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Voices

Forgiveness: Breaking the cycle of violence

Any discussion of forgiveness must surely open with the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer which reads,

Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. (NRSV)

This prayer was crafted within the piety of first century Judaism and its famous eighteen prayers (Amidah) most of which are thought to have been in use at the time of Jesus.

One of those prayers (No. 6) is called "For forgiveness" and reads,

Forgive us, O our Father, for we have sinned; pardon us, O our King, for we have transgressed; for thou dost pardon and forgive. Blessed are thou, O Lord, who art gracious, and dost abundantly forgive.

Voices

When I washed the feet …

(Used by permission of the author.)

 

When I knelt to wash the feet of an African-American woman who is an elder of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I knew the moral universe of my youth had vanished. A cynic viewing the action only moments before when she knelt to wash my feet could argue that nothing had changed. But when the roles changed, even a cynic could acknowledge that deep change has occurred.

It certainly did to me in last Maundy Thursday, when a small group of Christians gathered to remember the gospel story of the night Jesus washed his disciples' feet. We listened to the story and I said a few words about servant leadership. Then we came forward, two by two, to wash one another's feet, reenacting Jesus' humble example of love.

Voices

An unfamiliar country: Matthew 20:1-16

 

Jesus' parable of the laborers in the vineyard is one of those stories that sounds increasingly outrageous the longer we think about it. The manager's decision to pay the same full-day's wage whether workers labored a single hour or a full day strikes us as grossly unfair. And Jesus, of course, makes matters worse by stepping in and telling us that this picture of scandalously unfair treatment is in fact what the kingdom of heaven is like.

What are we to make of that? God is unfair? God plays favorites? God violates the norms of justice? What comes leaping out at us from the parable, of course, is that the late hires did not deserve the reward they got. They did not qualify for such compensation. We are quite naturally outraged by this miscarriage of justice, and if this is how God does things, isn't there something just wrong about that?

Voices

Where is the “P” for peace? Or the “U” for unity?

I asked a non-Presbyterian friend not long ago to read what has become not so fondly known by some as "The PUP Report," and to give me his views as an outsider on what all the stir is about. He said, after a serious reading of the document, and an additional look at the actions of the 2006 Birmingham General Assembly, he was a bit mystified by why anyone would get upset over what our denomination had done. Nothing much seemed to have really changed. The Book of Order is still the same. The actions of the Assembly did not change the paragraph that seems to concern some so much.

Voices

“Whom shall I send … ” to New Orleans?

Recently, I joined 49 other adults in traveling down to New Orleans. For the sake of this trip and our well being throughout our weeklong stay, our group raised more than $28,000. I am certain that we left the dozen homes we worked on in better condition. I am also confident that $28,000 could have been used to reconstruct many more buildings if we had only donated the money to local causes. 

The question then becomes, why did we go?

In most Presbyterian circles, the term "calling" is debated and discussed almost ad nauseam, but I trust that the reader's constitution is strong enough to permit a little discourse on the subject. Though we represented many different churches from across North Carolina, each individual committed to the same Bible verse for the week, Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"

The question still becomes, why were we sent?

Book Reviews

Evil and the Justice of God

by N. T. Wright. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 2006. ISBN 0-8308-3398-6. Hb., 176 pp. $18.

 

Every pastor and every politician should read N.T. Wright's newest book, Evil and the Justice of God. It serves as both a concise explanation of what the Christian faith has to say about evil and also as a way of understanding all of the terrible things happening in the world around us.

Wright starts by discussing the problem of evil, which is not only a philosophical riddle but a terrible reality in our world today. Wright says that most of us in the West have accepted the Enlightenment myth of progress. Thus we tend to ignore evil in the world for as long as we can, and when it slaps us in the face, we respond to its existence in immature and inappropriate ways. 

Voices

Grace and Predestination

Editor's Note: The following essay is the seventh in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA).  This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."

 

Sola gratia--grace alone--may well be the heart of the Gospel for Presbyterians, going back to the Reformation and beyond. Salvation, that is, comes from God alone in Christ alone through faith alone by grace alone. Grace preserves the gift character of each item in the list. Without grace each of the other items could become a mere means or a method we humans can manage or manipulate on our own. When that happens, God is irrelevant. One way to move beyond the deep divisions within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) may be to recover the historic, Reformed vision of grace.

Uncategorized

14 church-related projects to share $1 million

(PNS) The Mission Development Resources Committee (MDRC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) recently awarded more than $1 million in grant money to 14 church-related projects across the United States. 

The short-term start-up funds will enable congregations, presbyteries, and synods to organize new churches, transform existing congregations, or develop church-based community outreach programs.

Uncategorized

Bishop G.E. Patterson dies

Presiding Bishop of the Church Of God In Christ, Bishop G. E. Patterson, passed away March 20 at 4:03 p.m. at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., as a result of heart failure. Patterson was surrounded by his wife, Mrs. Louise Patterson, and his family.

Patterson served as the leader of the fourth-largest Protestant religious denomination in the world with an estimated membership of 6.5 million members. He led the denomination since November 2000.

More information about funeral arrangements will be posted later.

