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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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“Two faithful options” to be presented at New Wineskins meeting in February

 

When the New Wineskins Association of Churches meets again in Orlando in February, some of these evangelicals may be ready to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on the spot, others probably not.

So the New Wineskins leadership is planning to offer alternatives: a roadmap for those who think the PC(USA) has abandoned orthodoxy, including a proposal for PC(USA) congregations to leave the denomination and take their property with them.

Editorials

Small Minds

St. Jerome once said, "Small minds cannot grasp great subjects." In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we can prove him wrong. Our Office of Theology, Worship and Education is directed by a small mind, and he grasps the greatest of subjects. Joe Small is his name, and--all punning aside--his appointment as that office's director means that the great subjects will continue to inform the future of the PC(USA). 

Voices

What ails the church

Outlook editor Jack Haberer is getting closer to what ails us with each editorial! In recent weeks each one has crept closer and closer. You can almost hear him muttering with Emerson:

Give me truths;

For I am weary of the surfaces,

And die of inanition

On October 30, he quoted Tom Ehrlich's column in the September 11 Outlook. It said that what made 1964 such an "unhappy turning point" as the year the mainline denominations began to shrink, was that "post-war Baby Boomers began to graduate from high school." The discussion then turned on the question "What did they do after graduating from high school."

Voices

A rock in the pocket

Back in the 1970s, Dennis Weaver starred in the popular TV series, "McCloud." He played the role of a western law officer who was teamed with a law officer from a big city "back East."  Each of them played a perfect counterpoint to the other. At the end of one program, the camera shows the two of them walking away and you hear Weaver say, "There's a rock in my boot." The other character says with an almost parched wit, "It must have fallen out of your head."

I have a rock in my pocket. It is not very big. It is smooth. It was smooth when I got it, and it is even smoother now. Across the surface of one side is the word "CREDO." I received the rock at the end of participating in a June 2004 conference by that name.

Voices

“Take me out of this ballgame”

Why is America so sports crazy? What am I so sports crazy?

My eligibility to play on college athletic teams expired thirty years ago. I now have children older than the young men and women who are vying for national championships. Yet my interest in the outcome of those games -- and, at times, my irrational responses to what I am seeing on the court and on the field -- seem to be accelerating.

Voices

To glorify God: The local church and monastery

Would you be happy for your church to be called, "a school of the love of God"? Certainly our local churches often fall short of this goal; nevertheless, "a school of the love of God" is a noble description of the Church. Of course it is different from the classical definition of John Calvin, "wherever the Word is properly preached and the Sacraments correctly administered, there you can be sure the true Church is present", but surely he would have embraced "a school of the love of God" as a useful amplification. The divine cannot be captured in any wooden definition no matter how finely crafted. Combining the two, "a school of the love of God where Word and Sacrament are correctly administered," makes a robust definition of the Church that brings many joyful images to mind.

Book Reviews

Good News for a Fractured Society

 

Good News for a Fractured Society: Matthew Speaks to Divisions of Power, Wealth, Gender, and Religious Pluralism, by Stephen McCutchan. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2006. ISBN 1425956785. Pb., 196 pp. $15.95.

Voices

New VBS directions to minister to needs of children, churches

 

Editor's note: Time to plan for the summer's upcoming Vacation Bible Schools! The Outlook provides overall plans in this article and an assessment of available curricula in the next.

 

For those of us who grew up in the church, the words "Vacation Bible School" have some very special memories. I remember looking forward to Vacation Bible School each summer. It was a week of fun, play, learning, and refreshments that always included butter cookies with a scalloped edge and a hole in the middle that just fit my index finger. 

Voices

VBS curricula review for 2007

Christmas is just a few weeks behind us. So naturally, if you serve a congregation as a Christian educator or as Vacation Bible School director, the time is nigh to begin planning for the second most wonderful time of the year: Vacation Bible School 2007! Nine publishers consented to the Outlook's request to review their products. Here is a quick assessment of each. General observations of elements common to most, if not all, the VBS programs are followed by specific comments with regard to 1) Reformed compatibility, 2) small church adaptability, and 3) special features.

Voices

Essential tenets?

When persons become members of a Presbyterian congregation, they are asked to profess their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to express their intention to live in faithful discipleship. When persons are ordained as ministers, elders, and deacons, however, more is required. The Book of Order states that Their manner of life should be a demonstration of the Christian gospel in the church and in the world, and that they are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church.i Furthermore, they are required to make ten vows that express a high level of theological and ecclesial commitment. With the exception of the final vow concerning the different ministries of the three offices, the ordination vows are identical for ministers, elders, and deacons; the forms of the three ministries differ, but requirements for faith and faithfulness are the same.

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Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund aids more than 1,000 congregations

(RNS) More than 1,000 houses of worship will receive grants from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund to help recover from 2005 hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast.

Fund spokesman Bill Pierce said the number of applications far exceeded expectations. Officials originally expected between 500 and 700 applications.

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Christian leaders challenge President Bush to address moral concerns in State of the Union

compiled by faithinpubliclife.org

As news reports are abuzz with speculation about the State of the Union address -- what agenda items will make the cut and what tone President Bush will strike -- Christian leaders are challenging the President to address the most pressing moral concerns of our time: bringing our troops home from Iraq, eradicating poverty, abolishing torture without exception, creation care and comprehensive immigration reform.

