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Donor pledges $1 million to Cameroon seminary

(PNS) Mary Lee Dayton, wife of the late Wally Dayton -- president of Dayton Development Company (Dayton department stores) -- has pledged $1 million to the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands (MIJHH) to support the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Cameroon, Africa.

Her gift was announced Jan. 22 during worship at Westminster Church in Minneapolis, Minn., where she is a member and where her father, the late Arnold Lowe, served as pastor. Her gift, which establishes a permanent endowment for the seminary through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation, also represents an early commitment to the congregation's 150th anniversary campaign, slated for 2007.

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WMD committee recommends new relief-development agency idea; full GAC discussion Feb. 11

LOUISVILLE -- They want to take the leap.

The Worldwide Ministries Division committee of the General Assembly Council has recommended that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) set up a new charitable corporation to do relief and development work -- an effort to make the church's response to disasters more agile and to give potential donors the accountability, visibility and ease of use they expect.

That's a controversial plan -- and one that may provide some fireworks when the full council discusses it Feb. 11.

Some fear it will take away from the PC(USA)'s attempts to build a strong fund-raising structure to benefit the whole church. Some -- aware that the denomination needs to cut its budget again this spring and that layoffs are imminent -- suspect that some programs are being built up and protected at the possible expense of others.

Some say it's too much change with not enough time to figure out what's the best way to go.

But Susan Ryan, director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, put it this way.

"There are enormous opportunities in this new time for us. We'll either be a visionary church or not."

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GAC votes Friday morning to restructure, downsize

LOUISVILLE  -- Smaller, leaner, more focused on the big picture.

That's the hope for the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the years ahead -- as the council voted on Feb. 10 to restructure itself and downsize from 71 members to 48.

Before voting, council members asked plenty of questions -- among them, how the changes would affect the council's relationship with other groups in the church. Some of those groups have sent "corresponding members" to General Assembly Council meetings; the council has also assigned some of its members to be liaisons to these groups.

The council did amend the restructuring proposal from its Governance Task Force to continue to give the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly "corresponding member" status on the council -- which means that a COGA representative will continue to have voice at the council meetings, but not a vote.

Those losing corresponding member status on the council are: the Board of Pensions, the Presbyterian Foundation, the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation.

The council also made a few other changes in the task force's proposal. The number of young adult representatives (considered to be someone 18 to 35 years old) increased from three to four. The number of presbytery executives was raised from two to three and the number of synod executives from one to two -- an effort to intensify the sense of connection between the national church and the grass roots. Two council members would have to be persons with disabilities.

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Mission Work Plan, new executive director selection process discussed

LOUISVILLE -- A search committee looking for a new executive director for the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) hopes to have a candidate to nominate by May -- about a month before the General Assembly gets to work in Birmingham in June.

The General Assembly Council's executive committee is asking that the council gather for a special meeting in Chicago on May 23 to consider nominating to the assembly whoever is picked as the top candidate. John Detterick, the council's current executive director, intends to retire this summer to New Mexico.

On the executive committee, there was some discussion about whether to have the extra meeting in May, because of the expense -- estimated at around $40,000 -- and because the council already has a meeting scheduled in Louisville at the end of April.

But Detterick told the executive committee that it's "critically important" for all of the council members to meet in person the candidate being considered, because "you're selecting your head of staff for the next four years."

Karen Dimon, a council member from DeWitt, N.Y., who heads the search team effort, said a search firm has been hired and applications are coming in. Dimon said the search committee won't be ready to propose a candidate at the council's April 26-29 meeting. And "it's too important a decision to make by conference call," she said, so that's why an extra meeting is being requested.

In many ways, the council is at a crossroads -- with a new executive director on the horizon, with more budget cuts anticipated this spring, with major reports being considered on how the council is structured and how it focuses its work.

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Seed, Easley elected GAC officers

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council has elected new leadership.

Allison Krahling Seed, a pastor from Lee's Summit, Mo., is the council's new chair. And Charles F. Easley Sr. of Atlanta was chosen vice-chair.

