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Center for Church Leadership planned at Hanover College

To more completely address the vocational needs of students and the vocational and leadership needs of regional churches and denominations, Hanover (Ind.) College launched the Center for Church Leadership (CCL) Jan. 1. A $500,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment, matched by the institution's resources, created the CCL, allowing the college to build on the success of its vocational mentoring program.

"Through this new Center we will serve the college's historical Presbyterian constituencies and tradition in meaningful and valuable ways," said Jane Jakoubek, Ph.D., vice president and dean of academic affairs. Under the direction of Michelle Bartel, Hanover College chaplain and associate professor of theological studies, the CCL will develop collaborative programs that provide opportunities for students, clergy and laity in congregations in and around Indiana. The Center will recruit and engage more students who wish to enter Hanover's pre-ministry program, students who will graduate to serve the church as ordained or lay leaders. At the same time, it will serve the needs of individuals and the church by strengthening relationships with those who recognize the value of producing leaders educated in the liberal arts.

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College class on U2 explores religious influence of a rock band

Dwarfed by a giant bank of TV monitors, the rock star Bono gyrates across the arena stage -- a dancing shaman channeling the ecstasy of thousands of U2 fans. "In waves of regret, in waves of joy, I reached for the one I tried to destroy," he sings passionately. "You said you'd wait till the end of the world."

Hands reach out to him as he walks among the faithful. Video clips show tidal waves crashing, lightning flashing and a woman wailing.

The soundtrack to apocalypse? No, it's a splice of a TV special about a U2 tour of the early 1990s. It's also a sign of increased interest in the spiritual significance of this immensely popular Irish rock group.

The images are taken in by a class of Calvin College students, who are probing what Bono and his band have to say as Christians to the world of pop culture.

Plenty, Sharon Bemis says.

"You hear U2 everywhere," said Bemis, one of 14 students gathered in a Calvin video theater on a recent morning. "They have so much more influence as Christians than most other people who claim to be Christian."

Tim Gruppen calls them "brutally honest."

"They say a lot of things many Christians would be ashamed to 'fess up' to, some of the struggles they have," Gruppen argues.

But why a class on U2, one of the world's most adored rock bands, at a conservative Christian college? "Religion and rock 'n' roll can meld together," insists Katie Arbogast. "U2 does the best job of it."

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Animated characters provide modern-day parables of morality and immorality

 

When he was growing up, Mike Mignola had two great loves -- monster movies and superheroes. So when Dark Horse Comics offered him the chance to write and illustrate his own comic book, Mignola decided to combine the two.

The result is "Hellboy," a wisecracking, good-hearted, old-fashioned superhero with one small problem: He's a red-skinned, cloven-hoofed demon summoned by the Nazis to bring about the end of the world. When the Nazis' plans are foiled, the then-infant Hellboy is taken in and raised by human beings. He forsakes his demon heritage and pledges to fight for good.

But can he really escape his destiny? Mignola, who has been writing Hellboy comics since 1993, isn't sure. "It's the ultimate question of predestination versus free will," said Mignola from his home in New York City.

Mignola has discovered one of the untold secrets of the comic book world -- it's the characters, not the costumes and secret identities -- that matter most. From Superman to the recent Pixar film "The Incredibles," comics have served as social parables, with superhuman characters revealing insights about the human condition.

In "The Incredibles," superheroes are forced into hiding when public opinion turns against them. Mr. Incredible turns in his costume and "Incredible-mobile" for a Yugo-sized commuter car and a desk job at an insurance company. But he can't give up the desire to save people, no matter what it costs his family.

"It's not about super powers," says H. Michael Brewer, lifelong comics fan and author of "Who Needs a Superhero?", a book about "finding virtue, vice and what's holy" in comics. "It's about finding your place in the world and, dare I say, family values."

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Churches embrace `New Urbanism’ as antidote to Isolation

Eric Jacobsen speaks passionately about things like sidewalks and storefronts. But he's not an architect or developer. He's a Presbyterian pastor.

As Jacobsen sees it, city planning has an important influence on religious experience. He is an advocate for New Urbanism, the architecture movement that calls for interdependence among residents, with neighborhoods where shops and homes coexist, streets that are pedestrian-friendly and parks that are gathering places for residents.