Voices

Martin Luther King, Jr. Presbyterians and Iraq

'It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to return to her true home of brotherhood and peaceful pursuits. We cannot remain silent as our nation engages in one of history's most cruel and senseless wars.  During these days of human travail, we must encourage creative dissenters. We need them because the thunder of their fearless voices will be the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and the clamor of war hysteria. Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war, we must spread the propaganda of peace. '

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., February 27, 1967

 

This weekend around the USA and elsewhere, people will remember and give thanks for the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.   The Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project and Professor of History at Stanford University has a web page with "Frequently Requested Documents and Audio Clips" that includes 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' (this famous letter was written to respond to a Presbyterian minister and other religious leaders who opposed King), March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (King's "I Have A Dream" speech given after Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake's speech), Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and I've Been To The Mountaintop (King's last speech).  I sent this web page to our congregation's members and friends in my weekly pastoral note to encourage people to read.  The Nov/Dec 2005 issue of Church & Society looks at "Trusting the Nonviolence of Jesus Christ Today" from diverse Presbyterian perspectives; it is a fine print resource that also makes good reading for this holiday and other times.

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A tribute to Ben Lacy Rose (1914-2006)

Ben Lacy Rose, moderator of the 111th General Assembly of the PC US (1971-1972) died in Richmond, Va, November 13 at Westminster Canterbury retirement community two days after Veterans Day. He lived a long, active, and productive life as a pastor, military chaplain, professor of homiletics, editor, and author, supported by his spouse Ann Thompson Rose, who died in 2005. 

Rose was born in Fayetteville N.C., in 1914, heir to a long history of Roses whose line extends back to Scotland of the 1730's, to Orange County, N.C., and Fayetteville where he was born in 1914. He attended Davidson College in N.C., Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., where he took his BD (1938), Th. M. (1950) and the Th. D. (1955). He served as chaplain in the United States army in World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star and Legion of Merit Medal. In 1974 he retired from the Army Reserve with a rank of colonel, one of those veterans of honorable service marked on Nov. 11.

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PC(USA) reorganizing efforts lead to creating new office

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is creating a new Office of Leadership and Vocation -- a combined venture of the General Assembly Council and the Office of the General Assembly.

The new office -- part of a continuing reorganization of the denominational structure -- will pull together elements of work involving congregations calling pastors, efforts to prepare candidates for ministry,  the training of commissioned lay pastors, support of Christian educators and programs to encourage vocational discernment. 

Editorials

Campy conversions

To convert or to covenant: that is the question.

American Protestantism travels via two different routes. Both aim for heaven. In most theological respects the groups confess compatible convictions. Both believe in the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Both depend upon the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the source of the grace that saves. Both count upon that grace to reconcile them to God, to empower faith within them toward God, and to mobilize them into service in the world created by God.

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Episcopal split accelerates as Va. parishes vote to leave

c. 2006 Religion News Service

 

Conservative Episcopalians' steady exodus from the Episcopal Church accelerated Dec. 17 as eight Virginia congregations -- including two large, historic parishes -- voted to leave the national body.

The Diocese of Virginia has lost 12 congregations and about 18 percent of its average Sunday worship attendance in recent battles over homosexuality and the authority of Scripture, according to figures provided by the diocese.

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Saddleback AIDS conference speakers challenge church to “unselfish service”

"People ask me, 'Rick, are you right wing or left wing?' I tell them, I'm for the whole bird!"

That statement, one of a plethora of sound bites spoken by pastor and author Rick Warren, embodied both the theme and spirit of "Race Against Time," the 2006 Global Summit on AIDS at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Cal., this past Nov. 29 -- Dec. 1. The conference drew the attention of many, due in part to the invitation Warren extended to potential Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. This act of inclusivity drew both the attention of the secular world and criticism from the religious right. 

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Agape Community Kitchen: “It has changed all of us”

"This is most likely the greatest thing I can possibly do because this is what Christ told us to do, go and serve others. So, we are literally taking the words of Christ and putting them into action." So states Will Foltz. A powerful statement, made even more so when you realize that Will Foltz is 14 years old.

What does Will keep going back to? It is called the Agape Community Kitchen, and each Wednesday evening in Elizabeth, New Jersey, it serves about 250 guests a warm meal. It is a ministry begun by the Presbyterian Church in Westfield. Not exactly unique, you might think, but this is not the usual soup kitchen. It was started, and continues to be run, by the youth of the church.

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Arkansas camp finds new ways to meet needs, stay viable

In some places, Presbyterian camps and conference centers are shutting down -- as beloved as they may be, there's just not enough money to keep going.

But Ferncliff in Little Rock, Ark., has a different, more positive story to tell.

Over the last 20 years, Ferncliff, the camp of Arkansas presbytery, has experienced slow but steady growth.

It's found new life through innovation: by responding to incidents of school violence and, more recently, by becoming involved in disaster assistance efforts.

And the heart of its vision, according to Executive Director David Gill, is the realization that Ferncliff isn't just a fun place to visit, but a center of mission and ministry as well.

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