Seed, the pastor of Trinity Church in Independence, Mo. for more than a decade and a former moderator of Heartland presbytery, is currently chair of the council's National Ministries Division Committee.

In a statement to the council explaining her candidacy, Seed wrote: "I am unapologetically Presbyterian," and said she's daunted by neither change nor controversy.

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Paper on human sexuality presented to Task Force

ATLANTA -- The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) knows how to vote on gay ordination. It has lots of experience at that -- so much so that General Assembly veterans joke they can guess the speeches that folks are lined up at the microphones prepared to deliver.

But William Stacy Johnson, a lawyer and professor of systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, wants to shift the discussion, and wants the PC(USA) to find a way to talk about gays and lesbians--their lives and commitments and faith--in a way that's theological, in the context of their relationship with God and with other Christians.

He's proposing that the church consider gays and lesbians in the context of what he calls the "Trinitarian drama" -- through the bold, amazing, ongoing story of creation, reconciliation and redemption.

 At the most recent meeting of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA), Johnson presented a long draft of a paper on human sexuality that he's written and which the task force, while not formally adopting it, intends to add to its list of resources for the church.

 The paper -- this draft is 140 pages -- is an extension and revision of an earlier one Johnson presented to the task force in August 2004, in which he described six ways in which Christians have thought theologically about homosexuality -- views ranging from affirmation to condemnation. In this new, expanded paper, Johnson describes seven views, encouraging people to think of them as sort of a "survey" of some of the literature and thinking that have informed the church's debate on gay ordination.

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$2.5 million gift to Union/PSCE

Jeannette Early of Dallas, Texas, has made a $2.5 million gift to Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. It is the largest contribution the seminary has ever received from an individual.

The gift will launch the renovation of the former library on the seminary campus to become an advanced center for teaching, learning, and worship.

In gratitude, Union-PSCE will designate the building as the Allen and Jeannette Early Center for Christian Education and Worship. Mrs. Early made the gift through a family foundation. Her husband, Allen, died in 1979. She is a 1937 graduate of the Presbyterian School of Christian Education (now Union-PSCE).

"The school means so very much to me, it gives me joy to think about students who will study in this building for generations to come. I am very grateful to the Lord who blessed us so much that we could be generous to Union-PSCE," she says.

Editorials

A woman’s “Where else?”

"If we leave the PC(USA), where are we going to go?" The troubled question came from an evangelical woman, a young leader and emerging scholar in conservative circles. At issue was the possibility of a split in the denomination, likely to be led by disaffected conservatives. "We know where the women stand in the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America]," she said. "The EPC [Evangelical Presbyterian Church] said women's ordination is optional, and they've opted to 'just say no.'" Then came the clincher. Referring to the testosterone-driven conference she and I were attending, she added, "Frankly, I hear these men saying they will do things differently, but I don't know if I can trust them."

How tragic it would be if, in the midst of a grand two-year celebration of women's ordination in the PC(USA), a long-threatened split occurred that would launch another denomination where women's leadership role could possibly be diminished. 

What celebration? Well, one hundred years ago (1906) a woman was first ordained a deacon in the UPCNA. Seventy-five years ago (1930) a woman was first ordained a ruling elder in the PCUSA. Fifty years ago (1956), the first woman was ordained a minister of word and sacrament. This convergence of anniversaries makes 2006 a fitting time to celebrate the ways we Presbyterians have promoted gender equality in a century long to be remembered for Women's Suffrage, gender-inclusive language, and The Feminine Mystique.

Voices

The ordination of women

I had just a short time with Courtney, a six-year-old girl who helped me clean up after church school. In a quick fifteen minutes, I needed to finish the job and put on my preaching robe to lead the worship service. I made small talk with her as we gathered the magazine pages and put the glue sticks away. Her parents did not attend the rural church in South Louisiana, but she visited regularly with a friend. I did not know her well, so I was in the middle of asking her those generic grown-up questions. I finished inquiring about her favorite subject in school and moved on to, "Courtney, what do you want to do when you grow up?" I expected the same answers that I usually hear: an astronaut, a ballerina or a teacher.

