The office of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is many faceted and seldom understood. Anyone elected to this position must wear many hats and wear them well.
As commissioners prepare for the election of the stated clerk at this year’s General Assembly in Richmond, Va., some historical background on the complexity of this office may be useful.
Two pastors and one elder have been nominated for moderator of the 216th General Assembly, which will meet June 26-July 3 in Richmond, Va. This year's election, on the evening of June 26, will be unique in that because of the switch to biennial General Assemblies, the moderator will serve a two-year term.
As in years past, The Outlook asked each nominee to provide a brief biographical sketch and to answer three questions from the editor. That information and their answers follow in alphabetical order by last name.
Passion, drama and Presbyterian? Those aren’t often words used in the same sentence.
Folks can get right worked up over the sports playoffs, politics and the price of gas, the return of the cicadas (and of Prince), carbs vs. fats.
But the stated clerk’s election in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? Why get hot and bothered over that?
The Office of the General Assembly has just completed the collation of the 2003 statistics for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). While the numbers will be readily available to all, the figures themselves do not tell the whole story. Underneath these statistics are real live Presbyterians, who make up our churches and who are faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The fact that there are fewer active members in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) than a year ago should call us to prayer and repentance.
In late 2003, a Messianic Jewish congregation, Avodat Yisrael, was approved within the PC(USA) by the presbytery of Philadelphia. In response to the possibility of Jews, who also believe in Jesus, evangelizing other Jews, a group of concerned Presbyterians organized. They were led by Cynthia Jarvis, also of the Philadelphia presbytery.
Every year I try to explain "Orwellian" to my students. I end up with something like "a systematic perversion of language to hide what is real and replace it with an illusion — an illusion that is often the exact opposite of the reality. Its long-term effects are, first, a sense of unreality, then, cynicism, and finally, apathy and despair." I might do better just to hand them The Presbyterian Outlook's annual Higher Education Issue.
Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments
As you can boast of in the way of polite society
Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?
— T. S. Eliot, choruses From "The Rock"’
Trinity Presbytery passed a resolution Tuesday, June 1, expressing concern with the proposed changes in Presbyterian College's educational program.
The resolution — drafted by a minister-member of the presbytery and amended by the presbytery's general council — was amended by the presbytery to include a call for Presbyterian College to “halt the implementation” of the proposed changes and calls for the formation of a consultation at the synod level "concerning what it means, in a practical sense, for Presbyterian College to be ' ... a church-related institution committed to the Christian faith,' and a college 'related to the Christian Church' in the context of the Presbyterian Church (USA)."
There is division among us over what constitutes authentic Reformed worship. I have witnessed this firsthand while — as moderator of the worship planning work group for the Committee on Local Arrangements for the 216th General Assembly — balancing competing demands of representation and inclusivity for the Assembly in Richmond in four weeks. The variety of Presbyterian worship today is extraordinary. We’ve made choices.
Fifty years ago, in 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the court set aside Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) which established the "separate-but-equal" racial relations policies for the nation. (Associate Justice John Harlan, a Kentucky Presbyterian, cast the only negative vote against the 1896 decision.)
A proposal to change the academic requirements at Presbyterian College in South Carolina — a proposal that, among other things, would eliminate the current requirement that students take courses in both Old and New Testament — has some at the school troubled, and wondering, what exactly does it mean to be a "Presbyterian-related college?"
The proposal is still under discussion and wouldn’t take effect before the fall of 2006.
I first encountered African Church hostility to our debates over ordination in 1998 from the courageous editor of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana’s newspaper. He and I talked of many things, not least of which was the fact that for years his was the only voice in Ghana that spoke truth to power. He was hounded, threatened, and would have been shut down, had his funding not been from the Presbyterian Church. A Reformed Christian, he was a tireless advocate of freedom of the press.
BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. — Albert Eugene Dimmock, 83, former director of PCUS evangelism efforts and a professor emeritus of Christian education at Union Seminary-PSCE, died at his home here Friday, May 21.
