It has been just over 50 years since Henry Sloane Coffin died. This milestone offers an occasion to take the measure of this noted pastor, educator, and ecumenist.
Coffin was born into a prominent New York City family, the son of a lawyer and a Scottish mother. He learned the Westminster Shorter Catechism when a youngster and developed a deep respect for the ministry at home and at the Fifth Avenue Church where the family worshipped.
by Francis Taylor Gench, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2004).
In this recent book by the author of Hebrews and James in the Westminster Bible Companion series, Francis Taylor Gench provides a sparkling discussion of six gospel encounters between women and Jesus. This book offers fresh readings of familiar stories by allowing a range of scholarly voices, especially feminist voices, to raise key questions and new perspectives about the meaning of the narratives in their ancient and contemporary settings.
The book begins with Matthew's story of the Canaanite woman (or the Syro-Phoenician woman, as Mark refers to her) and Jesus. This story is notable for being the only one in the gospels in which Jesus, who is portrayed in an unflattering light, receives instruction rather than gives it! Gench notes the persistence and ingenuity inherent in Matthew's presentation of the woman who changed Jesus' mind regarding his mission to the Gentiles.
Yes, it's the Crusades, and the Church can't help but come off badly: you'll save your immortal soul if you'll go kill some infidels?
But for those who love the Church, it's worse than that: early on, the parish priest goes to the blacksmith's shop to assure the young recent widower that his wife is surely in Hell because she committed suicide (after the death of her baby). Not only that, the "helpful" priest reminds the grieving blacksmith that his wife's head was severed prior to burial, so she's in Hell headless, as well. This gruesome representative of the Church doesn't promise the young blacksmith that going on the Crusade will deliver his wife from Hell, but does try the "save your own soul" appeal. We hardly want to blame the enraged blacksmith for applying his rage to the incredibly insensitive priest.
British humor: an ordinary bloke gets to tour the galaxies with hyperspace intergalactic travel, and all he can think about is that he can't get a good cup of tea anywhere.
Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) wakes up one morning in his ramshackle house in the country, only to discover that the wrecking crew has arrived to level his modest home, because they're going to build a bypass there. He lies in front of a bulldozer in his bathrobe to protest. The construction supervisor tells him that it's a useless gesture, because the decision's already been made. In the meantime, his friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) scurries toward him, anxious to get him to the nearest pub to drink a couple of quick pints before the world ends. Yes, Mr. Prefect, it turns out, is an alien, and he's planning to beam up to the spaceship via his thumb ring before the world explodes. You see, the planet Earth, also, has been scheduled for demolition in order to make way for a highway in space.
New research shows 50 percent more megachurches in the United States than previously thought.
Initial analysis of a cooperative project to survey all megachurches in the United States by Scott Thumma of Hartford (Conn.) Seminary's Hartford Institute for Religion Research, and Dave Travis and Warren Bird of Leadership Network, uncovered at least 1,200 Protestant churches that claim more than 2,000 weekly worship attendees.
The latest project of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship suggests it's as important to give as to receive.
After receiving renewed funding from Indiana-based Lilly Endowment Inc., the Institute has announced its 2005 recipients of Worship Renewal Grants. It is awarding almost $700,000 to 54 churches and organizations, using the support of its Lilly Endowment grant to give funds to congregations and other Christian organizations for projects they design to enrich and transform worship.
The 2005 graduates of seminaries affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held a variety of events in spring 2005 related to honoring students and awarding degrees. These included:
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Commencement exercise was held at University Church, Austin, Texas, on Sunday, May 22 at 2:30 p.m. The Reverend Dr. David G. McKechnie gave the commencement address. He is pastor of Grace Church in Houston, Texas, an Austin Seminary trustee and former candidate for moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 216th General Assembly.
I've always been suspicious of dividing things in two. Some of my earliest memories are of wanting the whole thing, but being told that my older brother and I had to divide it up. Cake. Candy bars. That last hamburger, sitting on the grill, begging to be eaten. Even Kleenex. Kleenex? Yes, we used them a half tissue at a time. After all, I was raised by the generation that sacrificed through the Great Depression. I would insist on the whole thing. Then I'd hear those dreaded words: "Boys, you're going to have to divide it in two!"
My childhood selfishness aside, church life in the early 21st century is regrettably full of false dichotomies. And at San Francisco Theological Seminary, we are learning to resist and reject false choices that would require us to embrace only one side of a complex reality. Instead, our goal is to put our arms around the whole big mess that is life in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Liberal or conservative? Yes! We are all both, albeit in different ways and on different subjects. Small church or large church? Yes! God's purposes for service to the world require both, and everything in between. Traditional or contemporary? Yes! Faithfulness requires the best of both. Reformed or ecumenical? Yes! Each requires the other. Theoretical, spiritual, or practical? Yes! Pastoral preparation cannot be comprehensive without all three aspects of formation for ministry, and others as well.
PNS) Five more Presbyterians have been commissioned by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Colombia Network to accompany Colombian church, union and displaced leaders who are threatened by death squads for their work in human rights.
At its May 9-11 meeting in Chicago, the network set eight different goals for its work, some intended to directly assist churches in Colombia, others targeting U.S. corporations for study. Jo Ella Holman, WMD's liaison to the network, led a group discussion about reported abusive labor practices.
Continuing accompaniment -- and stepped-up recruitment -- were high on the agenda, as well as debate about how to address labor practices in Coca- Cola's bottling facilities in Colombia, where some union organizers reportedly have been intimidated or killed. Sixteen U.S. Christians have completed accompaniment training so far, and a third training program is planned in Washington, DC, in mid-July.
RNS) Pope Benedict XVI said May 12 that living through the "devastating and inhuman ideologies" of Nazism and communism in his native Germany has made him "particularly sensitive" to the need to seek peace through dialogue.