Courtney stopped. A smile began in the corner of her mouth that told me she was bursting with the news. "I want to be...um. I want to do what you do. I want to be a pastor."

"You do?" My excitement brimmed so that I was the one bursting. We stood in a tiny classroom in a country church, but it felt like Courtney and I had passed by a huge milestone and changed history. It caused me to look back to see the long stretch behind us and made me resolve to finish the road ahead. 

I grew up in the seventies, when little girls were told that they could do anything. I clearly remember when I was Courtney's age and my grade school teacher informed me that I could become the president of the United States, if I wanted to. But I did not want to be president; I, like Courtney, wanted to be in the ministry. Of course, during that time women struggled to have it all and I saw glass ceilings shatter every day in boardrooms, on the Supreme Court, and in Congress. Yet I had never seen a woman pastor before, so I could not conceive of leading a congregation. I did not know that it was an option.  

Voices

Women Ministers (1955-1966) and Margaret Towner

In October, 1955, fifty plus years ago, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A voted in General Assembly to ordain women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. In 1956, the Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery in New York ordained Margaret Towner, the first women clergyman of the denomination. In 1965, the Hanover Presbytery in Virginia ordained Rachel Henderlite the first woman to be so recognized in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. These ordinations marked a climax in the history of Presbyterians among whom the role of women in the church had been growing for well over a century. Lois A. Boyd and R. Douglas Brackenridge* told this story in Presbyterian Women in America, Two Centuries of a Quest for Status (1983) published by the Presbyterian Historical Society.  On the fiftieth anniversary of the extension of this ordination right to women it is appropriate to recall the women's progress in the life of Presbyterians.  

Over the centuries in our male-dominated country, women have been identified and treated in different ways in both society and the church. Early on they were considered mostly "ornamental," as it was put. But males could not do without females. In those early days, a woman named Mary Wollstonecraft published the explosive A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1772), printed in Philadelphia shortly before Americans had adopted a Declaration of Independence in 1776. A Presbyterian woman (turned Unitarian), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, helped write the "Declaration of Sentiments" (1848) based on 1776 male-oriented document. Stanton published The Woman's Bible (1895) in which she and other women celebrated the noted females whose contributions may be found throughout the Scriptures.

In August 1920, Presbyterian President Woodrow Wilson signed into existence the XIX Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting women the right to vote. At the same time women were gaining ground in public matters, they gained ground in ecclesiastical affairs. In the nineteenth century they had started women's organizations apart from males. Women became deeply involved in the support of and participation in educational endeavors such as Sunday Schools, home and foreign mission work. They formed their own societies to further causes that interested them.

Moreover, because of the "unrest" in the churches, the PCUSA granted the right of women to serve as "brother deacons" (as they were called) in 1922-1923, and "brother elders" in 1930. Ruling elder and mission executive, Robert E. Speer, together with Katherine Bennet and Margaret Hodge, played important roles in this movement in the PCUSA, demonstrating a kind of "de facto" equality in the process. Later on Eugene Caron Blake led the movement in the General Assembly to ordain women as ministers of "Word and Sacrament."

Enter Margaret E. Towner. Towner, a New Yorker, left a career as medical photographer at the Mayo Clinic to study education at Syracuse University prior to assuming the call of Christian education at the East Genesee (N.Y.) Church. Towner then pursued the three-year Bachelor of Divinity Degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She believed such training would be helpful to her in Christian Education. And she flourished as Christian Educator in Allentown, Pa.

Voices

Political agenda, threats spoiled realm of marshmallows and ‘Kum Ba Yah’

Special to The Tampa Tribune, used by permission

 

Editor's note: Derek Maul, a Presbyterian free-lance writer who has written for the Presbyterian News Service and Presbyterians Today magazine, wrote this piece shortly after a church camp supported by Peace River and Tampa Bay presbyteries was forced by threats of violence to cancel a leadership event for Muslim youth (see news story on page 6.)  -- Jerry L. Van Marter, coordinator of Presbyterian News Service.