New Urbanism has become a mantra for people interested in restoring urban centers and reconfiguring suburban sprawl. Its designs have sprouted across the country, from new towns like Seaside, Fla., to redevelopment in existing places like Gaithersburg, Md., or West Palm Beach, Fla. The Congress for the New Urbanism started small 12 years ago and now has more than 2,300 architects, developers, planners and urban designers.

Now Christian leaders are adopting the movement. They say the philosophy behind New Urbanism is a possible antidote to the isolation experienced by many churches and Christians. Across the country, influential Christians are thinking theologically about urban design and applying its principles to the church. They advocate for New Urbanist concepts because they force people to share with one another, dwell among their neighbors and allow for a healthy exchange of ideas.

Voices

How to select the right VBS program for your congregation

The annual summer tradition of Christian education called Vacation Bible School or Vacation Church School began at the end of the 19th century with a clear vision and mission. An enterprising Baptist laywoman, whose idea was to get children off the streets in New York City and teach them something about the Bible, rented a beer hall on the East Side of the city and held her Bible School. The entire summer for the next two years was filled with activities, Bible Stories, memory verses, and snacks. According to my research, her venture was very successful for those years. Then her pastor insisted the program be moved into the church building. This was done for several weeks but participation dropped so drastically that the program was moved back to the beer hall, where it continued as an example of a church reaching out into the community to share its faith.

What began as a social program to get children off the streets has grown in many denominations to be a primary educational/evangelistic summer endeavor that takes many forms.

People often make the mistake of thinking all that is involved in planning Vacation Bible School is going to your local Christian bookstore, buying packets of material, recruiting a few leaders with the famous words "there won't be anything to it," putting up posters, waiting for the beginning date to roll around and anticipating the arrival of the kids. That buy-the-resource approach misses an important first step. The CE Committee, the Educator, and others concerned about the overall educational ministry in a congregation need to answer a few questions.

Editorials

Children of the covenant?

"I want to transfer to the Presbyterian Church because in this denomination children matter." I don't remember the name of the speaker. It has been 20 years or so. But his words left their imprint.

We were proceeding through routine approvals of minister transfers in a stated presbytery meeting. Interest picked up when this longtime military chaplain, a Baptist, shared how his journey of faith had led him to the Reformed theological camp. "In my former tradition, we dedicated infants and educated children in the hope that they someday would profess faith in Jesus Christ. Upon their profession, they would get baptized and thereby be welcomed into the body of Christ. In the Reformed tradition you all baptize them into the body and educate them into personal faith. I think that's the right sequence."

As a fairly recent convert to Presbyterianism at the time, I found his words reassuring, especially so, since the one theological sticking point for me had been the practice of infant baptism. Exercising my office under the Presbyterian Church's constitution, I had learned well how to present to parents the covenantal concept of baptism, rooted as it is in the practice of infant circumcision dating to the eighth day of Isaac's life. But I still harbored some doubts about such a practice. This chaplain helped convert me into a passionate advocate of our denomination's sacramental theology.

Voices

2006 Vacation Bible School Overview

It is Vacation Bible School planning time in many churches. This year's curricula from the following publishers are included:

Augsburg Publishing

Cokesbury

Concordia

Congregational Ministries

Cook Communications

Group Publishing

Standard Publishing

 

Voices

Repelling insult

Editor's Note: This guest viewpoint is a critique of stories and an editorial in the Outlook relating to torture. It originally appeared on Presbynet and is used by permission.

 

As I read the allegations and accusations of torture and abuse posted by Jack Haberer, editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, Princeton Seminary professor George Hunsinger, and the Moderator of General Assembly Rick Ufford-Chase, I felt weary; a weariness born of reading the same tired arguments repeated endlessly.

Jack Haberer, in "Clichés and truisms," an editorial appearing in The Presbyterian Outlook, first asks if the United States of America as the world's "lone superpower" has "sufficient character and courage to contain the corrosive effects of unchecked power in this new world"? He then lauds the US for "withdrawing" after the completion of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. This, according to Haberer, encouraged "the hope of other nations that we would not over-assert our power."

