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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.

Editorials

An illiberal’s liberalisms

 

Ottati. Falwell. The twain did meet -- so to speak -- in their departing.

How strange to be honoring Doug Ottati upon his departure from Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education to head to Davidson College as other Virginians were bidding farewell to Jerry Falwell on his journey to the Promised Land. In the minds of its alums, Davidson does resemble the heavenly estate, but that's beside the point.

A symposium honoring the legacy of an icon of liberal theology seemed oddly juxtaposed to the reactions to Falwell's unexpected death, with countless supporters and critics reminiscing or railing over the legacy of an icon of religious conservatism. 

Presbyterians give Falwell mixed marks. Some appreciated his strong stands on conservative values. Many shuddered over what they saw as narrow-minded, reactionary fundamentalism. We could fill a few months' magazines with commentaries on those mixed reactions. Little would be gained for such efforts.

Book Reviews

God’s Troublemakers: How Women of Faith Are Changing the World

by Katharine Rhodes Henderson.  Continuum, 2006. ISBN 0826418678.  Hb., 247 pp., $24.95.

 

In an era when more women are entering seminary and fewer are rising to senior pastor positions, Katharine Rhodes Henderson's new book is both timely and important. It may help break the glass ceiling for women while also re-framing the idea of religious leadership in the 21st century.          

Dr. Henderson, executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary (N.Y.), introduces us to non-traditional entrepreneurs who lead not "from above" but from "behind, within and beneath." These brave women of faith have a contagious fervor for doing justice in new and creative ways. Many of them who are more "spiritual" than they are "religious" teach those of us in leadership positions how to analyze conflicted situations and move, as she says,  "organically and intuitively" from the center out and the ground up instead of from the top down. They teach us how to broker new partnerships and re-think conventional ways of addressing problems.

Voices

Reaching young adults

Young adults (ages 22-30) are missing from many mainline congregations. Their absence is one reason those congregations' average age is passing 60.

In our opinion, congregations can be successful in reaching young adults. But doing so will require our understanding who they are and what they are going through.

Uncategorized

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'.

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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. 

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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.

Editorials

Entertaining angels

The immigration problem in America is puzzling. As many voices are saying ...

The movement of illegal immigrants across our borders threatens the job market for American citizens. Labor unions cry foul. Trained farm workers can't compete for jobs against folks willing to be compensated below the minimum wage--and without benefits or taxes.

But that's not the point.

The movement of illegal immigrants across our borders raises the specter of hoodlums, drug dealers, and terrorists destroying our peace. True, so far, no terrorists have been interdicted on the Mexican border, but the drug trafficking alone is destructive. Plus, if we should let down our guard, terrorist organizations surely will take advantage.

But that's not the point.

Uncategorized

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."

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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.

Voices

Presby-Twi ministry shows immigrant outreach potential

Louis Weeks, the retiring president of Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, describes the ordination of Stephen Nkansah this way: "I never saw so many cabs in a Presbyterian parking lot."

Nkansah says more than 600 people worship at his congregation in Woodbridge, Va., now -- cabdrivers, custodians, truck drivers, delivery people, nurses, "all kinds."

They worship at Ebenezer Church both in Twi, the language of their native Ghana, and in English. By worshipping this way, "you come from the bottom of the heart," Nkansah said. He compares what happens at his church to the multitude of languages the apostles heard filling the room, as described in Acts -- all voices, all tongues, all manners of expression. "That is the best way to preach the Bible and to teach, in your own native language," he said. "We are trying to be like the apostles."

This is a story of one man -- two, actually, Nkansah and his friend and colleague, Mark Frimpong -- who have come far from home, made new homes, and planted new churches that are growing faster than many established congregations. It's a story too of struggle, of finding a way to connect with the predominantly white Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which has been both welcoming and unsure of what to do with these people who come with their own customs and music and food and language, wanting to worship God in their own way.

Space has been made, but it has sometimes been painful.

Uncategorized

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.  

Voices

Foreigners by the shipload

While Christians nationwide wrestle to find ways to help settle immigrants coming across our national borders, a handful of Presbyterians in Texas carry out a little noticed outreach to short-term foreign workers. Seafarers, those sailors who transport cargo and fuel from country to country, are greeted by Ben Stewart and David Wells, Presbyterian pastors who serve as chaplains at the Howard T. Tellepsen Seafarers Center in Houston. The Seafarers Center, sponsored by the Presbytery of New Covenant, is the only ministry of its kind in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Voices

At the border of church and immigration

 c. 2006 Synod of Living Waters.

Used by permission.

 

A Kentucky church gives free legal advice to explain complicated federal law and hear grievances that otherwise go unremedied. A Tennessee parish gives rides to the hospital and help with college preparation. An Alabama congregation offers Spanish-language worship and a sympathetic ear.

Slowly, the synod's churches are finding ways to put their stamp, and their values, on one of America's biggest controversies, an issue that stirs alarm, confusion and compassion.

 

An ESL class

The controversy is immigration, pressing the nation to fix a system that oversees the more than 30 million foreign-born workers -- about 11 percent of the U.S. population -- now living here legally or illegally.