TAMPA, FLA. -- (PNS) My friends run a church camp. You remember church camp? Campfires, marshmallows, best friends, starlit nights. "Kum Ba Yah," holding hands, cookouts, rain every day.

Church camp. You know, the place that's all about people coming together, prayer, hugs, surmounting barriers, spiritual breakthroughs, learning to listen to God. It's about as far away from politics as you can get. Or at least it should be.

Last week my friends had their lives and their children threatened and their patriotism questioned. They had to close the church camp and take their children to a safe place. They had to make other arrangements for a group of -- this is ironic -- international students, visitors from overseas celebrating Christmas and learning about America.

So why did my friends and their guests have to leave in such a hurry? Because their safety and their lives were threatened by Americans who wanted to carry a political agenda into the realm of marshmallows and "Kum Ba Yah."

Book Reviews

Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story

by Timothy B. Tyson. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005. ISBN 1400083117.  Pb., 368 pp., $14.

 

Many words will be spilled over this review of Timothy B. Tyson's autobiography, Blood Done Sign My Name. All of them are intended to encourage you: read it; invite your congregation members to read it; listen deeply to what it says to you, in you, and about you.

Tyson provides one of the most engaging autobiographies this reviewer has read. He integrates his coming of age story into the crime of murder, committed in an apparent spirit of racial supremacy. He challenges us to see more than is comfortable and to admit all that we know but dare not speak.

Tyson's generous personal story, woven with his clear and accessible exposition of complex civil rights history, captivated me. He cleverly negotiates the distance between past and present, between his story and the story and laces it all with theological assertions, challenges, and hope. Tyson avoids the dangers of nostalgia by delving into the messy complexities of racism and our continuing grasp toward, but not of, reconciliation. Chapters are measured with insightful humor and grit, making the recounting of pain caused by the sins inherently consequent given racism in our culture and in our church more palatable.

Movie Reviews

Glory Road

It's 1965. Vietnam was on television, and so was Lyndon Johnson. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the Civil Rights movement, and racism in America was both subtle and overt, particularly in the Deep South. Bouffant hairdos. Motown sound on the radio. And college basketball was a white man's game.

It's not that there weren't some black players. But the ones who toughed out the taunts from the stands had to endure the unwritten expectations of Division One competition: You can play one black at home, two on the road, and three if you're desperately behind. But a whole team of blacks would be undisciplined, would only be capable of the "playground" game, no teamwork, all "showboating."

Don Haskins was a successful high school girls' basketball coach. Sure, he had dreams of coaching a men's program at the college level, and he was amazed when he was offered the position at Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso). He didn't realize they had no recruiting budget, little talent to work with, and few expectations even of itself. He set out to change all that. He wanted to go recruit some good players. So he scoured the playgrounds, not only in Texas, but also in places like Gary, Indiana, and Harlem. He told those black kids that if they followed his program, they would play. And so a dedicated group of seven black players all accepted scholarships. And Haskins (played capably by Josh Lucas) went about trying to shape them into a team.

Movie Reviews

Mrs. Henderson Presents

It's an old story: aging widow is left with lots of money and little to do. She tries needlework, charity work but finds the other old biddies dreary and tiresome. She definitely doesn't want to be like them. She visits the grave of her only son, who died at 21 years of age on some field in France, fighting the Germans. His headstone is in the middle of a neat, crowded row of other headstones, silent, mocking monuments to the "War to end all wars."  

Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) has a car, and driver, furs, an elegant estate, and all of one lady friend. She's sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, and is often construed as rude, selfish, and eccentric. She's also bored to tears. She desperately needs an occupation, and could really use a cause.

