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Irish church leaders welcome IRA’s arms ‘decommissioning’

DUBLIN -- Two prominent Northern Ireland clergymen chosen to monitor a key part of an internationally-backed peace process say that, "beyond any shadow of doubt," the arms of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) have now been put beyond use. 

The clerics, the Rev. Harold Good, a Methodist, and the Rev. Alec Reid, a Roman Catholic priest, witnessed the IRA's recent act of decommissioning, in which the armed group put all its remaining weapons down, after decades of violent struggle.  

However, the Rev. Ian Paisley, the founder of the Free Presbyterian Church and leader of the largest political party in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionists, rejected the declaration on Sept. 27.

Paisley said, "(The IRA's decommissioning) illustrates more than ever the duplicity and dishonesty of the two (British and Irish) governments and the IRA." He said the clerics who witnessed the decommissioning "were approved by the IRA and therefore ... in no way could be independent." 

Voices

Presbyterian College report: A minority voice speaks

Presbyterian College's commission to examine the school's "church-relatedness" has reported to the board of trustees that its faculty no longer need be Christian. While I was honored to serve on this commission as the Savannah Presbytery's representative, I believe this recommendation is outrageous, misguided, and embodies a bizarre approach to embracing diversity.

The report of the Commission,  chaired by Allen McSween of Fourth Church in Greenville, S.C., makes the formal finding that "the faculty is the key element in the education of students to fulfill the mission of the College" (Report of the Commission, p. 9).  With that statement, I am in complete agreement.

After recognizing the faculty's key role, however, the majority of the members of the commission then recommend that the faculty of this Christian institution no longer need be Christian. With that recommendation (Report, Recommendation Number 3, p. 10), I am in strong opposition and, therefore, submitted a minority report.  How the majority can advocate such a change is simply beyond my poor comprehension as a minister of Christ's gospel and an advocate of Christian education. 

I hasten to point out that there is nothing wrong with the recommendation in and of itself.  Indeed, the wording of the recommendation is, I suspect, intentionally benign. The recommendation is that the College insure that new faculty members are oriented to and embrace the distinctive mission of the College. And who could oppose a professor understanding and supporting a college's mission?

Book Reviews

The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound

by Stephen H. Webb. Brazos Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58743-078-9. Pb., 239 pp.  $24.99.

Why do we think of Scripture in terms of texts to be interpreted rather than a voice to be heard? Why has preaching become either so theory-laden and academic in its teaching or so anecdotal and visual in its practice that no demands at all are made on our ears or our voices, or on the obedience of our hearts? Why is the act of "listening to a sermon" so difficult for us today, an event that for many almost defines boredom and can only make sense to others if it yields an experience of personal "uplift"? Why is modernity (and even more, post-modernity) both so noisy and so silent, and why does it seek so relentlessly to render us deaf to the human voice while celebrating the visual, the loud, and the universalizing illumination of critical reason? And finally, what does it mean that God speaks, that the heart of Israel's faith begins with a summons not to read or think or see but to hear ("Hear, O Israel...")--that the gospel understands itself as a word to be heard and proclaimed, a word that is rooted in the being of the triune God ("In the beginning was the Word") who creates by speaking, and who loves by including us in the grace of the divine conversation, giving us ears to hear and words to speak?

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Bitterly divided Korean congregation works toward ceasefire in turf battle

(PNS) Lawyers representing two factions of a bitterly divided, 2,700- member Korean congregation in Torrance, Calif., are trying to negotiate an agreement to share the church building while a civil court decides which group is entitled to the property.

"I am overjoyed that these conversations are finally happening," said the Rev. Syngman Rhee, a former General Assembly moderator who is working informally -- as "pulpit supply" -- with the loyalist faction of First Church of Torrance. "Some kind of peace is needed."

Rhee was appointed by the group that now governs the congregation, an administrative commission formed by Hanmi Presbytery and the Synod of Southern California.

The congregation split last spring after it tried to call the Rev. Song Kyu Pak as pastor. Because Pak was the subject of an administrative inquiry in Olympia Presbytery, where he had been pastor of Joong-Ang Church in Tacoma, Wash., Olympia could not release him to accept the Torrance call. For the same reason, Hanmi Presbytery could not receive him as a member.

On April 24, Pak announced that he had renounced the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a majority of the Torrance church voted to leave the denomination and affiliate with the Korean Presbyterian Church in America (KPCA). The breakaway faction seized control of the church's property.

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Episcopalians reject divestment

 

(RNS) The Episcopal Church has flatly rejected a church-based movement to pull investments from Israel, instead choosing a strategy of "positive investment" among Palestinians and "corporate engagement" with Israel.