Voices

An Open Letter : Going Where God Has Ordained Us To Be

There have recently appeared in the electronic version of Presbyterian Outlook a number of  "open letters" responding to the New Wineskins Convocation.  To date, six different open letters have criticized to some degree or another the finding by the New Wineskins Strategy Team that departure from the PC(USA) is a faithful option for those called by God to do so. 

I suppose it should not be surprising that those most invested in the man-made construct known as a denomination, who place so much faith in its polity and bureaucracy,  would be opposed to any diminution in the core membership of the group. Thus, four of the open letters were written by executive/general presbyters (one of whom is also one of the newest members of the denomination's Advisory Committee on the Constitution): Messrs Hooker, Wyatt, Evans, and Ms. McRight.  Only one serving associate pastor, Ms. Jongewaard, and one elder, Mr. Newkirk have commented. With one exception, all of the letters have been polity-based and there has been no real response in any of the open letters to the Biblical and theological concerns that have led us to the point at which we now find ourselves.

Uncategorized

Hassall new PFR Wee Kirk consultant

Presbyterians for Renewal has named Harry S. Hassall interim National Wee Kirk funding consultant, effective April 1, Hassall will be working with designated fundraisers in the nine regional Wee Kirk conferences across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to mentor and encourage them in their ministry and to deepen and broaden financial support for these conference opportunities.

Hassall was for many years on the staff of Highland Park Church in Dallas, Texas. But he has a long background relating to the needs of small-membership churches. Beginning as member of a General Assembly-level planning team for small membership churches in the mid 70s, Hassall was responsible for birthing the Wee Kirk ministry, coordinating the first national Wee Kirk Conference in 1980 at Montreat. 

Editorials

Musalaha

Here are your instructions. Take out two pens, one red and the other blue. Read through this edition of The Outlook, underlining everything you like with the blue pen and everything you don't like with the red.  Then compare the blue-marked words with the red-marked, asking yourself, 1) "Why do I like or dislike this?" and 2) "Why do other Christians of sincere conviction like or dislike this?"

Before taking on that assignment, do finish reading this editorial.

Uncategorized

“Clash of civilizations” view of Islam, Christianity simplistic, expert says

 

by Hannah Elliott

©2007 by Associated Baptist Press. Used by permission.

 

AUSTIN, Texas -- The characterization of Muslim and Christian conflict as a "clash of civilizations" only prolongs problems and encourages dangerous forms of fundamentalism, one prominent scholar told listeners at an ethics conference Feb. 19.

Charles Kimball, who has visited the Middle East 40 times and worked closely with Congress, the White House and the State Department, spoke at Ethics Without Borders, an event in Austin, Texas, organized by the Texas Baptist-affiliated Christian Life Commission.

A professor of religion at Wake Forest University, Kimball called the clash of civilizations framework "an extremely unhelpful one" for people in the United States, most of whom know very little about Islam.

Voices

Cracking the code with Iran: Meeting Iran’s president

September's theater season in New York featured an odd pair of actors in roles that are both loved and loathed by audiences around the world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and George Bush made speeches to the General Assembly of United Nations on the same day (Sept. 19), from diametrically opposing geopolitical viewpoints.

One portrays the other as a bully on the global playground, while the latter denounces the first as a rogue state, belonging to the "axis of evil." Were it not for consequences in the real world, the rhetoric alone would be both alarming and entertaining. But historical grievances outstanding and military maneuvers ongoing at the convergence of their respective zones, together with heightened fears of nuclear weapons proliferation, make these theatrics quite dangerous.

Voices

Rethinking the Holocaust

 

Because I am both an elder in a Presbyterian church and a religion columnist for a daily newspaper, I followed the divestment issue closely. I even wrote a column criticizing the church for its failure to be in constructive dialogue with our Jewish brothers and sisters before the 2004 General Assembly vote.

But the more I work with a rabbi on my current book project, the clearer it is to me why we Presbyterians failed to anticipate Jewish anger at that divestment vote and, thus, why we felt obligated to try a new approach in 2006. I have come to understand that most Christians fail to understand much of anything about our faith's historic relations with Jews -- whether good (of which there is precious little) or bad (of which there is enough to take up gigabytes of chip memory).

Voices

Palestine, Israel, and “the wall”: Can we talk?

 

This is not easy to discuss.

That point was illustrated to me very clearly a few weeks ago while having dinner with a friend in New York City. I had just returned from the West Bank and was recounting some of experiences of my trip. I did have a vague sense that the couple at the adjacent table, a bit close for my comfort, had become rather quiet. That sense was confirmed when the man next to me, apparently having reached his limit of being able to hold his tongue, plunged into our conversation without so much as a polite apology about the intrusion.

In a recent television interview, former president Jimmy Carter pointed out that "the deprivation of basic human rights among the Palestinians is really horrendous" and that "this is a fact that's known throughout the world ... (and) debated heavily and constantly in Israel," but "it is not debated at all in this country."

Difficult or not, we must be able to address it.