One day she happens upon an old, closed-down theater called "The Windmill." It's London, during the Depression. On a whim, she buys it. She then contracts with a local out-of-work but experienced manager, Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins). They like each other because every time they meet, it's a clash of wit and will. It gets the blood pumping for both of them.

Oh, and they hit on a formula that keeps the blood pumping for their patrons. It seems that the Windmill Theater initially enjoyed significant success with the modest innovation of the continuous musical revue. But then, all the other theaters copied them, and they were no longer unique. Sales slumped. Mrs. Henderson quite seriously suggests to Mr. Van Damm that a true innovation would be if their girls were nude. Mr. Van Damm acts shocked, but can't help but be intrigued by the idea. He says the authorities would never allow it. It turns out that Mrs. Henderson knows the particular government administrator, and she wears him down with her bargaining technique, until he finally allows it, but only if the women in question are completely still, like a sculpture in a museum.

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Former moderator discusses Middle East situation, lead up to General Assembly

Editor's Note: Fahed Abu-Akel, former GA moderator, Presbyterian minister, and executive director of the Atlanta Ministry with International Students, was speaking in the Richmond, Virginia area Jan. 6-8. He sat down with Martha Skelton, Outlook associate editor, to answer a few questions. This is part two of a two-part interview. Part 1 appeared in the Jan. 30 Outlook.

 

Q. If you are an Arab Christian in the Middle East what pressure do you feel from the Israeli/Jewish side, and from the Arab/Muslim side?

A. In the Israeli state, Palestinian Christians and Muslims have the right to vote, have the right for movement. The issue is you do not have the same opportunities. The situation in the West Bank is different. In Israel, Muslim or Christian, you are a citizen of the state of Israel. If you are a Palestinian in the West Bank, you are an occupied person. So if you are Christian or Muslim, you do not have the right of movement from your town.

As Presbyterians, historically we have always supported the state of Israel and people need to realize that. And after 1967, the GA always had actions that the Israeli occupation needed to end. At last year's GA, the only three things we added were, 1) The wall that Israel is building in the West Bank is illegal under international law and must stop ... because the wall is built to protect Israeli illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. If you want to build a wall, you build it on your border, you don't build it in the land of other people ... Nobody got angry at the Presbyterians. Second, we said that Christian Zionism is not biblical and not Reformed. Nobody got angry with the Presbyterian Church. A third thing we said: because we have been praying 38 years for the occupation to end, the overture that came from Florida concerning divestment and the divestment issue said we are not going to divest from Israel proper. We are going to divest from American companies that are doing harm in the West Bank. If you take the issue of divestment from occupation, it is meaningless. The Presbyterian Church is not anti-Israel, we are not anti-Semitic, and we are not anti-Jewish. We are anti-occupation. That overture brought our attention to the illegality of occupation . . . (The pastor of the Florida church that sent the overture told me) "Americans will wake up when you talk about the dollar."

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Ex-PC(USA) missionary accepts advisory post in Sudan

(PNS) A former Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionary has been named one of 12 special advisors to the president of the interim government of a united Sudan.

Haruun Ruun, 65, a former executive director of the New Sudan Council of Churches, left mid-January for Khartoum, where he will assume his new post immediately. Ruun was appointed by President Omar al-Bashir.

Voices

Grow people and/or the church?

In his timely article this past June, Cliff Kirkpatrick confronted the statistics of our shrinking membership.  He offered some practical tips to respond effectively, and his emphasis upon outreach is on target.  He points out what we have been neglecting; now let us consider why we have neglected it.

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Is PC(USA) consensus emerging? TF members check report feedback

ATLANTA -- They've faced some tough questions in the presbyteries, but their reception has mostly been welcoming and positive, members of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are saying.

The task force, which began its work more than four years ago, is holding its last meeting Jan. 11-13 in Atlanta. Its 20 members are planning how to present their case when the assembly meets in Birmingham in June, in part through a special event focused on the report that will be held Thursday, June 15, before the assembly convenes.