The church's Social Responsibility in Investments committee said the church should keep investments in the region and not follow the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and others who are seeking to divest from Israeli companies. "The goal is for selected companies to change behavior resulting in a more hopeful climate for peace," the committee's 12-page report said. "If the church simply divests, nothing positive has happened."

Voices

The Three Rs: Revision, Reform, Reconcile

I am thankful for the work of the Peace, Unity and Purity Task Force, for modeling a way of speaking the truth in love to one another and to the church, even if there is no clear "prescription". Patience, forbearance, and faithful engagement are marks of the church that are easily overlooked in a results-oriented society. Affinity groups have also been tackling the presenting issues of the day for decades, especially the issue of ordination standards. However, I have come to realize that the options for renewal we have currently are not enough.

In the post-modern age, we have come to the end of Enlightenment rationalism with new paradigms for thinking emerging. As children of the Reformation, we are still too deeply rooted in Athens. The birth of Protestantism occurred, of course, when the Roman Church, very much under the influence of Thomas Aquinas (who borrowed heavily from Aristotle), was countered by Luther and Calvin, both influenced significantly by Augustine, a neo-Platonist. That the Western church is influenced by Plato/Aristotle is not any more noteworthy than that the Eastern (East Asian) church is influenced by Confucius/Lao Tzu.  But in the church in America, I am convinced that our Platonic dualism has led to a national bipolar disorder.

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Many collegians say they are spiritual; struggle with questions, alternatives

The standard litany goes something like this: Presbyterians go to church, bring their children, the children grow up, go off on their own, forget about church. Charles Wiley, who's with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Office of Theology and Worship, said recently that one test of Presbyterians' commitment to ecumenism is that they're ecstatic if their adult children go to church, practically any church, once they leave home.

But the stock wisdom only goes so far.

Recent surveys show that many college students do in fact have an intense interest in spiritual matters and that many of them believe in a higher power and pray regularly. On college campuses, groups interested in religion -- from Buddhist meditation circles to "alternative spirituality" groups to evangelical Christian Bible studies -- meet all over the place, all the time. During Ramadan at some campuses, students who aren't Muslim join in the fasting, out of solidarity with what they affirm as a spiritual way of life. And many classes in religion are packed, as students try to understand the complex relationships between religion and politics in a world in which suicide bombings and violence in the name of religion make the news nearly every day.

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College Briefs 2005

Fall 2005 is notable for different reasons as many Presbyterian-related schools begin the new academic year. Let them share with you the new developments on their campuses.

Book Reviews

Letters to a Young Doubter

 

by William Sloane Coffin. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22929-8.  Hb., 185 pp., $14.95

 

I didn't know her well when she came to my office the first time. I had heard from colleagues and from her peers that she had teetered on the edge of fundamentalism when she arrived at college. As of late, however, other rumors stirred about her. She was asking questions in her fellowship groups. She was challenging her peers at the lunch table and was far less diligent in commitment to Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night church services. As she sat in my office for the first of what would become many visits, she described an inner tear that felt as if the curtain of her inner holy of holies had been rent. The sharp edge of doubt cut through what had once been a forbidden barrier between belief and doubt, between an angry certainty and passionate questions. Oh, how I wish I had offered her the wisdom of William Sloane Coffin!

Editorials

Stones

In his prophet's call to repentance in Matthew and Luke, John the Baptist warns those who have been drawn to his revival not to place their hope in their ancestral connection to Abraham, for "God is able from the stones to raise up children to Abraham." (Mt. 3:9)

I thought of that warning as I read an article by Mark Lilla in the New York Times Magazine (September 18, 2005) called "Getting Religion, My long-lost years as a teenage evangelical." This University of Chicago professor tells of his awakening to the Scriptures through one of the small groups that proliferated in the "Jesus Freak" movement of the 1970s, and of his eventual fall out of faith. He grew up Roman Catholic in a monotonous blue collar Detroit suburb, and at age 13 he decided he was an atheist. A year later he attended a Christian rock concert and on the way out was given a colloquial translation of the New Testament, which he sat up all night reading. That New Testament opened his mind to a new world. Immersion in that New Testament also began the transformation of his intellect.

Voices

Differing views around one table

I confess that I used to think how much better our denomination would be if those who held to theological positions different than mine would opt to go elsewhere. I have a feeling my liberal colleagues felt the same about my fellow conservatives and me. I learned, however, that all of our voices are important.

