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African church leader ‘outraged’ at Zimbabwe rights abuses

Cologne, Germany, 13 June (ENI)--The leader of a major grouping of African churches has expressed outrage at human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and has urged the world to help resolve the political crisis in the southern African country.

'What is happening in Zimbabwe is an embarrassment even to us as Africans,' said the Rev. Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the Nairobi-based All Africa Conference of Churches, during a recent Protestant convention called the Kirchentag, held in Cologne in western Germany.

Future of Christianity under threat in Iraq, church leader warns

Rome, 14 June (ENI)--A Christian leader from Iraq has warned that Christianity may disappear from his country if no action is taken to stem the hardships faced by this minority community in the predominantly Muslim country.

'Members of all religions - including both Islam and Christianity - are suffering now in my country but Christians as a minority are in greater danger of seeing their historic churches disappear,' said Archbishop Jules Mikhael Al-Jamil, the Rome representative of the Syrian Catholic Church.

Christian Reformed Church agrees to women clergy

© Ecumenical News International

New York -- The Christian Reformed Church, one of the North American branches of the Protestant Reformed tradition, has voted to allow the ordination of women after almost four decades of discussion on the issue.

'I've worked and prayed for this moment for years,' said the Rev. George

Vander Weit, an advocate of women's ordination in the denomination. 'I think [this proposal] gives us space.'

The June 12 decision was made at the denomination's annual synod meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. A day later, the synod voted to allow women as delegates to the denomination's synod.

Jessica Tate of Union-PSCE wins National Preaching Award

RICHMOND -- Union Theological Seminary-PSCE student, Jessica Tate, will receive the 2007 David H.C. Read Preacher/Scholar Award, it was announced today. The..

First ordained woman begins as Church of Scotland moderator

Edinburgh, 21 May (ENI)--Ecclesiastical history has been made in the Scottish capital with the Church of Scotland welcoming leaders of the Free Church of Scotland to its 2007 General Assembly that was officially opened by Prince Andrew, a son of British Queen Elizabeth II.

'I think this is a tremendous thing,' said the new moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Sheilagh Kesting, who made church unity the theme of her sermon at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. 'I don't think that any of us guessed that we would be able to do such a thing but we have been meeting for a couple of years and it became clear that there were areas where we could say we have common ground.'

Is liberalism an endangered species? Lectures seek answers, honor Ottati

RICHMOND -- Is there a future for ministry in the liberal church? That question was on the mind of about a hundred Presbyterians who gathered on May 18 at Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education to bid farewell to Douglas Ottati, one of its professors of theology. After 30 years at the school, he is leaving to accept appointment to the faculty of Davidson College in North Carolina. In his honor, the seminary quickly organized a symposium to discuss a topic closely identified with Ottati's teaching.

Liberal theology appears to be on the wane, as acknowledged in the title of Ottati's most recent book, Theology for Liberal Christians and Other Endangered Species.

Lectures on the future of liberal theology were presented by three individuals followed by brief responses by six others.

World church leader urges repentance for violence of Christianity

Cologne, Germany, 7 June (ENI)--Christians need to acknowledge the violence they used in the past in oppressing other faiths, the head of the World Council of Churches has said at Germany's biggest Protestant gathering.

'If we do not own up to this history, turn around and repent, this part of our past will always haunt the relationships among us and with people of other faiths,' WCC general secretary, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, said on 7 June. He was speaking at the Kirchentag, a Protestant church convention taking place in Cologne from 6 to 10 June.

Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya, was giving a keynote lecture on 'Religions living together'.

Memorial Park Church Votes to Request Dismissal from the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Led by the Holy Spirit and guided by a unanimous vote of its ruling elders and deacons, the members of Memorial Park Church of McCandless have voted to ask Pittsburgh Presbytery to dismiss it from the Presbyterian Church (USA) to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  On Sunday, June 3 at 10 a.m. with over 1,200 people in attendance during the worship service and congregational meeting, 1051 members voted with 951 voting in favor (91.1%); 93 voting not in favor (8.9%); 4 abstained and 3 ballots were disallowed by the members of Pittsburgh Presbytery overseeing the voting process.  With a better than 91% vote the congregation of Memorial Park Presbyterian Church has formally requested the dismissal. 

Ordination standards required for minister candidates, too, says GA-PJC

The Permanent Judicial Commission (GA-PJC) of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has handed down a landmark ruling in the process of determining a case to be moot. In George R. Stewart vs. Mission Presbytery, the GA-PJC ruled in favor of the presbytery in its request to drop the case since the substance of the complaint was no longer an issue. Nevertheless, Stewart's essential complaint was upheld by the GA-PJC.

Accounting errors resulted in $1.4 million overstating of Hearts & Hands revenues

Because of accounting errors, the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign https://www.pcusa.org/joiningheartsandhands/ has overstated the amount of pledges it has received..

When it comes to church membership numbers, the devil’s in the details

c. 2007 Religion News Service

The Southern Baptist Convention, with some 16.2 million members on the books, claims to be the nation's largest Protestant denomination. But the Rev. Thomas Ascol believes the active membership is really a fraction of that.

Ascol, pastor of the 230-member Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral,

Fla., points to a church report showing that only 6 million Southern Baptists attend church on an average Sunday. "The reality is, the FBI couldn't find half of those (members) if they had to," said Ascol, who asserts his own congregation attendance swells to at least 350 every Sunday.

Ascol plans to bring a resolution to the denomination's annual meeting June 12-13 in San Antonio, calling for "integrity in the way we regard our membership rolls in our churches and also in the way we report statistics."

Blair’s legacy a matter of praise and regret, says church leader

EDINBURGH (ENI) -- The leader of the biggest Protestant church in Scotland has paid tribute to British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process but criticized him for supporting United States foreign policy.

"Tony Blair's achievement in leading the United Kingdom for ten years is remarkable," said the moderator of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, the Rev. Alan McDonald, after Blair's May 10 announcement that he would step down as prime minister in June.

No More Deaths border workers receive human rights award

LOUISVILLE -- Two volunteers from a faith-based humanitarian group, who were cleared of human-smuggling charges last year, have won a human rights award for their work assisting distressed migrants along the Arizona-Mexico border.  

Shanti A. Sellz and Daniel M. Strauss, along with desert-aid group No More Deaths, received the Oscar Romero Award for Human Rights at a ceremony in Houston on April 22.

Presbyterian leaders in Arizona were instrumental in helping to establish the three-year-old Tucson-based No More Deaths, which is led and supported by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members and congregations. The group provides food, water, and basic medical care to illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico into the United States through Arizona's treacherous desert borderlands.  

Does it do any good to pray at long distance?”

Recently I received an e-mail asking for prayer for a friend I had not seen in a long time. Jerry had routine hip replacement surgery and seemed to be doing fine. Two days later he had a massive stroke and was taken to a hospital intensive care unit in critical condition. After I tracked down his wife and son (they had moved since we had talked last), we had a prayer together over our cell phones. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

Afterwards, I remembered questions that my parishioners sometimes ask, "Does it do any good to pray for friends or members by long distance? Why do we pray for people overseas whom we do not know? How can such remote prayers be effective?"