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Movie Reviews

The Secrets Of The Heart

'For God knows the secrets of the heart.'  (Psalm 44:21)  Each of these four films tries to maintain a certain bonhomie, a spirit of levity and jocularity and camaraderie, but some succeed more than others.

'Daddy Day Camp':  Rookie Director Fred Savage draws upon his Disney background to try to make a film thoroughly kid-friendly, meaning the adults are inept buffoons and there will be jokes about passing gas.  There's a tender underpinning to this movie, about fathers and sons reconciling, and we think we want to see the cruel, arrogant, greedy bully get his comeuppance, but somehow our heroes forget their innocence along the way.  In the end, it's all about winning, and humiliating as well as defeating your opponent---not really the primary focus of Christian Education. 

Editorials

Immigration: What next?

Congress did not produce new immigration legislation. What are we Christians to do now?

Now that the political points no longer need to be made, we do well to reconsider the facts on the ground. Toward that end, Barbie and I visited the Mexican border ourselves. We accepted the invitation of former GA moderators, John Fife and Rick Ufford-Chase, to explore the Tucson sector, a 60-mile, south-to-north area above a 240 miles-long stretch of the border. 

Encountering migrants and the Christian volunteers seeking to serve them, we heard about the cycles of migration that have crossed the border for hundreds of years. Seasons of planting and harvest, periods of major construction and other rhythms of labor have driven breadwinners to seek employment wherever available, and family ties have drawn them back home as soon and as often as possible.   

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A few less deaths: Volunteers give aid on Mexico border

Looking for dead bodies was not what they had in mind when they joined.  Whether they work with Humane Borders, Samaritans, No More Deaths or Borderlinks, each volunteer aims to save the lives of migrants struggling to survive the Arizona desert. But when the call came in, telling of the probable death of Prudencia Martin Gomez, an 18-year-old Guatemalan woman, they turned from rescue mode to recovery mode. They went searching for her remains.

The call came through channels from her fiancé, a resident of northern California. He had found steady work there, so Prudencia decided to surprise him by migrating there herself. Lacking the immigration papers, she linked up with a group of migrants who successfully made their way across the border and began their trek -- a hike of 60-70 miles -- to the area of Tucson. With the group she journeyed on foot nearly 60 miles through the dry, hot desert.  But she developed a heavy menstrual flow. Her strength began to give out.  So the others found a spot to leave her, an area of soft sand under a tree that provided some shade.  They left plenty of water and electrolytes with her. They studied the terrain around her, noting the numbered telephone pole not too far away. 

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L.A. church helps launch New Sanctuary Movement

"Immanuel joined the New Sanctuary Movement as a pastoral issue first and as a political issue secondarily," says Frank Alton, pastor of Immanuel Church in Los Angeles.

The national debate about undocumented immigrants is not simply an "issue" for Immanuel Church. Undocumented immigrants not only represent a significant part of the congregation's membership but its leadership as well. "Their status in this country impacts every area of their life," according to Alton. Pastorally he has come to realize that "there is no way to minister effectively to that part of [the] congregation without addressing immigration as both a pastoral and a political issue."

As a response, the church has joined the emerging New Sanctuary Movement. The movement is "a coalition of interfaith religious leaders and participating congregations, called by our faith to respond actively and publicly to the suffering of our immigrant brothers and sisters residing in the United States," according to its pledge.

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“Hope is in our midst” theme of 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium

 

More than 4,400 Presbyterian youths participated in the 2007 Presbyterian Youth Triennium July 17-22 sponsored by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The theme was "Hope in our midst."

The gatherings were held on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

Worship celebrations with lots of music, drama, and Bible messages were a part of their busy agenda. The drama group, Goose Chasers, Inc. led by Mark and Cheryl Goodman-Morris, a clergy couple from Portola Valley, Calif., presented different programs during the week. The theatre troupe has "performed" at every Presbyterian Youth Triennium since 1983.

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Voluntary simplicity is about both giving up and gaining in life

 

For some Presbyterians, the idea of stewardship connects to an underlying question: How do the decisions one makes about how to live influence what one has to give back to God's world?