Many people will lift up recommendation #5 as the single most important part of the report of the Theological Task Force. I believe, however, that recommendation #1a is the most important. It reads: "The Task Force recommends that the General Assembly strongly encourage: every member of the PC(USA) to witness to the church's visible oneness, to avoid division into separate denominations that obscure our community in Christ, and to live in harmony with other members of this denomination, so that we may with one voice together glorify God in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit."

I was working in my study a couple of days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when my secretary informed me that the Moderator of the General Assembly was on the phone. That's not something that happens every day in Lakeland, Fla., so I picked up the phone with great anticipation. Jack Rogers was calling from Louisville. We talked about the recent tragedy and how the G.A. offices and the Lakeland Church were responding to the emotional and spiritual needs of people. Then the moderator asked me if I would serve on the Theological Task Force, and I responded with a resounding "yes." I had heard about the formation of the Task Force, and had even sent the three moderators a few suggestions of people I felt would make good members for such a committee. I did not include my name on the list, but was both honored and humbled to be selected.

Voices

A call for Christian maturity and forbearance

I have come to recognize an important form that denial often takes in my life, perhaps in yours as well: the denial that people I disagree with have anything to teach me.

 

In 2001, the 213th General Assembly created a Theological Task Force to wrestle with the issues that are uniting and dividing us as Presbyterians. They were praying that with the help of the Holy Spirit we might lead the church in discernment of our Christian identity and of ways that our church might move forward, furthering its peace, unity, and purity. For this task, three former moderators collared 20 Presbyterians as different from one another as they could possibly be -- 20 Presbyterians who under ordinary circumstances would never dream of hanging out together! 

So much of the diversity within our church is reflected on our Task Force that when he first met with us, Stated Clerk Cliff Kirkpatrick told us his office had received no complaints about the make-up of the Task Force, but that the question he had been asked repeatedly is "How will they ever get along?"

Voices

A thought experiment

Does our church have a shared sense of Christian faithfulness? Or has the celebration of personal freedom rendered us incapable of agreeing on what a "manner of life [that is] a demonstration of the Christian gospel" looks like?

 

Predictably, response to the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church has focused on the effect its recommendations might have on the contested issue of the ordination and installation of "self-affirming, practicing homosexual persons." Many conservatives in the church distrust recommendation 5, seeing in it a back door opening to "local option." Many liberals in the church are distressed by recommendation 6, seeing it as a failure of nerve that maintains an unjust prohibition.

The Task Force's mandate was far broader than the ordination controversy, of course. It was asked to lead the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A .) "in spiritual discernment of our Christian identity," and to address specific issues of disagreement and conflict: biblical authority and interpretation, Christology, ordination standards, and power. Over a period of four years, Task Force members have worked faithfully and well on the full range of matters before them, but it was inevitable that the issue of ordination standards would push the church's consideration of the others into the far background.  Christological controversy receded in the wake of the General Assembly's overwhelming affirmation of "Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ." Scriptural authority and interpretation remains an issue in the church, and is unresolved by Task Force members' general agreement that Scripture is authoritative for them.  

Voices

Doubt, imagination, and truth: The domain of the church-related liberal arts college

This article is based on a presentation made September 8, 2005 at the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities executive committee meeting in Presbyterian Center, Louisville, Ky.

 

2005 happens to be the 125th anniversary of the founding of Presbyterian College and the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's miracle year. The connection between the two was set for me when a member of our faculty shared a contemporary epistle -- a letter from one of the young saints -- a graduate of the class of 2003.

I took your advice and thought about what my four years at PC meant to me as the bagpipes started playing that glorious, blue-sky Carolina Saturday that we graduated. ... I may never be famous or powerful, but I do have something that no one can ever take from me. I have something that will follow me to the grave. That something is a type of understanding that I received from the college that goes beyond a normal education. I know why PC is so very special now ... PC teaches you not just facts but how and why you should thirst for knowledge. PC teaches you not only to understand why Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge;" but PC also teaches you to love to imagine yourself. PC teaches you not only how the American justice system has changed in the last century, but PC also teaches you to strive for justice yourself. PC not only teaches you that God exists, but it also challenges you to examine God in your own life ...

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GAC considers structure, funding systems changes; Task Forces report

SACRAMENTO  - Amazingly, some people suspect there may be better ways of doing things in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

So the General Assembly Council is thinking through some new models of funding the church's work and structuring the council itself -- brainstorming to see if alternate approaches might bring better communication, more efficient decision-making, a better relationship between the national structures and the church at the grassroots.

Several task forces have been meeting to consider this -- including one on funding and one on "governance" that's been considering such questions as how big the council should be, how its members should be selected, how often it should meet, and so forth.

