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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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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“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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