Churches are stepping in to put a human face on a messy political debate  about how (or whether) to grant legal status to more immigrants, acculturate them into American life, or increase deportations and secure the borders.

Voices

Guatemalan rain

 

As the rain poured in

And the thunder cracked

It pounded my ears

And soaked my soul

Much like this journey has done

Hearing the echoes of many cries

And feeling drenched in their stories

My heart longs for calm

To be away from the misery

Voices

The Forgetful Sojourners

 

We are sojourners before you and are sojourning just as all our fathers (1 Chronicles 29:10, 15).

 

The capacity for the transformation of church and community requires deep, intentional remembering. Our core memories are essential to our common identity as Christians. Memories give power for spiritual energy and growth. In spite of many warnings from Scripture about the perils of forgetting, we do forget.  

Frederick Weidmann is director of the Center for Church Life and Professor of Biblical Studies at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. In an article about the early church, he recalls a core memory, one that formed the identity of the Christian movement in the first and second century. Citing writings by early Christian leaders, he recalls how our identity was formed by our ancestors, the Israelites.

Voices

Come Holy Spirit?

In the 1970s I came of age theologically in a Presbyterian Church (PCUS) that was facing two threats: the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America and the charismatic movement. Though the PCA decimated the PCUS in some areas, it was the charismatic movement that seemed to inspire more fear.  Stories abounded of church members, or sometimes ministers, attending charismatic conferences and coming back to split their congregations.  Everything connected with the Holy Spirit became suspect. Just mentioning the Spirit was the kiss of death for candidates being examined on the floor of presbytery. The specter of fanaticism and schism hung over anything deemed to be "spiritual." 

Uncategorized

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?"

Voices

Our call to proclaim

 

I recently attended a Presbyterian event where the keynote speaker taught something that deeply grieved me:  "Presbyterians are more concerned about the glory of God and the coming of God's reign than the salvation of souls." This was proposed as one of the five key tenets of Reformed Theology. The Reformed doctrines of Sola Fides, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura and question one from the Westminster Shorter Catechism were used as supporting statements in this supposition. The conclusion drawn was that "salvation is God's business," inferring that it was not ours as Presbyterian Christians. The statement "salvation is God's business" was then echoed by others in two small groups in which I participated. 

Could this attitude, if prevalent throughout our denomination, be why we are decreasing in numbers while other denominations are flourishing? 

Book Reviews

Digging to America: A Novel

 

 

by Anne Tyler. Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN: 0-307-26394-0. Hb., 277 pp., $24.95.

 

In Digging to America, Anne Tyler returns to the themes of longing and healing. The story begins in the Baltimore airport as two families wait for their adopted daughters to arrive from Korea. One family, the Donaldsons, is out in full force with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in attendance. The other family, the Yazdans, is an Iranian-American family composed of three people. The Yazdans are quiet and private, while Bitsy Donaldson habitually turns occasions into celebrations. As both families are leaving the airport, Bitsy invites the Yazdans to join their family party at her home. Thus begins the relationship between the two families, who have little in common besides their adopted daughters.

Voices

A history lesson

 

Please bear with me for one history lesson -- so that we can go over it and go on with living in today.

Starting in 1964, membership in mainline denominations went into a long and steady decline. Much has been made of this decline. Church partisans have used it as a weapon to denounce whatever they didn't like. Look at what happens, they argued, when you open the door to new liturgies, women, gays, liberals, conservatives, renewal hymns -- take your pick.

 

Uncategorized

Churches launch “New Sanctuary Movement” for immigrants

CHICAGO (RNS) -- A coalition of faith-based groups on May 9 launched a "New Sanctuary Movement" to provide shelter for illegal immigrants and boost support for immigration reform.

By connecting immigrants who are facing deportation orders with host sanctuaries, the movement aims to provide a broad range of support for these families. Unlike their counterparts in the original 1980s Sanctuary Movement, many of today's immigrants have a physical shelter but still need financial, legal, and spiritual support.

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French Reformed and Lutherans move closer to unity

Paris, 22 May (ENI)--Two French Protestant churches have agreed to start discussions with the aim of creating a united denomination by 2013 bringing together Reformed and Lutheran Christians.

 

'The French religious landscape has become very complex', said the Rev. Marcel Manoël, president of the national council of the Reformed Church of France (ERF). 'That complexity makes communication difficult.'

 

A joint 17-20 May meeting of the ERF synod and that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France (EELF) in Montbéliard in eastern France voted almost unanimously to start a three-year process of discussions at the local level about the idea of unification, before proceeding to the next step.

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Gay US bishop ‘not invited’ to world Anglican gathering

London, 23 May (ENI)--Openly-gay US Bishop Gene Robinson, whose 2003 consecration sparked controversy in the worldwide Anglican Communion, has not been issued with a formal invitation to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican bishops.

 

A spokesperson for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the Anglican Communion, confirmed to Ecumenical News International that Robinson was one of several bishops omitted so far from 800 invitations sent out electronically to attend the once-every-ten-year gathering.

 

In a letter to Anglican bishops released on 22 May, Williams said: 'I have reserved the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointments, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious divisions or scandals within the Communion.'

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