Increasingly, Americans seem to be paying attention to environmental issues, partly as a result of growing concern about global warming and energy costs.

And in some congregations, that's leading to conversations about "voluntary simplicity" or sustainable living -- conversations including everything from how to cut back on energy use and live a "greener" lifestyle, to whether the benefits derived from having a fast-paced, all-consuming career are worth the costs.

 

Voices

The ins and outs of sharing

What does it mean to be a Presbyterian today? According to statistical probabilities, a person labeled Presbyterian is likely to be white and rich. Only the Episcopalians and Unitarians rival our spending power. 

Voices

Giving God, We Pause and Wonder

(NETTLETON 8.7.8.7 D "Come, Thou

Fount of Every Blessing," PH# 356)

 

Giving God, we pause and wonder:

What would happen if we tithed --

If we gave our gifts, Creator,

Hearts and hands all opened wide?

We might learn, by gladly sharing,

Not to trust in things we own

But to risk-- it's part of caring--

And to trust in you alone.

Voices

Fresh thoughts on leadership: Less “fixing,” better principles

Churches worry constantly about leadership.

So much energy has been devoted to church leadership, in fact, that two unfortunate messages have been communicated.

One misguided message is that clergy need to be "fixed." Better attitudes, better diets, better health, better teamwork skills, better preaching -- on and on it goes, often under the guise of "clergy wellness," but with the underlying theme that if the church just had better clergy, all would be well.

Voices

Lessons of the Narco-Saint

This article originally appeared in the Tucson Citizen and was used by permission.

 

"Drug-smugglers have a patron saint? That's unbelievable!" my wife exclaimed.

I had just returned from a day in the desert searching for migrants in distress.

My colleagues in No More Deaths had come across three migrants on the trail and had shared food and water.

But while hiking one canyon, we discovered a shrine hidden in a deep alcove in the canyon wall. Inside the dark alcove was a 3-foot-wide poster of Jesús Malverde. Below the poster were candles and prayer cards bearing his image. We had stumbled into a shrine of the narco-saint of the borderlands.

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Lutherans say No to changing gay clergy rules

c. 2007 Religion News Service

After five days of debate among delegates from the 5 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, voting members deferred any changes in clergy standards until a special task force on sexuality releases its report just prior to the next assembly, in 2009.

Phil Soucy, a spokesman for the pro-gay group Lutherans Concerned/North America, which brought dozens of supporters adorned with hand-knit rainbow scarves to the assembly, said the move to discourage discipline of gay clergy is a cause for celebration.

'We didn't get policy change now, but in the intervening two years we are not going to have people like Bradley Schmeling hauled up on charges simply for falling in love,' Soucy said.

Bradley Schmeling of Atlanta was taken off the ELCA clergy roster after making public that he is in a relationship with another man. His congregation, St. John's Lutheran Church, kept him as their pastor anyway. The actions taken by the church assembly will not affect his situation, Soucy said.

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Brooklyn church’s large stained glass window blown out by tornado

The stained-glass window -- an image of Jesus standing before a multi-ethnic crowd -- shone at night, glowing from within Fourth Avenue Church in Brooklyn, New York like a visible witness to the community https://fourthavenuepresbyterian.org/.

And when the 25-by-12 foot stained glass window catapulted out early on the morning of August 8, dropping two stories and shattering on the sidewalk below, not a single person was hit. It was about 6:15 a.m., the start of the morning waltz to work, on a busy block just a block and a half from a subway stop.

That sidewalk is "incredibly busy in the mornings," said Fourth Avenue's pastor, David Aja-Sigmon. "People should have been going to work. ... No one was hurt. Thank God."

The tornado smashed about 10 blocks of Brooklyn in a brief, intense spasm.

Movie Reviews

Still Searching

'In Search Of Mozart':  Undoubtedly this film will be approached with much skepticism ('Haven't we already done 'Amadeus'?), and not a few yawns ('Can't we see this kind of documentary on the History Channel?').  And admittedly, the rewards for viewing this film are sublime, by Hollywood standards:  no doomsday plot, no explosions, no chase scenes, no sex, no nudity, no foul language, no crude humor, no cute little animated figures, no computer-generated graphics, no battle panoramas, no sci-fi bedazzlement.