A service of witness to the resurrection was held Sunday, May 23, at Black Mountain church.
Dimmock was born on Nov. 17, 1920, in Norfolk, Va., to Presbyterian minister Thomas Herbert Dimmock and Martha Amis Dimmock. During World War II, he worked in the shipyards at Newport News, Va.
A couple of years ago an elder at Second church, Richmond, introduced himself, saying he and his wife had lived in Rich-mond for over 30 years, and felt at home in a place they had come to love very much. Then he said, "I know that for many of you, that’s no more than a long weekend." It’s true. We don’t forget history or lineage.
Part of what ails our denomination is rooted in confusion over how we are connected to one another. Over the past 20 years, our shared judicatory mission efforts increasingly have been replaced by congregationally based mission programs. Today, far more mission work is rooted in congregations than judicatories. This process has been enabled and empowered by affordable transportation to any part of the world as well as instant communication through the Internet and e-mail.
What, besides God’s Spirit, God’s providence and God’s purpose for the PC(USA), will hold us together in a recognizable form through the next 20 years? Does God need the PC(USA) to continue to make a Reformed witness that has been our hallmark since long before John Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence?
Recently, the daily lectionary readings have taken us into Genesis. In the 17th chapter there is an episode that may provide some help us to our ongoing struggle over ordination.
The 17th chapter is part of the larger narrative which begins when God first calls Abram in chapter 12. God promises to make for Abram a great nation and a great name so that Abram will become a blessing. Abram, Sarai and others begin to move in faithful response to God’s call and promise.
Last month Leslie Scanlon reported on The Greenhoe Lectures given at Louisville Seminary by Nancy Ammerman. I found her summaries helpful in a variety of ways, not the least of which are some interesting demographics. Less than 20 percent of American households are families with children living at home, and nearly 30 percent of American households are occupied by two adults without children. In addition Ammerman commented on the religious perspectives of Americans. We overwhelmingly believe in God, and at least one-third of us are mainline Christians.
Thank God for people of faith who are here today. Our Faith Community is a giant. We’re in every city and town in America. But the Giant is asleep. The Giant also has a powerful, moral voice. But when it comes to fighting gun violence, the Giant is as quiet and timid as a church mouse.
If the U.S. is to reduce its unique level of gun deaths it will be because people of faith awaken their spiritual leaders and demand that they lead the fight from their pulpits and classrooms.
Margaret Flory is "one of the most outstanding leaders of the ecumenical movement of the 20th Century," Rubem Alves, Brazilian theologian and poet, wrote, "because her eyes had the power to see trees when they were only seeds." 
More than 150 people from around the world — not a few of them trees that first encountered Flory when they were seeds — gathered at New York's Riverside Church May 14-15 to honor Margaret Flory on the occasion of her 90th birthday.
LOUISVILLE The boycott by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) of Taco Bell hasn’t closed any Taco Bell stores or caused any layoffs. That wasn’t the point, a denominational official who works with the campaign said Friday.
But the boycott has drawn some ecumenical support.
LOUISVILLE — They winced, but they did it.
The executive committee of the General Assembly Council has approved a two-year mission budget for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that will cut $4.6 million from its budget for next year and eliminate 37 more jobs at the denomination’s national headquarters in Louisville. Nine of those positions are currently vacant and 28 people will be laid off as of May 14.
Montreat, with its clear air and its streams making music day and night, with its clusters of cottages and stone lodges riding the mountains of North Carolina, is a place where some Presbyterians have been coming all their lives, where their parents and grandparents came before them, where the porches and pathways are full of memories.
For Southern Presbyterians, "it’s the closest thing to Mecca that we have," said Frederick J. Heuser Jr., president of the Presbyterian Historical Society and Department of History. "It’s a place that resonates with people’s souls."
It began with a small twinge in her mid section. It was enough to cause Bridget to cancel a couple of appointments for March 8 and decide to stay home. I got her the usual white chalky stuff one takes for such twinges and things seemed to be just fine.
Until the headache hit.
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