Presbyterian Outlooks Blog Page.
A church doesn’t move forward by running from its past.
Recently a Catholic friend asked me about the state of the Presbyterian Church. She said that, for her, Presbyterianism has always represented..
Film in review: Zack and Miri
Here’s a movie that one hesitates even to mention by title: “Zack And Miri Make A Porno.” Sounds sleazy, doesn’t it? And there’s no question that you don’t take Grandma to this one. But it’s not as hard-core as it appears. This comedy was written by Kevin Smith, of “Clerks” fame, so you know there’s going to be a slacker element — casual, irreverent, characters on the margins of propriety and the socially acceptable. No different here.
Films in review: Heights And Depths
“Happy-Go-Lucky” is a British comedy that doesn’t try to conform to Hollywood standards. Therefore, we have a primary character in a sitcom who isn’t really a raving beauty, or particularly young, just kind of the working girl next door. Sally Hawkins, 30-something, plays Poppy, a north London elementary school teacher who is determined to be upbeat, even when those around her aren’t. It’s not like she isn’t capable of being serious (she finally has to end the uncomfortable relationship with her dour, angry driving instructor), it’s just that she won’t let herself be dragged down by the doldrums of uneventful living. She’s a refreshing presence, just going shopping with her gal pals, or on a first date, or dealing with a grouchy cashier in a bookstore. She’s the kind of person we’d like to know, and to be around, even if her endings aren’t always happily ever after.
Covenant Network convenes with call for change
MINNEAPOLIS — Just days after Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first African-American president, progressive Presbyterians are considering what change looks like.
Covenant Network considers covenant
MINNEAPOLIS – The idea of living in covenant with God – listening, hearing, responding, following, being faithful, being loved – is both basic and complicated stuff.
Preachers and professors at the national gathering of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, which has drawn just over 400 people to Westminster Church in Minneapolis on Nov. 6-8, have been trying to tease their own meanings out of the idea of an enduring and challenging covenant with a faithful God.
National unity calls by U.S. churches after Obama victory
(ENI) — U.S. religious leaders and denominations have issued calls for Americans to unite in support of Barack Obama, following his election as the first mixed-race president of the United States.
In a November 5 statement that captured the enormous pride that the election of Obama, who is the son of a Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, has elicited among African Americans, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a predominately black denomination, said Obama had won "one of the most historic elections in American history".
Mister Rogers-inspired effort provides winter clothes, evangelistic outreach
Inspired by the Rev. Fred (Mister) Rogers, the Presbyterian Media Mission (PMM) is once again teaming with Presbyterian churches, The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and United Way in an effort to collect winter clothing for those in need.
Kenyan church leaders say Obama win is good for Africa
(ENI)--Kenyan church leaders have hailed the election of Senator Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America, saying it is a positive turn for Africa that can help steer good governance on the continent.
2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is available now
LOUISVILLE — One hundred seventeen years and counting.
The 2009 edition of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study is hot off the press and, as usual, is flying off the shelves. “The print run is 40,000 and we usually distribute all of those,” Yearbook editor Billie Healy told the Presbyterian News Service in a Nov. 4 interview.
Founder of ‘Calvinism’ praised as ‘visionary’ at anniversary launch
(ENI)--John Calvin, known for his role in the Protestant Reformation from Geneva during the 16th century, has been praised as one of the history's most astute theologians at a ceremony to launch a year of events to mark the 500th anniversary of his birth.
Chocolates mark 500 years of Calvin in a taste of “paradise”
(ENI) Swiss chocolatier Blaise Poyet believes he has captured the essence of the Protestant reformer Jean Calvin in special chocolate pralines he created to mark the 500th anniversary of the religious figure who made his mark on European history.
Christian aid groups fear catastrophe in Congo
(ENI)--Christian emergency response organizations have expressed alarm at a deteriorating situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province and about brutalities innocent civilians are facing in a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
Churches deplore northeast India blasts that hit Baptist center
(ENI)--Churches in India have joined in widespread denunciation of a series of bomb blasts that killed at least 76 people and left more than 400 injured in Assam state, in north-east India, and that also damaged a Baptist center.
Played by John Malkovich, Gustav Briegleb was crusader against immorality, corruption
John Malkovich plays Presbyterian minister the Rev. Dr. Gustav Briegleb in Clint Eastwood’s new film “Changeling”.
The film tells the story of how in 1928 the minister came to the aid of Christine Collins, a mother who was wrongly imprisoned in a psychiatric ward because she insisted that the boy whom the police had returned to her was not her kidnapped nine-year-old son, Walter. (Ron Salfen’s OUTLOOK review of this film is also available on this Web site, under “Reviews.”)
Welcome to “VUCA world”
A healthy congregation will try to live on two levels at once: the overarching and future-oriented, and the basics of doing day-to-day ministry.
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