Just a calm, reasoned, brilliantly-presented biography of one extraordinary man, whom we will never meet.  But we can't help but be affected by his remarkable legacy to us. 

 

'The Bourne Ultimatum':  Readers of the Robert Ludlum books will find the shaky-camera direction of Paul Greengrass to accurately reflect the confusion, chaos, sudden violence, and split-second plot twists of the popular spy thrillers.  Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is a lethal CIA agent who has gone rogue. 

 

Movie Reviews

When Your World Is Turned Upside Down

In 'No Reservations,' Kate Armstrong (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a world-class cook.  She's the executive chef of a swanky restaurant in New York City, where the patrons expect consistently superb quality.  She closely supervises every dish that leaves the kitchen. She's a demanding taskmaster to her loyal crew, who remain not because they feel appreciated, particularly, but because they know they're with the best, and they enjoy being part of a top-notch operation. 

'Rescue Dawn' is another scenario where the main character's world is turned upside down, but this is based on a true story, and it's every bit as grim and gritty as 'No Reservations' is refined and genteel. 

 

 

Movie Reviews

But The Greatest Of These Is Love

In all these movies, love is not always patient or kind (I Corinthians 13:4), but it does provide the moments of clarity.

"Charlie Bartlett" (Anton Yelchin) is a clean-cut teenaged boy whose Mom (Hope Davis) is rich but Dad's in prison for tax evasion.  He genuinely loves his spacey Mom, who seems to treat him with kid gloves, because his father's gone, but he acts out his anger with enough misbehavior to get him kicked out of all the expensive private schools.  So he shows up at the local public school in tie and blazer, looking like a preppie, and very out of place. 

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Protestants dismayed at new Vatican document

(ENI) Rome-Geneva -- A new document authorized by Pope Benedict XVI restating Roman Catholic views that Protestant denominations are not churches 'in the proper sense' has been criticized as setting back the quest for Christian unity.

'An exclusive claim that identifies the Roman Catholic Church as the one church of Jesus Christ, as we read in the statement released today [10 July], goes against the spirit of our Christian calling towards oneness in Christ,' said the Rev. Setri Nyomi, general secretary of the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches. The alliance groups together 214 churches with roots in the 16th century Protestant Reformation.

Nyomi made his comments in a letter to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's top official for promoting Christian unity, following the release in Rome of the Vatican document, which sets down questions and answers about the doctrine of the church.

Editorials

Retirement: Who would have thought?

"I'd rather burn out than rust out."

"I've just accepted another interim pastorate. I'm flunking retirement."

"There's no such thing as retiring from the service of the Lord."

"Where do you find retirement in the Bible?"    

Church leaders -- pastors, elders, educators, and others -- blurt such lines often. Some of their comments reflect a genuine love of ministry and the physical constitution to sustain it. Other times their words reveal a restless soul adrift on what, from their vantage point, looks like dead calm waters. The final questioning quote bespeaks the need to use a Bible concordance.

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20 minutes with Baghdad’s Armenian Archbishop Avak Asadourian

"I come from a wounded Iraq and a severely wounded Baghdad," said the man in black habit standing in front of some 130 silent church representatives from six continents gathered for a peace conference on the Middle East. "The situation in my country is tragic," the man continued. "We were promised freedom, but what we need today is freedom to have electricity, clean water, to satisfy the basic needs of life, to live without fear of being abducted."

The man addressing the World Council of Churches (WCC) June 18-20 international conference "Churches together for peace and justice in the Middle East" in Amman, Jordan, was Baghdad's Armenian Archbishop Avak Asadourian, primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church (See of Etchmiadzin) in Iraq.

Asadourian was in Amman representing the Council of Christian Church Leaders in Baghdad. Created in June last year, it is a body made up of 17 church leaders, including two patriarchs, from four Christian families: Catholic, Oriental and Eastern Orthodox and mainline Protestants. The Armenian primate is its general secretary.

