RICHMOND, Va. — For people with profound disagreements, they were mighty polite.
Next year, for the first time in forever, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will not meet. It’ll be a year off, and it’ll be a year following an Assembly that didn’t do anything wild and crazy, did not threaten schism, intentionally didn’t rock the boat.
RICHMOND, Va. — The 216th General Assembly "did the math" Saturday morning and approved mission and per capita budgets for the coming two years based on the actions of the Assembly during the week concluded.
The Assembly approved a 2005 mission budget with revenues of $114,891,603 and expenditures of $114,387,431. The mission budget for 2006 was set at $115,048,841.
RICHMOND, Va. — A weary General Assembly took on issues of the world during its last morning of work — tired, but still concerned about how the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) relates to people around the globe.
TAIWAN: The PC(USA) expressed solidarity with the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and with the Taiwanese people, and the assembly asked for continued monitoring of the relationship of Taiwan with mainline China, describing that as "an emerging issue fraught with danger."
RICHMOND, Va. — Responding to an investigation of sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is recommending a series of changes in the church’s Constitution that would govern sexual abuse in other cases as well.
While many of the victims in the Congo were children at a boarding school for the children of missionaries, several speakers referred to other examples of sexual abuse they indicated were not uncommon in Presbyterian churches — for example, a pastor becoming sexually involved with an adult in the congregation or with someone the pastor was counseling.
RICHMOND, Va. — It was close — agonizingly close for all concerned.
By four votes Friday the 216th General Assembly declined to supersede authoritative statements that have been used since the late 1970s to help prohibit sexually active homosexuals from being ordained as church officers.
Clifton Kirkpatrick, 58, won reelection Friday to a third term as stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church, in a broad affirmation of the denomination's current leadership.
Kirkpatrick received 349 votes, or 65 percent of votes cast, on the first ballot, easily defeating three opponents from the evangelical side of the church who called for tougher enforcement of constitutional standards.
RICHMOND, Va. — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has described the U.S. invasion of Iraq as "unwise, immoral and illegal" and has condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the torture and abuse of prisoners by the U.S. military there.
A Presbyterian pastor from Iraq, Younan Shiba of the Assyrian Evangelical Presbyterian Church, was asked by a 216th General Assembly commissioner Friday if the Iraqi people were better off before or after the U.S. invasion, and he responded plainly, speaking through a translator: "We were better off before."
Prayer doesn’t grab the headlines but the 216th General Assembly was underlined by prayer all week. Prayer preceded votes, was sung after breaks, and offered during daily Assembly worship. Each day’s printed schedule began with devotional guides for morning and evening prayer.
The debate over advisory delegates and their role in the General Assembly occupied a large share of Thursday afternoon’s report from the Assembly Committee on General Assembly Procedures.
In the end, the commissioners to the 216th Assembly failed to pass a standing rule change that would have added 16 youth advisory delegates (YADs) to the 217th General Assembly which is meeting in 2006. The proposal, from Greater Atlanta Presbytery, was in response to the fact that while the number of commissioners to the first every-other-year Assembly has been increased, the number of YADs was not.
A step to the left, a step to the right. The General Assembly gave ground to each side in debate Thursday night on issues concerning families, Christian marriage and same-sex relationships.
• To the right: The Assembly approved the laboriously rewritten "Transforming Families" report, which was rejected last year for being too open to gay and lesbian relationships.
The 216th General Assembly on Thursday approved a resolution calling for a comprehensive legalization program for U.S. immigrants and directed the Office of the General Assembly to employ an attorney to advise presbyteries and churches whose members have immigration problems.
The resolution also calls for the General Assembly Council to better coordinate ministry work related to racial ethnic and immigrant church growth and evangelism, and to establish an annual Immigration Sunday.
RICHMOND, Va. — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) backed away — just barely — from revising a policy statement on late-term abortions to say that "late-term abortions should be considered only if the physical life or mental health of the mother is at serious risk and no alternative means of delivering the baby alive is available."