Leaders of both say their efforts now are still "works-in-progress" -- nothing has been decided for sure, lots may still change. But the governance task force plans to come back with a recommendation at the council's next meeting, in February, and perhaps to suggest structural changes to the 2006 General Assembly. If those changes were approved, the shape of the council might start to change in 2008.

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Foundation sets up Committee; interface with MRTI questioned

SACRAMENTO -- A potential difference of views is percolating between the Presbyterian Foundation and the Mission Responsibility Through Investment program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- a situation with implications for the PC(USA)'s controversial plan to consider divesting in some companies doing business in Israel.

The discussion involves the question of who actually owns the investments of the church that are managed through the Foundation and its trust company -- and who has the authority to negotiate with companies if divestment is being considered and to decide what divestment actions to pursue.

In the past, that kind of negotiation has been conducted by MRTI, although the General Assembly has to approve any recommendation MRTI makes to divest. If the assembly agrees with the MRTI proposal, it passes a resolution urging the investing agencies -- the Foundation or its trust company or the Board of Pensions of the PC(USA)-- to divest, which so far the Foundation always has done.

Editorials

Minister Shortage?

I heard the story of a particular presbytery meeting hot on the heels of four glorious September days in "graduation exercises" with the second Cohort of the Company of New Pastors. (The Company of New Pastors -- formerly Excellence from the Start -- is the Lilly Endowment program out of Theology and Worship that involves pairs of Pastors mentoring new seminary graduates who are in their first called positions.)

The four days were a "debriefing" on more than three years of semi-annual meetings for worship and study, reading books related to ministry and delivering papers in our small groups.  The assumption is that community is formed and mutual professional support occurs -- not out of therapy or skill development -- but when it is grounded in theological reflection on the practice of ministry. At "graduation" we were privileged also to reflect with Eugene Peterson, author and pastor, on the life and work of a pastor.

Voices

Violence finds refuge in falsehood

The Readings: Psalm 5:1-12; Isa. 59:1-15; Rom. 6:3-4

Today I want to lift up a biblical theme that has not received the attention it deserves. It is the powerful theme that violence finds refuge in falsehood. I myself first became aware of it through Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian novelist. In accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, Solzhenitsyn included these words:

Violence, less and less embarrassed by the limits imposed by centuries of lawfulness, is brazenly and victoriously striding across the whole world, unconcerned that its infertility has been demonstrated and proved many times in history. What is more, it is not simply crude power that triumphs abroad, but its exultant justification. The world is being inundated by the brazen conviction that power can do anything, justice nothing. ...

But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood.

This connection was undoubtedly one that Solzhenitsyn learned to make from bitter experience. But since he is a Christian, he would also have learned it from Holy Scripture. Today we saw it ourselves in Psalm 5: You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful. ... For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction; their throats are open graves; they flatter with their tongues. (Psalm 5:6, 9).

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How do we know the will of God for our congregations?”

This question makes three presuppositions:

"¢ there really is a being called God;

"¢ God wills good things for us;

"¢ we can know what this will is.

 

Without the knowledge of God's will it is difficult, if not impossible, to run a church successfully or powerfully. We may have the best administrative principles in place, be purpose-driven, have excellent preaching and full parking lots, but without knowing God's will and doing it, we will always have less than the full church of Christ.

Book Reviews

Preaching the Gospel Without Blaming the Jews: A Lectionary Commentary

by Ronald J. Allen and Clark M. Williamson. Louisville: WJKP, 2004. ISBN 0-664-22763-5. Hb, 261 pp., $24.95.

I welcome and celebrate this new commentary as a much-needed resource for my own preaching and teaching, and let me tell you why.

In recent years, the congregation where I serve (the Fifth Avenue Church in New York City) has entered into an ever-deepening relationship with a Reform Jewish synagogue (Central Synagogue), located just a few blocks east of us in midtown Manhattan. While the relationship initially grew out of a friendship shared between our senior pastor and the senior rabbi of the synagogue, it has significantly expanded in recent years to embrace a much larger congregation and staff. In 1998 when the synagogue tragically suffered a major fire, our congregation was among the first to offer our facilities to our Jewish brothers and sisters while their own house of worship was being rebuilt. In 2003-04, when our own building was undergoing major expansion and renovation, the synagogue reciprocated, and for 40 Sundays we Christians held our weekly worship services in the incredibly beautiful and holy space of Central Synagogue's sanctuary.

