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Voices

We’ve been here before

 

c. 2006 Religion News Service

    

Picture a congregation gathered to decide its future.

Feelings were strong. Disharmony was rife. Carefully coordinated plans were being executed, an information war was ratcheting to a new level designed to convey unstoppable momentum.

In this church, people who once got along have drawn verbal swords. Two stood and said, "If you don't vote our way, you put your mortal souls in peril." Another was shocked that "dear friends" could speak to her that way.

Voices

Let us think about power

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton has a point, but I disagree with him. I say, "Power does not necessarily corrupt, but the temptation to be corrupted by power is exceptionally strong."

Only God has absolute power, but we humans are responsible for our use of the relative power we can exercise.  "I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God ... unto salvation for all who believe!" (Romans 1:16)

I want both to invite you to think about power with me and to encourage you to pour your own unique content into the fascinating, vital subject.

Voices

Exercising self-restraint

I believe the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in a particularly parlous place.

For the last three decades we have been struggling with issues related to human sexuality.  The most prominent issues have been abortion, the nature of marriage, and the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians. 

Voices

A new way of being Presbyterian

A couple of months ago, a recently ordained minister was being examined during our presbytery meeting. Another pastor rose to challenge a portion of his statement of faith. The new minister looked down at what he had written, indicated his words did not express at all what he intended, and quickly owned up to his mistake. With grace and good humor, he recognized the error. With grace and a bit of levity, the presbytery noted his oversight - and then approved his examination. These days, such an exchange--a timely admission and a gracious response--is not always common among Presbyterians.

Voices

Hope in the simple things: A Columbia Common Ground update

   It started over a cup of coffee. 

In the summer of 2004 two friends from seminary, both serving at the time as associate pastors in prominent downtown congregations, met for coffee in Richmond during General Assembly. (See these friends' thoughts in "Montreat meeting focuses Columbia grads on future" in the May 30, 2005, Outlook). After catching up, the conversation turned to the events of the Assembly. Both were incredibly frustrated with the politically-charged atmosphere, as well as the enormous amounts of time spent huddling and strategizing instead of praying and working together to make our church a healthier, more faithful place.

Voices

Burglary and Evangelism

Let me tell you about my friend, Ben. He was an older man who had recently lost his wife. Returning home from a long trip, Ben found his sliding-glass door at the rear of his home shattered and a back door damaged. A neighborhood twelve-year-old had committed the crime. Ben came to see me about it because the investigating officers wanted to remove the boy from his home and place him in a home for troubled kids.

Movie Reviews

Film brings new life to Anne Frank’s diary

 

c. 2007 Religion News Service

 

Of all the actors, athletes and hip-hop performers venerated by urban teenagers in Southern California, most improbable of all, perhaps, was a 13-year-old girl by the name of Anne Frank.

So goes the inspiring story behind "Freedom Writers," a recent movie starring Hilary Swank. The film's Jan. 5 release was timed to precede the nation's commemoration of another figure in the ongoing fight against racial prejudice: Martin Luther King Jr.

Movie Reviews

“Freedom Writers” and “Sweet Land”

 

Both are about people struggling to survive in a hostile environment. Both are about people who start out very awkwardly, but slowly learn to care for each other. Both are about experiencing racial discrimination, both overtly and covertly. Both are about learning to succeed in small but important ways, like relying on hard work, and refusing to be beaten down, and withstanding the criticism and rejection of others. Both are about taking pride in one's own story, one's own struggle, one's own life. Both are about gaining respect by maintaining dignity, integrity, and self-reliance. Oh, and getting by with a little help from your friends.

Movie Reviews

Religious Moments In Unlikely Places

'Talladega Nights:  The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby':  This bumpy-ride lowbrow comedy about a race car driver (Will Ferrell) contains a startlingly frank and lengthy discussion at the dinner table about prayer.  Is it OK to pray to 'baby Jesus'?  Or must we address a 'full-grown Jesus with a beard'?

Uncategorized

“Party today. Church tomorrow. Oh yeah!”

A church moving into a golf club and conference center?!

 

That was my reaction when the invitation came to attend the dedication of the new facility of the First Presbyterian Church, Honolulu, Hawaii. It probably is no surprise to anyone that I jumped at the chance to go and check out how the Presbyterians were faring in the fiftieth state. What I found were vibrant, growing churches engaged in creative ministry and witness.

 

Uncategorized

One in Christ … that the World May Believe

I have just returned from the Middle East. While there, we were thrilled to visit with Reformed Christians in Lebanon--the place of the first Presbyterian Church international mission endeavor--and to see the vitality and strength of the ministry there. We celebrated churches alive in worship, children learning the Christian faith, seminarians being trained for ministry, and a church reaching out to all those who suffer in a war-torn country.

Uncategorized

Lethal Weapons

[Ramallah] A loud siren wails in the main street of Ramallah as the ambulance races to the nearby hospital. The casualty inside the vehicle is a teenage Palestinian who received two bullets to his chest during clashes among rival armed militia.

In a separate incident, a number of disgruntled armed young men showered the Daraghmeh store with scores of bullets in Ramallah's commercial district. The fire engulfed the store's interior, resulting in losses totaling $450,000.

At the entrance of a well-established restaurant in the city, a big sign reads "No hand guns allowed on the premises."

