Latest Posts

Israel’s Supreme Court approves destruction of synagogues

(RNS) Israel's Supreme Court ruled Aug. 23 that all synagogues in the now-vacated Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank should be destroyed, but that everything portable be relocated to Israel.

The court was responding to a petition by Jewish settlers who objected to the government's plan to destroy all Jewish religious institutions -- 30 synagogues as well as eight yeshivas and seminaries -- in Gaza. The destruction would be part of the government's withdrawal of residents and troops from 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the northern West Bank.

Summer heat, circumstances complicate migrant situation; Volunteers arrested

It has been, in a terrible way, a remarkable summer.

The heat in the states along the U.S.-Mexico border has been uncaring, unceasing, record-breaking. The summer monsoons, which typically arrive in early July and bring some water and some relief, came late to Arizona this year, prolonging the difficulty.

Still, the people streamed north from Mexico and Central America, crossing the sand in the baking heat, some with their children, some traveling with no family, some just teenagers, trying to walk their way, against the law, towards a better way of life.

What U.S.-Mexico border policy should be is a matter of much passionate debate -- it won't be resolved in one long hot summer. But while the discussions over immigration policy continue, the flow of immigrants continues too, despite the best efforts of the U.S. Border Patrol. Humanitarian groups with deep involvement from some border- state Presbyterians are determined to show the face of God in the midst of all of this.

Transforming journeys

It is fall again. Storytellers from short-term mission trips are making their way around the Santa Barbara Presbytery. They "come and tell" at congregations around the presbytery perhaps because they were simply willing to go on one of the five IMPACT trips this year; and because their stories are full of fresh truth about their transformational experiences.

IMPACT, International Mission Project and Cross Cultural Training, is a mission-sending ministry of the Santa Barbara Presbytery. Since 1993, more than 300 people from the presbytery have been sent to serve in 12 countries. One of the reasons, perhaps, for the continued success of the ministry is that participants (from age 15 to 79) have returned to tell, teach, share their stories within their churches and from church to church. They are living letters to the people who sent them out--their children, parents, brothers, sisters and friends. They speak to good listeners!

IMPACT is relational, cross-cultural, built for individual and corporate learning. Twenty-four of the 32 churches in the Santa Barbara Presbytery have sent people on IMPACT journeys. These churches not only support the ministry and the participants but provide council members, pastors and presbytery staff for support, guidance and teaching. Participants leaving for summer trips are commissioned each summer at a presbytery worship. Congregations experience not only the fresh testimonies, but also the benefit of the renewed connections to other churches in the Presbytery. And of course, the new stories are an added invitation each year to people thinking about taking the next step, to go on an international, cross-cultural mission.

“Do you have a dream?’

Sometimes a dream is not a nightmare; it is a message from God that is received waking or sleeping and you cannot mistake it. Paul had a dream when he was asleep that he should go to Macedonia. It was so vivid and the voice of the man so urgent asking him to come over and help the Greeks that he got passage on a boat next morning (Acts 16:6-10). Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream when he was wide awake. God showed him that his children could be free and that people should not be judged by the color of their skin. It changed his whole life.

Do you have a dream for your church or presbytery? Is there a strong sense that God wants something done and that it cannot wait?

I have a dream for the church that is absolutely compelling. How it can be accomplished I do not know. My simple efforts to begin its realization have met with failure but I cannot give it up. *

It is a plain vision of Presbyterians and peacemaking.

Torrance honored in Lebanon, Scotland ceremonies

Iain R. Torrance, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, was the honored speaker at the Baccalaureate Service marking the 50th anniversary of Haigazian University in Beirut, Lebanon June 26. Both the University of Aberdeen and St. Andrews University in Scotland also awarded him the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree at their summer graduation ceremonies.

Torrance preached at Haigazian's Baccalaureate Service, held in the First Armenian Church in Beirut, for the university's class of 2005. In his sermon, titled "Hope in the New World," he called Haigazian, an Armenian institution, "a beacon for hope and reconstruction in Lebanon as it stands at the threshold of a new stage in its history." The university was founded as a creative response to the genocide of Armenians in Turkey by those who had escaped, "carrying their vision and faith with them," Torrance said.

MRTI designates five companies for dialogue, possible divestment

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has named five companies in which it's considering divesting because of those firms' involvements in Israel -- involvement that a church committee contends contributes to the "ongoing violence that plagues Israel and Palestine."