Voices

The Pharisee

 

Lent 5 ¢ Introduction

In recent years, thanks in part to scholarly research, and also to a new and more open dialogue with our Jewish brothers and sisters in faith, we know much more, and understand much more, about the Pharisees.  A far more interesting and complex picture of first century Judaism has emerged as a result. We have learned that the earliest Gospel writers, deeply influenced by the increasing competition and resulting hostility between Judaism and their own infant new religion, tended to paint all Pharisees (and in John's gospel, even all Jews) with the same condemning brush. However there is no denying that, among Jesus' own people, and particularly within the religious power structure of that time, there was a growing, and increasingly threatening hostility to our Lord and his message. This week's meditation illuminates some of the grounds for that hostility.

  

(Matthew 12:22-23, Mark 3:23-27, Luke 11:14-20)

Voices

Does Jesus’ tomb mean the end of faith?

 

(RNS) For many years I've wondered about the following scenario: What if an archeologist turned up the bones of Jesus and had some decent proof? And what if they were found in such a way that it was hard to deny the claims?

That would really shake things up in the Christian world. After all, Christian faith is based on the belief that Jesus rose from the dead. The empty tomb is an essential component. As St. Paul says in his First Letter to the Corinthians, If Christ is not risen ... then your faith is in vain.

So, to be honest, the news of a new book, The Jesus Family Tomb, and a related Discovery Channel documentary produced by James Cameron, startled me. There are several such tantalizing elements, including an ossuary (bone box) marked Jesus, son of Joseph found besides others marked with familiar names from the family of Jesus.

Uncategorized

Services March 24 for Dr. Isabel Wood Rogers, beloved ‘Dr. Izzie’

Updated 3/20/07

Izzie Rogers.jpg

RICHMOND, VA. -- Dr. Isabel Wood Rogers, 82, Professor Emerita of Applied Christianity at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, died March 18 in Richmond.

Services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, March 24, at Ginter Park Church in Richmond with a reception to follow. Interment will be in her birthplace of Tallahassee, Fla. Survivors include a sister, Elizabeth Green McCord of Tallahassee, and two nephews.

Born in 1924, she held degrees from Florida State University (A.B.), the University of Virginia (M.A.), the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (M.R.E.), and Duke University (Ph.D.). Austin College, Westminster College, and Centre College all awarded her honorary degrees.

Dr. Rogers, known affectionately as "Dr. Izzie," taught at the Presbyterian School of Christian Education from 1961-1998. Upon her retirement, she was named Professor Emerita of Applied Christianity. Prior to her work at PSCE, she was the Presbyterian campus minister and chaplain and the director of campus religious activities at Georgia College in Milledgeville.

Uncategorized

Montreat Conference Center Welcomes New Director of Development Operations

Diane Pennington.JPG(Montreat, NC) -- Montreat Conference Center is pleased to introduce Diane Pennington, the conference center's new Director of Development Operations.  Professionally, Pennington brings a diversity of experience to the Montreat Conference Center Development office.  Over the course of 15 years in corporate New York, she gained experience in management, operations, administration, and corporate communications and marketing. 

Uncategorized

Staff appointments, social justice resolutions passed on final day of GAC meeting

LOUISVILLE -- Responding to a request from the Evangelical Church of Iran, the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has passed a resolution asking U.S. political leaders to initiate "direct diplomatic dialogue with leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, so that by all means, a military confrontation would be avoided" involving Iran.

It asks Presbyterian military chaplains to lead prayers for peace and the "well-being of all peoples in the region."

And it asks the council to remind Presbyterians of the denomination's policies on nuclear weapons "and the dangers of military confrontation."

Uncategorized

Leaner General Assembly Council shifts focus from details to big picture

LOUISVILLE -- "We are in a time of great change in our church."

That's how General Assembly Council member Steve Benz presented the challenge -- shorthand for everything from infighting in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to financial distress to the reality that nearly half of the denomination's congregations have fewer than 100 members.

And Tom Gillespie, a council member and retired president of Princeton Theological Seminary, preached on that reality during worship.

Uncategorized

Presbyterian Foundation reports “outstanding year” for funding mission

The Presbyterian Foundation reported March 13 that $78.5 million was made available for mission in 2006, an increase of $6.3 million from 2005. As a ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Foundation is called to nurture the accumulated resources of Presbyterians to further the mission of the Church and grow the resources that support mission giving for the future.

 

Uncategorized

GAC executive committee hears reports on funding, staffing at beginning of Council meeting

LOUISVILLE -- Most Presbyterians don't sit around thinking about how the top levels of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are organized. But just understand this:

·         The reorganization of the top levels of the denomination's national staff is continuing -- with a key appointment in communications and funds development recently being announced. That appointment, if confirmed by the General Assembly Council this week, will round out the top level of the PC(USA)'s administrative team.

·         The council, meeting March 14-16 in Louisville, is also being reorganized, with the election of new leadership and a new committee structure. The size of the council also will change in the months to come, producing a council that's supposed to be more streamlined and more focused on the denomination's Mission Work Plan goals.

·         Linda Valentine, who was named the council's executive director in June 2006, spoke of how she hopes the new alignments will allow the council to more effectively "talk about big issues, what the church needs and how we can respond." Valentine spoke of the need for "adaptive thinking, generative thinking, strategic thinking" in the PC(USA).

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