Mr. Haberer should be aware that the objective of Operation Desert Shield/Storm was to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait, not remove the regime of Saddam Hussein. Effecting regime change subsequently became US policy during the Clinton administration. Furthermore, while the bulk of US ground, air and sea forces were re-deployed, a significant US and Allied presence remained in the Persian Gulf to maintain the "no fly zones" and deter any further aggression by Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, after 1992, the Clinton administration increased the military's operational tempo by 300-percent with humanitarian and peacekeeping missions to Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans and Rwanda while maintaining an active presence in Europe and South Korea as well as the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1990s, on any given day, US Army forces were deployed in approximately seventy countries world-wide accomplishing missions as varied as keeping Serbians from murdering Muslim Albanian Kosovars, removing landmines and other explosives from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and helping the Vietnamese identify their missing-in-action from nearly thirty years of war between 1946 and 1975.

Voices

Torture is terrorism

Editor's Note: This guest viewpoint is a response to Earl H. Tilford Jr. (printed this issue) and Dean Waldt, who had written a critique of stories and an editorial in the Outlook relating to torture. These materials were written before two meetings on torture in mid-January. This story originally appeared on Presbynet and is used by permission.

Outlook Article Links:

     "Clichés and truisms,"  editorial by Jack Haberer
     "Why the torture abuse scandal matters" by George Hunsinger
     "No2 Torture" by Rick Ufford-Chase
 

"Americans have tortured prisoners in several locations around the world, the U.S. government has moved prisoners to countries where torture is practiced by American allies, the Bush administration has at times sought to justify torture, and all of this is the tragic fruit from a war that violates traditional Christian "Just War" doctrine. Presbyterians and all people of faith need to be concerned and actively working to change our governmental policies."

The recent Presbyweb writings of Earl H. Tilford Jr. and Dean Waldt, and the notes by their supporters, have been very critical of some church leaders who are concerned about torture being done by Americans. The thoughtful leaders being attacked include the popular PC(USA) General Assembly moderator, the new evangelical editor of the independent The Presbyterian Outlook magazine, and a professor of theology at Princeton Seminary.

Dean Waldt is critical of the GA moderator's concern about torture and asks, "Where is this clear and compelling evidence? I've been reading the newspapers and watching cable news along with everyone else. How did I miss this?"

Today's news (December 30) is that "the number of Guantánamo Bay prisoners taking part in a hunger strike that began nearly five months ago has surged to 84 since Christmas Day, the U.S. military said on Thursday. ... The detainees began the strike in early August after the military reneged on promises to bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions, their lawyers said. Detainees are willing to starve to death to demand humane treatment and a fair hearing on whether they must stay, the lawyers said."

The New York Times had previously reported that "The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion ''tantamount to torture'' on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba."

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Lilly awards $6 million grant to FTE for vocations initiative

With a $6 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., The Fund for Theological Education (FTE) will expand its work with congregations nationwide as vital partners in identifying and cultivating gifted young candidates for vocations in Christian ministry.

The Endowment grant will fund "Calling Congregations," a regional FTE initiative involving local churches in grassroots programs to find and support the next generation of outstanding pastoral leaders for Christian denominations. 

"We know that congregations are critical to the faith maturation and vocational discernment of young men and women," said Craig Dykstra, senior vice president for religion at Lilly Endowment Inc. "This grant is an investment in engaging congregations more deeply in this work. Given FTE's broad expertise, we are confident this can make a significant contribution to developing future leaders for the church."

Concerns about the need for professional clergy in mainline religious denominations have been growing for some time, as large numbers of "baby boomer" pastors prepare to retire and local congregations seek qualified young ministerial candidates. Statistics by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate clergy vacancies rank among the highest for professions requiring an advanced degree, with many denominations reporting significantly lower numbers of clergy under age 35. 

FTE's program will establish a national network of 500 congregations and church-related institutions from four regions across the U.S. by 2009. These congregations will be members of an ecumenical partnership committed to supporting vocational discernment among their young church members, and the consideration of ordained ministry in particular. At least one-third of the member congregations will be from racially and ethnically diverse and rural communities.

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Local “hearts and hands” crucial to PC(USA) funding campaign

For some, the question they'd most like to ask about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s big fundraising campaign is: Is it working? Will they reach the $40 million goal?

But another question that seems to be growing organically from the campaign itself is: What's being learned? What is this campaign teaching folks about how Presbyterians think?

Because in the two and a half years since The Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign started, it's seen a few extreme makeovers. What started as a "deep pockets" fundraising effort, targeting wealthy Presbyterians with the ability to make substantial gifts, has shifted to a much more diversified approach, with considerable involvement from presbyteries and individual congregations.