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GAC in Sacramento: Acting now for the PC(USA) of the future

SACRAMENTO -- There's been a lot of talk this week in California, as the General Assembly Council starts its fall meeting, about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) being on the verge of some kind of big, exciting change -- about this being perhaps a "tipping point" for the church, as General Assembly moderator Rick Ufford-Chase put it.

What do they mean?

First, several task forces are due to report this week on new ways of doing things. A governance task force is considering some kind of streamlined structure for the council itself -- considering different ways of selecting council members and organizing their work. A mission funding task force will discuss how the denomination gets the money to fund what it does -- what works in that funding system and what doesn't, and what needs to be done differently in a denomination that's losing members by the tens of thousands every year and in which there have been distinct shifts in the way that Presbyterians give their money.

Second, council executive director John Detterick, who's in his last year with the PC(USA), urged the council members during their opening session Sept. 21 to dream "bold dreams" and not to be afraid to take risks. But he also warned that more budget cuts likely are coming soon, along with more job cuts for the denomination's national staff in Louisville. Detterick met Sept. 16 with the staff to warn them of what lies ahead.

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COGA report recommends closing Montreat historical facility

SACRAMENTO -- A feasibility study considering the future of the Presbyterian Historical Society has concluded that it's unlikely enough money could be raised to create a new center to study Presbyterian history in Montreat, N.C.

So the plan now is to consider creating such a center at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. -- it would be less expensive there -- and to close down the Presbyterian Historical Society office in Montreat, which some Presbyterians have fought passionately to save over the last year.

A report to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) states that those recommending that the Montreat historical society office be closed "appreciate the deep disappointment many people connected to Montreat will feel if these recommendations are adopted," but it also contends that the changes will "benefit the whole church."

The recommendations came from COGA members Cathy Ulrich and Steve Grace, who had been appointed to help develop a plan for the historical society's future.

Voices

“Beleaguered but Unvanquished”

Text: II Corinthians 4:8-9; Romans 8:28-39

Editor's Note: the following eyewitness report to Presbyterian constituents in Mississippi helps all of us understand better the challenges and ongoing needs of the Gulf Coast. See elsewhere on this Web site for information on how to contact Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and support New Orleans-Gulf Coast recovery efforts.

Beleaguered but unvanquished--two of William Faulkner's favorite words. They describe the people of God who are called according to His purpose; people like you who have risen to the occasion, to bring light to the darkness, hope in the midst of despair, food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to those who only have the clothes they're wearing, encouragement to those who have lost it all.

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PC(USA) asked to support help for minister’s sexual abuse victims

SACRAMENTO -- He was a Presbyterian minister. He was, for many boys from Chinese immigrant families, a sort of surrogate father figure. He was charismatic, he was powerful -- and he is said to have sexually abused dozens of young boys over 30 years at the Cameron House ministry program in San Francisco.

His name is Dick Wichman and he is now in his 90s, living in a retirement home in Oregon. In the late 1980s, faced with allegations of sexual abuse pending in San Francisco presbytery, Wichman denied the charges and renounced his ordination in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) rather than face the action the presbytery was preparing to bring against him.

But that has not stopped the survivors of the abuse from speaking out plainly of how the betrayal of trust perpetrated by one minister has fractured their self-esteem, their ability to form close, caring relationships as adults and in some cases has driven them far from the church and any sense of God's caring.

Voices

Heaven

Editor's note: The following homily was preached at the funeral of the Reverend George McMaster at Druid Hills Church in Atlanta, Ga., by Dr. Patrick D. Miller, Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. It contains great comfort for the church and is a welcome testimony to the gospel in these troubled, dangerous times.

Not long ago, when Mary Ann and I were visiting with her mother, she asked me what I thought about heaven. I was taken aback at the time because my mind was, as usual, on more mundane things. I don't recall what response I made at the time, except that it was not very helpful. But the question was a serious one from this 90-year-old woman whose husband had died some years before. It has stuck with me ever since and in these few minutes I would like to take it up again with a bit more reflection.

Heaven really has two connotations in Christian faith. One is spatial -- up there -- and one is temporal -- beyond death. In the first instance, heaven is a symbol for God's reality and God's rule. It is a pointer to transcendence, to the fact that what we mean by God is one who is above and beyond all that we are even if among us.

Heaven is a biblical and Christian way of speaking about the abode of God. Some of you are old enough to remember when the Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev scoffed at the notion of God and heaven when he noted that the Russian astronauts had not seen God or heaven when they went into space. His mockery reflects a widespread tendency to literalize the notion of heaven, when in fact it is a symbol and not a literal reality, at least as described in the Bible. As a symbol, however, it points to something real, but something we can only think of in images and pictures because it is beyond us, and we do not have direct experience of it.

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