RICHMOND, Va. — Presbyterians in Iraq are grateful for the prayers of world, grateful for the efforts American churches made to prevent war there, for their "witness as peacemakers," and thankful for the humanitarian aid they have received, says ounan Shiba, pastor of two Presbyterian churches in Baghdad.
A review of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Investment and Loan Program (PILP) praised its sense of mission and consistently stronger financial performance, but said the program should make more loans to racially diverse congregations.
PILP lends money to help congregations build, renovate or purchase buildings, refinance bank loans and help improve accessibility, technology and energy use. Its funds come from investments made through PILP by Presbyterians, churches and other entities.
The 216th General Assembly voted Wednesday night to ask the Board of Pensions to explore the feasibility of offering domestic partner benefits to employees of the denomination — but stopped short of saying such benefits should be offered.
The action "is neutral, carrying neither approval nor disapproval," said John McFayden, vice chairman of the Committee on Pensions, Foundation and the Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program.
The 216th General Assembly Wednesday evening confirmed the re-election Presbyterian Church (USA) Foundation president Robert Leech.
Leech was elected by foundation trustees to a second four-year term at their spring meeting.
RICHMOND — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has refused to stop funding new Messianic congregations, even though some Presbyterians described such congregations as deeply offensive to Jews and said they would hurt Presbyterian efforts to provide a Christian witness in a religiously pluralistic world.
But others argued that funding for Messianic congregations should continue as part of the Presbyterian commitment to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the globe.
The 216th General Assembly approved Wednesday afternoon a commissioners’ resolution asking the church to consider a 21st century social creed in light of current societal needs and the upcoming 100th anniversary of the 1908 Social Creed of the Churches.
With prolonged discussion of over two and one-half hours, the Assembly Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions wrestled with Commissioner’s Resolution 08-16 to commit the "church to develop an online commentary to the Bible that would be accessible for free to anyone seeking to learn more about the Bible in order to hear the word of God more clearly and to obey more faithfully."
RICHMOND, Va. — After the vote Tuesday, a rabbi described himself as "bitterly disappointed that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seems to be turning back the clock 40 years."
Some General Assembly commissioners said that to tell the gospel of Jesus Christ to Pakistanis or Sudanese immigrants, but to refuse to tell it to Jews, would be racist or anti-Semitic.
RICHMOND — The Assembly Committee on Mission Coordination and Budgets approved a sweeping plan to promote and manage diversity in the church on Tuesday — but with several changes that softened the impact of the initial report.
The 216th General Assembly will consider the plan, called "Creating a Climate for Change Within the Presbyterian Church USA," later this week.
RICHMOND, Va. — It would not remove the constitutional provision that church officers be faithful in heterosexual marriage or chaste in singleness — thus not officially opening ordination to sexually active homosexuals — but an Assembly committee late Tuesday afternoon approved a recommendation that the PC(USA) no longer use two 1970s authoritative statements to back up that law.
The wonderfully evocative article by Leslie Scanlon ('Re-Forming Ministry’ project considers meaning of ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church') fits nicely with the invitation on The Outlook's cover that we reflect, from the Reformed perspective, on the war in Iraq. It also lifts up one of the most effective projects in the Presbyterian Church: the Office of Theology and Worship, which, through the generosity of the Lilly Foundation, has been bringing pastor-theologians and academic theologians together for several years to think about how confession, Scripture and tradition inform, undergird, and challenge the practice of ministry.
The National Issues committee on Monday approved "Transforming Families," a document — proposed at last year's 215th General Assembly but arduously rewritten over the last year — that sets church policy regarding the shifting nature of U.S. families. But it declined to endorse "A Christian Declaration of Marriage," an ecumenical statement that some commissioners said departs from Reformed teachings.
An overture seeking to reorganize Book of Order sections G-2.0300, G-2.0400 and G-2.500 to clarify the essential tenets of the Reformed faith barely caused a ripple on the theological lake Monday before being rejected by an Assembly committee.
Most discussion on the overture from John Calvin Presbytery came during the open hearings of the Assembly Committee on Theological Issues and Institutions. Seven people spoke against the overture, none for it.
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