People have asked them all sorts of things -- whether the task force report, if approved, would mean that more "practicing" gays and lesbians would be ordained or that the PC(USA) would essentially be divided into "red" and "blue" presbyteries.

If the denomination has a national standard which says those being ordained must practice fidelity if they're married or chastity if they're single, how can that not be considered "essential" and something that local governing bodies are required to follow? How can exceptions be granted?

What are the essentials of Reformed faith and practice anyway?

And what the task force wants to say back to the church in part is this:

We haven't proposed a new set of rules that will fix everything in the PC(USA). We can't make the battle over ordaining gays and lesbians magically go away.

But we are asking Presbyterians to consider lifting up a different and more faithful sort of spirit -- as Mark Achtemeier, task force member, put it,--to try to work through the differences in the denomination "loving one another as Christ has loved us."

Uncategorized

Former moderator discusses Middle East situation, lead up to 2006 General Assembly

Editor's Note: Fahed Abu-Akel, former GA moderator, Presbyterian minister, and executive director of the Atlanta Ministry with International Students, was speaking in the Richmond, Virginia area recently. He sat down with Martha Skelton, OUTLOOK associate editor, to answer a few questions.  This is part one of a two part interview.  Part two was published in the Outlook Feb 6 issue.

 

Q. Because Ariel Sharon is no longer expected to be the leader of the nation, what impact do you see that having in relation to Palestinians both those who are Israeli citizens and those in the area of the Palestinian Authority?

A. First, I am praying for the recovery of Ariel Sharon. We need to pray for his family, for the nation during this critical time. As you look at the history of the prime ministers in the state of Israel, you can call it a land of miracles. You never dreamed that Menachem Begin would do peace with Egypt. He is the key founder of the Herut party, an extreme party. ... The next person, Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of the state of Israel, is the one who ordered the Israeli military to break the bones of Palestinian children. The same general ... to oppress the first Intifada stood with Yassir Arafat on the White House lawn and said we need to do peace. And both got the peace prize in Oslo. You go to the next, Sharon, has a mixed history. He was born in Palestine, a fighter from the beginning, fought in every war of the state of Israel, but was also responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut. He was the architect of the Israeli-Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. (He) becomes the prime minister, as an extreme person. (Yet) he is the one who forced eight thousand settlers to get out of Gaza. I have mixed feelings on that situation. One, if he drew out of Gaza, to control the West Bank, it is not going to work. ... Second--only one that will have the power with his military background could say to the Israeli Jewish people that withdrawing from Gaza is best for the Jewish people.

Right now the state of Israel is moving toward two decisions: 1) Continue to occupy the West Bank against the will of the indigenous Palestinian people or withdraw. Israel is facing two questions: Do we continue to be a Jewish state and forget about the dream of Zionism, or become a secular democratic republic. A secular democratic republic means ending the military occupation, having Palestinians have equal rights with the Israeli Jews, and the constitution will be the rule of law. Right now if we take the U.S. Constitution and apply it to the State of Israel, it will blow it to pieces.

 

Editorials

A hearing heart

About a year ago, chest pains and breathing troubles prompted me to see the doctor. The diagnosis proved to be minor and the course of treatment easy. But the diagnostic process was memorable, to say the least.

The family doctor determined to run some tests. He marked a few items on his page-long checklist, placed the clipboard on a door hook, and while walking out, said, "I'll check back with you after the tests." 

A few minutes later the nurse marched me to the x-ray department where the technician took a few photographs.  She took me to another room, where I blew into a clear plastic thing that looked like an inverted saxophone. Then she took me back to the examination room, looked at the checklist, twisted her nose a bit, looked at me, twisted her nose again, shrugged and then asked, "Are your ears feeling plugged?"

"Not really, but maybe a little in my right ear."

She pulled out an otoscope, studied both ear canals, and commented, "Well, I see a little extra wax in your right ear." One warm water ear rinse later, she made a few markings on the chart, placed it back on the door hook, and walked out.