As ammunition is readily available through black market middlemen, the sounds of bullets are heard frequently across the city. In a Pavlovian response, the citizens of Ramallah run into hiding as soon as the bullets start flying, their daily life controlled by the will of the gunmen.

Uncategorized

Form of government task force discusses possible changes to BOO; meets Feb. 22-24

LOUISVILLE -- Reading the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can be dry work -- although, amazingly, some folks love to do it.

But the discussion the Form of Government Task Force https://www.pcusa.org/formofgovernment/index.htm is having about how to rewrite the Book of Order gives reflections -- like glimmers on the water -- of ways in which a denomination's rules really do make a difference in the daily lives of churches.

At its meeting here Jan. 11-13, the task force talked, for example, about what happens when a former or retired pastor stays in the community near the church where that pastor had served.

Uncategorized

Jamestown — America’s first Puritans

Editor's note: This year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown in Virginia. 

 

Off the coast of North Carolina lies Roanoke Island, whose Northern tip is the site of England's failed colony in the 1580's. Other than the sound of surf breaking against the shore, all is silence. You feel a palpable sense of loss.

Four hundred years ago, three ships -- the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery -- launched out of the Thames River from London toward the English Channel. The 105 passengers were men and boys; the women would come in later voyages. Five months later, on May 14, 1607, they founded Jamestown, England's first permanent colony. The site was a peninsula 40 miles up the James River in what is now Virginia.

 

Uncategorized

Is Christianity synonymous with America’s public faith?

Two dominant faiths stand side-by-side in our nation. Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson originated a public faith our presidents salute in their speeches, imploring God's blessing on the U.S. Jefferson called this national Deity the "Creator" and "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence. Orthodox Christianity ranks as the second popular faith alive nationally. God revealed Himself in Christ Jesus. Jefferson refused to use Christian imagery or language in the Declaration of Independence. He and the majority of Founding Fathers kept separate these two faiths.

Voices

“Living Waters”

 

Only three of Maria Chan Tun's five children lived past the age of five. In her Mexican village, Lerma, as in all of the developing world, water-borne disease is the primary killer of children.

But for Maria's seven grandchildren, the future is brighter.

In 2004, a Living Waters for the World ministry's purification system was installed at the Filadelfia Church that she attends. When she was told that her grandchildren would now have clean, healthy drinking water, Maria was moved to tears. She and her whole congregation celebrated this new privilege, and Pastor Carlos Arias explained that the water system could become a new ministry for the church, offering clean water not only to church members but also to others in the community.

Book Reviews

Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War

by Harry S. Stout. New York: Viking, 2006. ISBN 0670034703. Hb., xxii + 552 pp. $29.95.

 

Wars take on their own mythologies and none more so than the American Civil War. It stands at a center of American consciousness and identity. More than 100,000 titles have been written on the conflict, in its various facets. Now Yale historian Harry S. Stout has given us a "moral history" of the Civil War, providing a unique--and disturbing--view of the years when this nation tore itself apart.

Book Reviews

Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

 

by N.T. Wright. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN 10:0-06-050715-2. Hb., 240 pp. $22.95

 

N.T. Wright admits, "Being a Christian in today's world is, of course, anything but simple. But there is a time for trying to say, as simply as possible, what it's all about, and this seems to me that sort of time." 

Now is that sort of time, it seems to me. Some who claim that Christianity "makes sense" pare it down until the mystery is peeled away and we are left with a God whose edges are sharply drawn and whose greatest attribute is clarity. N.T. Wright is not to be confused with these voices that reduce Christianity to simplicity.

Book Reviews

Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

by Allen C. Guelzo, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans. Paperback edition, 2003.  ISBN 0-8028-3872-3. 528 pp.  $24

 

Lincoln has been the subject of an unending stream of biographies. Among the many good treatments of Lincoln's life and times, Guelzo's excellent biography deserves special attention because he examines Lincoln as a man of ideas. Lincoln famously wrapped his political ideas in religious themes, a trait that led many to lionize him as the "Christian president." Often forgotten, however, is that Lincoln entered politics as an enlightened skeptic (friends burned a scandalous, irreligious pamphlet "Infidelity" so it would not ruin his political career). The story of the development of Lincoln's philosophical and religious thought makes a fascinating story and Guelzo tells it well. 

Editorials

Invention’s mother

Where do you go to find the greatest innovations? One place to look is among the young. That's the way it was six years ago when a group of mostly Gen-X pastors formed the New Wineskins Initiative. Fueled by youthful energy, they dared to ask not only "Why?" but also "Why not?"

They diagnosed the failure of our connectional system to really connect pastors and elders among congregations. They imagined a church where informal networking could lift 21st century Presbyterianism to a new level of collegiality, accountability, and transforming ministry. Many of their brainstorms needed refining, as well they acknowledged, but their ideas were hope-filled.

 

Movie Reviews

Venus

'You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.'' (Matthew 5:27-8)

Maurice (Peter O'Toole) and his best friend Ian (Leslie Phillips) are two old English stage actors who meet for breakfast regularly at their favorite café, sometimes with other friends.  They accompany each other to the theater.  They look after each other, and frequently enjoy cocktails together in the early evening.  Though Maurice is married, he doesn't seem to spend much time with Valerie (Vanessa Redgrave).  Oh, he wanders over to visit occasionally, and they talk like old friends.  Sometimes he gives her money, when he's had a little acting gig, maybe playing a dying man on a television hospital drama.

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