The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, by Jim Wallis. HarperOne, 2008. Hb., 352 pp. $25.95.
Before you read the first word of Jim Wallis’ transformative new book, you know something is different. Lined up like a political and theological renewal of the old television show The Odd Couple are names we know separately as representatives of vastly different worldviews.
As mainline congregations grapple with the “graying” of their ranks — average age pushing into the mid-60s — many recognize they need to serve “young adults” more effectively.
LOUISVILLE — Jorge Lara-Braud, 77, a Presbyterian lay pastor, theologian, and social activist who devoted his life to improving the lot of the marginalized and oppressed, died June 22 after a fall near his home in Austin, Texas.
LOUISVILLE — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has joined a bipartisan group of some 200 religious leaders, former top government officials, and retired generals in calling on President George W. Bush to sign an executive order outlawing torture and cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees held in connection with the global war on terror.
SAN JOSE — The 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has urged the denomination’s Board of Pensions [www.pensions.org] to expand its medical coverage for children with congenital developmental disabilities to include occupational, speech, and physical authority.
The expanded benefits would apply to children with such maladies as Down’s syndrome and autism.
SAN JOSE — In a dangerous world, interfaith dialogue is even more important because “a fire next door will consume your own house,” a leading U.S. Muslim told the 218th General Assembly’s Ecumenical Breakfast June 26.
SAN JOSE — Youth groups in New Jersey, Indiana, and southern California have been chosen winners of the inaugural Youth Video Challenge sponsored by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation on its social networking site, ymiLIVE.org [www.ymilive.org].
SAN JOSE — The 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved with amendments a resolution “On Calling for Tolerance and Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities.” The vote was 547-149.
SAN JOSE — In two separate but related initiatives designed to address the persistent decline in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) membership as well as the church’s commitment to grow in diversity, the 218th General Assembly wholeheartedly approved June 25 a Strategy for Church Growth for African American Congregations and a resolution to help Christ’s Church Grow Deep and Wide during the report of the Assembly Committee on Church Growth and Christian Education.
SAN JOSE — Equipping seminary students “to go out to equip others” is critical, the Rev. Sara Covin Juengst told a group of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seminary leaders and others gathered for the Committee on Theological Education [www.pcusa.org/seminaries/cote.htm] (COTE) Breakfast on June 26.
SAN JOSE — Reclaiming the power of the gospel will greatly help with one of the most difficult challenges Presbyterians face— evangelism, according to the Rev. Eric Hoey, director of evangelism and church growth [www.pcusa.org/goodnews], who spoke at the evangelism breakfast June 26 at the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Commissioners and guests arriving at the PC(USA)‚s 218th General Assembly in San Jose, Calif., encountered John Calvin —— lots and lots of John Calvins.
SAN JOSE — When the 218th General Assembly voted to send out a proposed amendment to presbyteries to delete the “fidelity and chastity” ordination standard and replace it with a new version, a handful of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)‚s executive presbyters felt a need to gather for prayer.
All three are stories about irresistible force. One is historical, one is modern fiction, and the other is literally straight out of a comic book. In all three, there’s lots of random violence. In all three, the hero prevails, but what varies is whether the hero is himself the monster.
Genghis Khan didn’t grow up in palaces, even though his father was a local chieftain. They were nomads; they lived in tents and traveled with the herds. His father took him, at age nine, to be betrothed in a political alliance with a neighboring tribe, but Temudjin, even as a child, could do nothing other than be guided by his own lights. He picks a girl from another, less powerful tribe, which was a less honorable choice for his father, and, it turns out, also fatal.
SAN JOSE — Commissioners to the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “stayed the course” of being peacemakers around the world.
Shaking and Moving The 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA)
In San Jose, California, close to the San Andreas fault, the 218th General Assembly, though resting on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, felt tremors of change and shifts in the denominational ground.
SAN JOSE -- “There is hardly any family or congregation that is not touched by serious mental illness,” says the Rev. B. Gordon Edwards, who was instrumental in bringing “Comfort My People: A Policy Statement on Serious Mental Illness” to the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for adoption on June 27.
SAN JOSE -- By a 5-to-1 margin, the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Friday (June 27) approved “A Social Creed for the 21st Century,” exactly 100 years after the “Social Creed” of 1908 spoke to the harshness of industrial life at the turn of the last century.
SAN JOSE -- After much docket delay, the Church Polity Committee gave its report to the 218thGeneral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) late Friday afternoon (June 27).
SAN JOSE – Just hours after voting to recommend that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) change its rules to make it easier for gays and lesbians to be ordained, the 218th General Assembly turned down a overture that would have changed the definition of marriage in the church’s constitution, to say that marriage is between “two people” rather than a between a man and a woman.
SAN JOSE – An amendment to a resolution on homelessness adopted by the 218th General Assembly on Friday asks PC(USA) members to forgo one meal per week “as an act of worship and humility.”
SAN JOSE, Cal. – “We are called to be involved and engaged in the world that God cares deeply about,” said Rev. Nancy Kahaian, moderator of the Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues. “I believe that Presbyterians can truly lead the way,” she continued in a press conference Friday afternoon.
SAN JOSE -- Gradye Parsons has been elected Stated Clerk on the first ballot at the 218th General Assembly meeting here today (June 27).
SAN JOSE – “It is no accident that the Committee on Peacemaking and International Issues takes so much time,” said Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.
SAN JOSE -- The 218th General Assembly on Thursday (June 26) rejected by a five-to-one margin a recommendation from its Mission Coordination and Budgets Committee that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) institute a fifth church-wide special offering to support mission personnel.
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