Upon his return the doctor looked at the first chart. "You're x-rays look good.  The lungs are clear." He looked at the next chart. "Your breathing is strong." He looked at the third chart. He twisted his nose a bit, looked at me, twisted his nose again, and then with a most puzzled look, asked, "Did the nurse flush out your ears?"

"Yes, sir."

"She was supposed to give you an EKG, not an ear flush." He looked at the checklist, saw that his mark was a bit off the mark, and said, "I'll send her back in to do the EKG." He shrugged and smiled. "For what it's worth, you just got a free ear flush. Hope it felt good."

A sheepish nurse returned, rolling in an EKG machine. Her embarrassment quickly turned into our shared laughing.

As I left the office my laughing turned reflective. Dumbstruck, I realized that in the spiritual life, plugged ear canals cause sick hearts.

What hardened the heart of Pharaoh? What hardened the hearts of Israel's enemies, and at times the hearts of the Israelites themselves? What hardened the hearts of Jesus' detractors? One simple answer: their hard-hearts grew out of their deaf ears. Referring to that history, three times the book of Hebrews warns believers, Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the day of rebellion.

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Kirkpatrick leads Reformed group in Vatican reconciliation talks

GENEVA -- Pope Benedict XVI said dialogue with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) is healing "tragic divisions" between Christians dating from the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. The Pope spoke on Jan. 7 after a meeting with a delegation of the alliance led by its president, Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

"I pray that our meeting will itself bear fruit in a renewed commitment to work for the unity of all Christians," said Benedict, who said after his election in April that promoting Christian unity would be his "primary task."

WARC has more than 200 Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed and United churches that trace their origins to the Reformation.

Kirkpatrick said after his meeting with the Pope that he hopes recent steps toward unity are the first of many.

"There is still much to be done to move beyond our past condemnations of one another, to truly respect one another as parts of the one body of Jesus Christ, serve God together without worrying about inhibitions in our nations and to come together at the table of our Lord," he said.

Kirkpatrick also urged joint action on social-justice issues.

"We are eager ... to pursue with you how Catholic and Reformed Christians might be partners together for God's justice in a world wracked by poverty, war, ecological destruction, and the denial of human freedom," he said.

Pope Benedict hailed the Catholic-Reformed dialogue, saying that it has "made an important contribution to the demanding work of theological reflection and historical investigation indispensable for surmounting the tragic divisions which arose among Christians in the sixteenth century."

Voices

Is the Presbyterian Church (USA) Anti-Semitic?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has received intense criticism since July of 2004 when it passed a resolution calling for "phased selective divestment" from companies that are profiting from the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in Israel/Palestine. Most of this criticism has accused the church of being anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is a problem throughout the United States and throughout the world, so the question of whether the PC(USA) is contributing to such an evil needs to be taken seriously. Yet some of the harshest criticism has come not from outside the church but from within it.

One Presbyterian minister who has been outspoken about the PC(USA)'s actions wrote what many other pastors have expressed from their pulpits, "We are profoundly disturbed by our leaders and by the delegates who favored these anti-Israel, anti-Semitic actions." (https://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0 /module/displaystory/story_id/23583/edition_id/468/format/html/displaystory.html ) In an e-mail correspondence, one pastor went so far as to say, "The Presbyterian church must come to terms with the fact that it is an unrepentant denomination of anti-Semitism and hubris in its pronouncements." Ouch.

Yet even if most critics within the church aren't willing to go as far as this pastor, many more are concerned that while the church may be well intentioned, our actions may yet be perceived to be anti-Semitic. Those of us who are involved in Jewish-Presbyterian dialogs find this criticism puts us in a bit of a pickle because, while we are attempting to accurately represent the church's position, such criticism certainly lends credence to the expressed concerns of our Jewish partners. So the question that begs to be addressed is what might it mean for the PC(USA) or the actions of the church to be anti-Semitic?

Book Reviews

Back through the wardrobe: A Review Essay

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis.  New York: HarperTrophy, 2000. ISBN 0064409422. Pb., 208 pp., $8.99.