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Former GAC member Bruce R. Kennedy dies in plane crash

 

LOUISVILLE -- Presbyterian Bruce R. Kennedy, who led the expansion of Alaska Airlines as its chief executive before stepping down in 1991 to pursue humanitarian interests, was killed June 28 when the single-engine airplane he was piloting crashed in central Washington state.

The 68-year-old resident of Burien, Wash., was a longtime member and elder at John Knox Church in suburban Seattle, and served on the General Assembly Council (GAC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from 1993-1999.

"While we are deeply saddened by the loss of someone we love and admire so much, we rejoice in the knowledge that Bruce is united with his Lord Jesus and take comfort in the fact that he died doing something he loved and in which he took great pleasure," his family, including his wife Karleen, said in a statement released by Alaska Airlines.

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Voices

To the “aging” church: Be what you are, not what you aren’t

 

For years, a church's declining membership concerned its leaders. Their solution -- a youth ministry.  After several years, the church pastor acknowledged that the effort invested to attract young families was not working. The pastor's conclusion was simple and refreshing: "I have been telling the session that perhaps it's time to be who we are, a church for older adults."

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been facing similar changes and its response has paralleled that of many of its local churches. However, the General Assembly's Older Adult Ministries Office indicates the changes facing our denomination are a reflection of the nation as a whole.

The lengthening of the average human lifespan is one of the remarkable achievements of the 20th century.  In 1900, life expectancy was only 47, but over those 100 years, it rose to 75 for men and 78 for women. The percentage of older persons in our global society is growing and expected to nearly double between 1990 and 2030.

This trend is no less apparent here in the United States and is especially noticeable within our own congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), where the average age of worshipers is 58 -- and rising. For every worshiper under the age of 25, there are more than six worshipers over the age of 65, which account for 35% of all Presbyterians. 

-- Older Adult Ministries Office

Voices

Monday Mourning: Negotiating losses in retirement

For some persons, retiring from public work fulfills a nearly life-long dream.  Retirement brings opportunities, perhaps long-delayed, for travel, relaxing, spending more quality time with friends and family, increasing one's involvement in church and community life, and indulging established interests while cultivating new ones. I recall a former parishioner saying to me, "I retired early, ten years ago, and haven't looked back once!" For persons so inclined, retirement often brings a new lease on life. 

For others, retirement may prompt a different experience. Even if it brings a measure of excitement over opportunities for new experiences and relief from the daily grind of working life, retiring may also issue a deep sense of loss.  Perhaps this feeling of loss involves the changes in one's former routines. The loss may derive from less contact with valued colleagues and work-related acquaintances. Maybe one's sense of loss revolves around modifications in lifestyle that are required for most people with a retirement income. Frequently, a sense of loss centers on uncertainty about one's identity, sense of purpose, and feelings of accomplishment that have long been linked with one's labors. 

Outlook Features

Clergy retirement: Options and opportunities available

David McFarlane remembers the first Board of Pensions retirement seminar he attended. He was chairing the Committee on Ministry for Western New York Presbytery, and one of his responsibilities was to encourage pastors nearing retirement age to attend the seminars.

So it was suggested that he go himself -- the argument being something like, "You'll never convince anybody to go unless you go yourself."

McFarlane, then in his 40s, did go. He and his wife, Ann, walked into the room, sat down next to an older couple and struck up a conversation. The older man said he was intending to retire in about three weeks. He had not said a word to his session. The couple was living in a manse, owned no home and had no idea where they would live. They had made no plans.

"We were just stunned," McFarlane said. "My glory, three weeks away ... I said, 'No matter what else we do, we won't do that.' "

Now, after many years and after retiring themselves, the McFarlanes are among a number of "consultant couples" who speak at retirement seminars sponsored by the Board of Pensions. They don't offer advice; in other words, they don't tell people what to do. But they do walk people through questions they're likely to encounter as they consider retirement -- questions such as where to live and how to use their time when they step aside from the pulpit. They try to help them envision what, for them, retirement might be like. 

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