Benedict made the unusually personal statement in his first address on international relations since his election as pope April 19. He spoke in French at an audience for diplomats accredited to the Vatican.
The address was relatively brief, little more than a page long, but it contained a warm invitation to China, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia to enter into diplomatic relations with the Vatican.
The theological reflection group, in Albany presbytery in upstate New York, has been meeting for several years now -- formed in part out of a sense of dissatisfaction among both conservatives and liberals about the history of conflict and confrontation in the presbytery and more broadly in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
It's called, on paper, the Albany Invitation, but is basically known as the "Bialy group". "We're named for a bagel," said Bill Hoffmann, who's pastor of the East and West Hebron churches and is moderator of Albany presbytery. That's because Barbara Wheeler, the president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and a member of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA), brings bagels from Bialy's in the city for each meeting.
The Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is set to make its final report in September, and to some folks, that report will tell all -- whatever the task force recommends is what they will weigh as its contribution.
But others in the church are taking a different path. They want to know what the task force will say, of course, but they're also involved in their own communities in trying to model the kind of conversation across theological lines that the task force represents. For some of those people, that will be part of the task force's legacy too -- the example it has set for the broader church of bringing together Presbyterians who might vote against each other on some of the most contentious issues, but who through listening and prayer and hard work have come to understand and respect one another.
It loses some of its force because it is fictional. But it could be about any number of countries in Africa that are all too non-fiction: genocides, ethnic cleansing, brutal slayings, mass graves, thousands of victims, thousands of refugees, thousands of the disinherited and dispossessed, thousands of expatriates yearning to go home, except home will never be the same.
Any movie that begins with an execution by children is going to be sobering throughout. "The Interpreter" is a serious film intended to be taken seriously.
What is your presbytery, session, or congregation doing to prepare for September 15? That day is not on any ecclesiastical calendar. Many congregations are in "start-up" mode after summer vacation. Christian Education and Stewardship dominate the attention of the local church.
However, as far as the PC(USA) is concerned, this is the day the Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity will release its report for consideration, discernment, and conversation. This early release date affords the church in sessions, presbyteries, and church school classes ample time for open, free discussion before the 217th General Assembly meeting in June, 2006, in Birmingham, Ala. That assembly will be asked to act on its recommendations.
Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, by Thomas G. Long. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004. ISBN 0-7879-6832-3.
The writer of 1 Peter encouraged followers of Jesus to be prepared always to account for the hope that is in them (1 Peter 3:15-16). Perhaps this accounts for the fear that is within us.
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
ISBN 978-0-374-15389-2. 247 pages. $23.00.
Gilead, the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is a quiet book. The rhythm is slow, the thought deep, the language reserved, and the action understated. A reader looking for lurid sex, violence, or dramatic action scenes, will be disappointed.
As the PCUSA Theological Task Force (TTF) on Peace, Unity, and Purity prepares its final report (to be distributed in September), we in the Presbytery of the James have made concerted efforts to be in conversation with each other regarding their work. We formed four theological reflection groups (and are in the process of starting four more), each of which represented a broad theological spectrum.
“I am newly ordained yet already pessimistic about the future of this denomination. I am 30 years old and already tired by the same old arguments and voting trends. I am a Presbyterian who is ashamed that outsiders best know our denomination because of intense bickering rather than our proclamation of the gospel.
“I am not naïve enough to believe that simply talking to one another will smooth the splinters of our denomination. Yet I have confidence that the church of Jesus Christ still belongs to God—and not to a “group” or a “side” or a “network.” And I believe it is our job as leaders in the church to take the time to listen to where God might be leading us.”
"We hope to keep discovering who Jesus is calling us to be as we meet together in the same denomination – and we intend to keep learning, and growing in faith by God’s grace. We will meet again next year and continue our dialogue. We encourage you to do the same."
In a world of suicide bombings, text messaging and living wills, Christian education is complicated stuff.
The kindergarteners and some of the adults need to learn the basics. In many Presbyterian congregations, new member classes are full of former Baptists and Catholics and Methodists and people who haven't gone to any church in many, many years.
Many congregations want a Sunday school curriculum that's straightforward and easy to use. They have to choose between material produced by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and what's available from other sources -- on the Internet and in catalogs and Christian bookstores. Some have trained Christian educators; others rely on volunteers and a gut instinct for what will work.
The debate in the United States Senate over the "nuclear option" and the filibuster rule, whose centerfold is a Presbyterian from Nashville, Tenn., reminds me of the destructive experience of majoritarian rule that bedevils the amendment process for the Book of Order. One of the benevolent consequences of biennial assemblies is that we will be required to vote on those tedious changes less frequently.
Some of us remember when it took two-thirds of the presbyteries to change the constitution. The amendments that came forward for action had much greater depth and substance. Now we have a book that, except for the theological principles of governance, deserves (and I suspect receives) little respect. That is why in officer training we spend most of our time on the basics, especially Chapters I -- VII, X, and only those parts of XIV that apply to the election, examination, and ordination of officers.
When we ask who has the final authority to direct the Christian Education program in a Presbyterian church the answer is straightforward and simple. The session, as the ruling body of the congregation, has the responsibility to develop the church school and the educational program in each congregation (G-10.0102 f; W-6.2005).
In an era when there are more than 150 different publishers and distributors of children’s curricula alone, finding the resources that are best for your congregation can be challenging. The following four-step process, however, will help you make an informed decision and provide your teachers with good materials to support their ministries of faith formation.
Like other areas of the church’s life in the post-modern era, Adult Education faces a number of challenges and opportunities. Gone are the days when the majority of adults attended highly organized Sunday morning Church Schools centered on denominationally produced curriculum.
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