Jan Opdyke, the campaign's director, asked what's changed since the campaign's beginning, told a group of Presbyterian communicators that it's gone "about 180 degrees in the opposite direction" of where it started.

But she added that, about halfway through the five-year effort, more than half the $40 million has been pledged -- about three-fourths of it through partnerships with presbyteries. As of September 30, the campaign had reported more than $22.5 million in pledges, and had collected more than $1.3 million of them, with some of that money already being used to put mission co-workers out in the field

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Former missionaries trigger giving challenge

George and Jan Beran, former Presbyterian missionaries now in their 70s and living in Ames, Iowa, have challenged other Presbyterians from Iowa to come up with $250,000 for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)'s Joining Hearts & Hands fundraising campaign. The money would be used to send two mission co-workers or a family to the Democratic Republic of Congo for three years to do agricultural work.

To kick things off, the Berans have pledged the proceeds from selling a duplex they bought 25 years ago as a rental property.

From their own time overseas, teaching as missionaries in the Philippines and later as Fulbright professors in Nigeria, the Berans have seen firsthand the impact of Presbyterian mission work.

They also know what grassroots believers can do. Close to 30 years ago, their adult Sunday school class at Northminster Church in Ames was studying world hunger. Members raised money to support mission work in Kenya and Tanzania -- underwriting projects that helped farmers learn to improve their crop yields, to store food and produce drinkable water.

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Elizabeth Walker to teach pastoral care and counseling at LPTS

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson Walker will join the faculty of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in June as Associate Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling. She currently is a professional counselor with the Georgia Association for Pastoral Counseling in Decatur, Ga., and an adjunct professor in the area of Persons, Society & Culture at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in religion and philosophy from Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., and the Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. She earned her doctorate in theology from Gammon Theological Seminary and the ITC, where she completed her dissertation on "A Model of Pastoral Counseling with African American Women." Her clinical training was received at the Georgia Association of Pastoral Care in Atlanta. She is a licensed marriage and family counselor (LMFT), a Member Associate of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), a Clinical Member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), and a member of the Society for Pastoral Theology.

Editorials

Desegregation or re-segregation?

Show me a major city that has a significant African-American population, and I'll show you a school called "Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (or Middle or High) School." Its students will be nearly, or 100 percent, African-American. Wasn't MLK promoting racial integration?

Show me a denomination that has spoken prophetically against race hatred, against apartheid, against segregation, and against all kinds of social injustice, and I'll show you any one of thousands of Presbyterian churches, where nearly 100 percent of each congregation's members come from the same race. Aren't we promoting racial integration?

In his recently released book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, author and educator Jonathan Kozol says that America has gone from desegregation to re-segregation. Walls set up by the power of the law came down only to be replaced by walls set up by social and economic class distinctions. Result: Our schools are more segregated in 2005 than at any time since 1968. 

The Presbyterian Church has taken some baby steps toward greater racial diversity, in pursuit of a goal to have 10 percent of our members come from non-western European races by 2010. But the operative term here remains "baby steps." We have much further to go.

Why should we care?

Voices

Palestinian Christians suffer, die in PA territory

These are acutely trying times for the Christian remnant residing in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority. Tens of thousands have abandoned their holy sites and ancestral properties to move abroad, while those who remain do so as a beleaguered and dwindling minority. Christians, who used to comprise the vast majority of the residents in the Bethlehem area, will fall past a critical point -- and their community will no longer be viable.

Palestinian Christian leaders who should be protecting their co-religionists are instead abandoning them to the forces of radical Islam. Muslim religious law (Sharia) is an enormous influence on the inner workings of the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, the Palestinian Constitution states, "the Sharia will be the paramount source of legislation." By granting Islamic law primacy over every other legal source, including international human rights conventions, the minorities living in the Palestinian Authority are denied proper redress via the courts.

In fact, the Christians have little protection at all from any source, and have faced virtually uninterrupted persecution during the decade since the Oslo peace process began. They live amid a dominant (greater than 98 percent) Muslim population that is increasingly agitated and xenophobic. Intimidation is directed at Christians who dare question the political, economic and social agenda of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups.

Book Reviews

Recent books on spirituality and devotional reading

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, by Parker J. Palmer. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004. ISBN 0-7879-7100-6. Hb., 192 pp. $22.95.