During its meeting in Seattle on Aug. 5, the PC(USA)'s Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee (MRTI) named five companies -- Caterpillar, Motorola, ITT Industries, United Technologies and Citigroup -- it alleges have direct links to the violence, after considering a range of companies in which the church has investments and looking in detail at the business practices of each involving the Middle East.

Presbyterian mission work: What does the future hold?

The question of how American Presbyterians do mission work in an era of globalization -- and what those in declining mainline denominations in the U.S. can learn from the faithful in the rest of the world -- is very much on the minds of some in the church these days.

Among the questions being asked:

• What changes should American churches be making in the way they approach international mission?

• What lessons can be learned from the tremendous growth of the Christian church in parts of the southern hemisphere, and from the mission efforts initiated by churches from other countries?

• What are the implications of the trend for congregations and individual Presbyterians to be involved directly in mission work?

• What do young adults bring to the mix -- what excites them and what aren't they willing to tolerate?

Presbyterians are likely to be deep in conversation about this throughout the fall, in part through two upcoming conferences focused on global mission challenges.

Knoxville College president fired in trustee action August 8

The trustees of Presbyterian-related Knoxville College in Tennessee have fired President Barbara R. Hatton, alleging that she has managed the school "by creating fear and intimidation." The decision, effective immediately, was reached on August 8, during a special board meeting in Knoxville.

"It was a very sad day for Knoxville College and a very sad day for Dr. Hatton," said Beneva Bibbs, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s associate for racial-ethnic schools and colleges.

Hatton's firing didn't please everyone. Four trustees, none of whom attended the meeting, resigned. They had informed the other trustees by fax that they planned to quit if Hatton was fired.

Profile: World Christians,world churches

As pastor of Black Mountain (N.C.) Church, John McCall loved his ministry. Thirty retired missionaries heard his sermons on Sundays. He saw theirs. "(They) were the first to volunteer, always willing to cross cultural boundaries; they had servant hearts," he observed.

"They were part of the way God turned my attention towards missions." After years at Black Mountain, he was a commissioner to the GA in Cincinnati when his life changed. As new mission co-workers were commissioned, he watched from "the nosebleed section." But shouldn't I be down there? he thought. He began working with the Worldwide Ministries Division office to fulfill that conviction.

He and retired mission co-workers Don and Jessie McCall (no relation) had been praying for more than a year about Taiwan. For his own assignment, he was leaning towards Latin America. But praying about Taiwan for so long kept those needs before him. He accepted an assignment to serve in Taiwan, beginning in 1996

Profile: Helping new life

It would be easy to mythologize Sue Makin. She works in an exotic place-- Africa--in a rural hospital, with a life-affirming task--trying to save the lives of mothers and newborn babies.

But she is a very articulate, practical, no-nonsense person without pretense.

Sue grew up in Florida without a clear life direction. After college and vocational school, she settled into work as a hospital lab technician. Her work in the hospital challenged her to go to medical school. While studying, she began to pray about the possibility of mission service. While still a lab tech, she volunteered in a health clinic where she saw the toll on young women from drug use, STDs and other complications. Her interest grew in the OBGYN specialty, where doctors address the problems she saw. It has been a satisfying choice. "A birth is a happy event, I sometimes get to do a little surgery and internal medicine. There are elements of the beginning and end of things," she says.

Presbyterian missions: Knowing heritage, serving as global partners

Missions as an integral part of Presbyterian church life and biblical mandate is both Tom Hastings' practical work and his urgent interest. The church devalues its past and waters down its present and future missions mandate at its peril, he says.

Appointed a PC(USA) mission worker in 1988, Hastings teaches practical theology and Christian education at Tokyo Union Theological Seminary. He also lectures and preaches, and works in a prison chaplaincy ministry.

As with many who live and serve in two countries and contexts, Hastings' appreciation and concern for both his American home church and Christian work in Japan are evident.

The years Presbyterians have worked with local believers in Japan span years of change, turmoil and reconfiguration in missions efforts by American churches, he says. Presbyterians came to Japan and often did excellent work in education, health, and church work. By the 1970s, Christians in America were backing away from the stereotypes of bad mission work, but lost touch also with what was important, he says.

While American Presbyterians are indifferent or ignorant of their history, Japanese Presbyterians take it very seriously, he says. "The Presbyterian legacy in Japan is taken very seriously in Japan," he says. Over the past century, hundreds of American Presbyterians have served in Japan. "Who will be the stewards of this history?" he asks.