C. S. Lewis: Letters to Children, edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985.

 

This season's opening of the film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" has taken many of us back through the wardrobe into Narnia. My hope is that the new travelers have not only the film trip, but also the wonderfully imaginative one through the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which was the first of the seven books in the Narnia chronicles by C. S. Lewis.

Some wonder at the staying power of Lewis. He was a scholar, a medievalist, and professor of literature at both Oxford and Cambridge, and for some years an agnostic. His path to faith sets him as a premier example of one who reasoned his way to the brink of faith. One cannot reason all the way. He said the final step was like diving off the high diving board for the first time.

Lewis' writings ranged beyond excellent works in his professional field to the publication of his World War II radio talks -- now available as Mere Christianity. Countless Christians found their first doorway into faith through that book. Beyond these moving apologetic pieces (never out of print), he published novels and science fiction.

Of prime importance to us is the series of the Narnia Chronicles. Here the children wander through a wonderful wardrobe into the land of Narnia, where it is always winter but never Christmas. The White Witch rules and her kingdom is defeated only by the quite remarkable lion, Aslan (pronounced by Lewis Ass-lan).  Many have seen in Aslan a Christ figure. He suffers ("velveting his paws," emptying himself of his power) and lays down his life for others. He comes bouncing back to life and breathes life into countless elves, dwarves, and animals that have been turned to stone by the White Witch. One of the children (Edmund) is a Judas figure, a sneak and a traitor. The fearful children (like the disciples) join the risen Aslan to do battle against evil.

Some ask whether we have "read in" our Christian theology here. Did Lewis intend to tell the Jesus story? In this essay I share Lewis' own words in the revealing book C. S. Lewis: Letters to Children. We do not have the children's letters, but to our great pleasure we have C. S. Lewis responding to them.

A child asked in 1953 about Aslan's other name (is he Jesus?). Lewis responds: "Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else's fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb (see the end of the Dawn Treader). Don't you really know His name in this world?" (p. 32)

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GAC downsizing proposed; vote at Feb. 7-11 meeting

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council would be skinnier, trimmed down from the current 71 members to 47.

The budget for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) would be organized around eight priority goals -- which means existing programs will have to make a case for how they fit in to one of those priorities, if they are to survive.

And the denomination's budget will be less in 2007 and 2008 than it has been for the current biennium. The PC(USA)'s budget now stands at just over $116 million.

It's "too early to say" what level of budget cuts might be announced this spring or how many jobs might be lost, said Joey Bailey, the denomination's chief financial officer. But "we absolutely will have less money to spend in '07 and '08 than we had in '05 and '06."

John Detterick, the council's executive director, put it this way: "We do know that there will be a major reduction in funding for the next biennium." 

When it meets Feb. 7-11 in Louisville, the General Assembly Council will vote on the gist of these proposals -- which are the results of the work of two council task forces that have been meeting to consider how the denomination can do its work more efficiently and more in line with the realities of mainline denominations in the 21st century.

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Half of Americans report life-transforming experiences; their stories encouraged

Telling stories.

Powerful, personal, "God at work in the messy real world" stories.

In the buttoned-down, orderly Presbyterian world, that doesn't always happen.

But a new survey indicates that many believers have stories to tell about how God or things they can't explain have transformed their lives. And in some places -- in books, in churches, on the Internet -- Presbyterians have begun to tell their own stories of faith, stories of doubt and searching and power and peace.

Author Anne Lamott, a Presbyterian from California, in 2005 released the best-selling book "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith," which is studded with stories of everyday life, of struggle and joy and a hard-won faith in God.

Preachers often weave stories into their sermons -- sometimes recycling anecdotes that have made the rounds, but other times drawing from their own encounters with ordinary people searching for meaning.

And some Presbyterian congregations have encouraged people in the pews to share their own faith stories -- stories which make it clear that for many folks the walk of faith comes complete with detours, dead-ends and surprising, joyous discoveries

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