Drawing attention to the divided nature of our lives (the "blizzard" that assaults us without and within), Palmer seeks a means by which we might live as more whole persons, "undivided" in the relationships in which we seek to live and serve. Palmer offers no quick fixes, but calls for his readers to create safe spaces to nurture the soul in community; his hope is that such undivided lives will enable us to live non-violently in the world.

 

A Table of Delight: Feasting with God in the Wilderness, by Elizabeth J. Canham. Nashville: Upper Room Books. 2005. ISBN 0-8358-9804-0. Pb., 132 pp. $12.

Canham invites readers to find God at work in wilderness experiences--both the chosen wildernesses of retreat, and the un-chosen wildernesses of barren times of life. She shares with the reader ways that the wilderness can be a place of prayer where God is at work.

Voices

It’s not about you: Ministerial meekness and a sense of proportion

During my student days, an elderly Pentecostal pastor came to address us one day in Chapel. He told the story of an occasion in his ministry when, after he preached a sermon challenging all present to dedicate their lives to Christian service, people streamed forward to offer themselves to serve the Lord. As they prayed, the "glory fell" on them, and the whole throng was "lost in wonder, love and praise," to borrow a phrase from Charles Wesley.

The preacher was quite pleased to see this obvious evidence of God's blessing on his ministry, when abruptly, he said, the Holy Spirit caught him short: "I'm blessing these people not because of what you said, but in order to help them forget what you said."

Some years later I was pastor of a congregation that included an elder who had a stock line for me most Sundays as I greeted the people departing the sanctuary: "That was a great sermon this morning! I don't remember a thing you said, but it made me feel good." It was good medicine for me to be reminded that in the grand scheme of things, who I am and what I have to say aren't all that important after all. I was discovering the truth of Eugene Peterson's and Marva Dawn's marvelous book title, The Unnecessary Pastor.

It is vital that we, as God's servants, neither take our vocation too lightly, nor our ministry too seriously. God will get done what God purposes to get done -- whether we are part of the program or not. God calls pastors to play an active, particular role in the grand drama of the Kingdom of Heaven breaking into this world. Ultimately, however, our ministry and the Gospel cause we serve do not rise or fall on whether we get it exactly right -- on whether we work long hours, on the level of our pastoral and management skills, or for sure on how "spiritual" we are.

Voices

Asking a blessing for my father

My father died November 7. He was 90 years old, almost 91, and had served as an ordained minister for 64 years, all in Texas. After graduating from seminary, he was called to a congregation in Eliasville, a windblown West Texas town barely on the map these days. Most of his ministry, however, took place in the growing suburbs of Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Houston. In the 1950's he wrote a book entitled Our Cities for Christ, which was a call to the Southern Presbyterian Church to pay attention to the rapidly urbanizing South and to be about the work of organizing new congregations for a post-war America. 

This impulse toward evangelism was deeply rooted in my father's theological make-up and represented his most consistent response to the gospel's claim. Stephen Webb, in his book, The Divine Voice, has argued that we show we understand the gospel's claims most truly when we preach its good news, an insight my father would have understood instinctively and with which he would have agreed.

The formative influence upon my father's theology was the Student Volunteer Movement (which he encountered through the YMCA) and its aim "to evangelize the world in this generation." The theological problems with that motto, and indeed, with that movement are almost self-evident to us today even though our achievements seem paltry when compared to those of the generations inspired by such a slogan. My father's heroes were people like John R. Mott and later, Robert E. Speer and before them, Sheldon Jackson.

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Family advocacy groups push for ‘a la Carte’ TV choices

 

(RNS) Advocacy groups say plans of cable television companies to offer family-friendly programming packages are flawed and designed to thwart consumers from getting what they really want: a la carte sales, in which subscribers pick and choose their channels.

The marketing model traditionally used by cable companies and the two leading satellite TV services requires consumers to subscribe to channels in various pre-packaged "tiers." "Right now, to get the good channels, you have to buy the raunchy channels," complained Jim Metrock, head of the Birmingham, Ala.-based child advocacy organization Obligation Inc.

Portions of the cable industry -- under pressure from the federal government -- have come forward with a new willingness to package family-friendly channels into a special programming tier to help parents

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Iranian pastor’s killing raises fears of a crackdown

(PNS) The recent murder of an Iranian pastor is generating fears that the government in Tehran is cracking down on Christian "house churches."

The body of Ghorban Tourani, 50, was tossed in front of his house shortly after he was abducted there by unidentified assailants.

Tourani converted to Christianity after hearing the gospel from visiting evangelists while held in a Turkmenistan jail for manslaughter, having killed a man in a knife fight. His house church was in Gonbad-e-Kavus, a town on the Turkmenistan border, just east of the Caspian Sea.

In his obituary, Tourani was described by an unnamed Iranian pastor as a "fearless Christian" who would "boldly share about Jesus in ... the streets, shops and bazaars."

In Iran, such proselytizing is punishable by death.

Compass Direct, a news agency that reports on persecutions of Christians, said 10 other Christians in several Iranian cities, including Tehran, were arrested shortly after Tourani's murder and tortured by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security

Voices

Fathers’ Day

To this point in history insufficient attention has been devoted to masculinist, or more precisely – fatherist, biblical exegesis.  When this important field is better recognized, I will offer the following father's perspective on Luke 1:41:  "When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb."  Obviously, as is the way with women, Elizabeth related this information to Mary who passed it on to Dr. Luke, who wrote it down.

Voices

Bees and vinegar: How should elders treat people?

A woman who lives near the church likes to walk her dogs in the Rockwood State Forest. One day her two Labs disappeared into the brush and a minute later one of them came flying through the air, collapsing in a whining heap on the trail. He had encountered a mother bear and her two cubs in the blackberry bramble and she was not happy to make his acquaintance. The dog survived after all the puncture wounds in his neck healed. Truly he was well shaken and stirred.

This story reminded me of the old saying I used to hear a lot as a youngster: "It is easier to catch bees with honey than with vinegar." It is hard to know where it comes from, but it makes a lot of sense.

Of course, it is also possible to snare bears with honey and we all know how to be tough on people we meet when necessary. Personally, I prefer honey when I have the choice.

Voices

Anna and Simeon: Seeing God in this Child

New Year's Reflections: Luke 2:22-40

I have often thought how nice it would be, how much more inclusive we would be, if some year we cast Anna and Simeon in the Christmas pageant along with all the children. Simeon and Anna remind us, with the kind of wisdom and eloquence that come with age, that even though the focus of Christmas is a child, Christmas is not only for children.

For after choruses of angels have lit up the night sky, and shepherds have scurried across fields of promise to see this thing that has happened, the magi have arrived bearing gifts from the nations, these senior adults enter the story when life is getting back to normal for the holy family. From the posture of long years waiting, they reveal to us how large and awesome this tiny baby really is.

Luke presents this chapter of the infancy narrative in the whispers and hushed tones of people who know how to make room for a baby, and of those who understand that their own future is somehow embraced by the child they behold. "Long ago," the Letter to the Hebrews begins, "God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son." Somehow Simeon and Anna seem to know instinctively that the presentation of this baby in the Temple is God speaking. This child is the very Word of God whose tiny hands hold out salvation for the world.

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T. F. meeting Jan. 11-13 to gauge report response, consider sexuality report

Out in Presbyterian-land, the calendars for January and February are full of presbytery meetings at which overtures will be discussed and voted on -- perhaps giving as good a sense as any of what the mood of the church might be.

It doesn't seem particularly settled. Some early-arriving overtures have the General Assembly revisiting a controversial decision from 2004 involving divestment and Israel. Others want the assembly to take stands on gay marriage and on ordaining homosexuals.

Debates on controversial matters seem inevitable in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in the months to come.

But some are hoping that the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) may have nurtured a climate within the denomination in which the differences can be talked about with less rancor, with more civility and open-mindedness.

"If these people can work it out and come to a unanimous agreement, it seems the church ought to be able to do that too," said Bill Gannaway, a retired minister from Topeka who works part-time for the Fund for Theological Excellence, trying to raise money for seminaries. "That's the hope I have."

In October, Gannaway helped lead a question-and-answer session in Northern Kansas presbytery, featuring Task Force Co-moderator Gary Demarest of California. Demarest and the task force's other 19 members have been answering invitations all fall, speaking at presbytery meetings and before other interested groups, trying to explain what the task force is recommending as the culmination of its four years of work.

The task force will meet in Atlanta Jan. 11-13 to assess how the report it made public last August is being received and to decide how most effectively to work toward approval of it from next summer's General Assembly.

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