The Incredibles

Remember the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30? The servants who are rewarded are the ones who are given ten and five talents, and produce ten and five more. The servant who is chastised is the one who takes his one talent and buries it. Yes, yes, the 'talent' in the parable referred to a unit of money and not to individual ability. Nonetheless, it's irresistible for preachers and other well-meaning commentators to apply the metaphor of personal talents. The message would be something like, 'Use your gifts, especially if they can help someone else.'

Well, that's also the message of 'The Incredibles.' This is an animated Pixar feature, where the voices are notable actors, but it's all programmed into the graphics, just like the music soundtrack and the cutting-edge visuals. This is pure high-tech, because there's not a 'real' scene in it. But it's engaging, nonetheless, in part because of the compelling character development.

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The Presence of Yuletides Past

We all have memories, often treasured, of Christmas seasons past. First as children, then parents and grandparents in our older years, we remember the stories we heard first in our youth and have continued to read in our latter years.

We all remember Charles Dickens, who left us The Christmas Carol (1843) about the tightwad Ebenezer Scrooge, who was transformed by visits from the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Scrooge finally got with it and celebrated the Yuletide by raising his clerk, Bob Cratchit's wages and giving support to Bob's crippled son, Tiny Tim. Dickens was an English author who set the standard for Christmas tales.

OUTLOOK readers ought to know that Presbyterians have contributed to our understandings about Christmas with their holiday stories.

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Divestment Debate Broadens, Deepens

Much of the conflict involving the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and its policy involving Israel and divestment is being played out on the big stage -- at the national and even international levels.

But PC(USA) leaders are being reminded that decisions the denomination has made nationally are having repercussions too in local communities, for local churches.

"This Sunday we will have a squad car in front of the church I serve in Forest Hills," Charles Brewster, pastor of Forest Hills Presbyterian in the New York City area, said recently during the moderator's conference in Louisville -- a gathering of presbytery moderators and other regional leaders from around the country. Brewster, the moderator of New York City presbytery, was voicing concern about an anonymous letter threatening violence at Presbyterian churches in protest over the PC(USA)'s plan to consider selective, phased divestment involving some companies doing business in Israel. That letter was mailed from Queens, not far from Brewster's church, "and we take the threat very seriously and we are all frightened," he said.

Florence Henderson, an elder and the vice-moderator of Baltimore presbytery, said Presbyterians there have been "bombarded" with questions about "what has happened, why has it happened?"

Susan Wittjen, an elder and moderator of New Covenant presbytery, said Presbyterian and Jewish leaders in Texas have been discussing their discomfort with a recent trip the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy made to the Middle East -- a fact-finding tour that included a controversial meeting on Oct. 17 with Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. Jewish leaders were unhappy about the Hezbollah meeting, and wanted more publicity for a letter that top PC(USA) leaders -- John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, Clifton Kirkpatrick, the denomination's stated clerk, and Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216^th General Assembly -- issued calling that meeting "misguided, at best" (see OUTLOOK, Nov. 15 issue, p.7.)

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16 amendments proposed to the Constitution from the 216th G.A.

The 216^th General Assembly (2004) has sent sixteen proposed amendments to the Book of Order to the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes. Presbyteries may place some or all amendments in a consent agenda or omnibus motion following the instructions in the amendments booklet. Amendments 04-B.1 and 04-B.2 may be voted on as amendment B and amendments 04-E.1a through 04-E.9 may be voted on as amendment E, but presbyteries should follow the instructions for reporting votes.

Brief pro and con arguments are given for each proposed amendment.

Editorials

A crack in the chalice at Christmas

As the first faint light of Christmas cast its imperceptible glow around the celebration of Thanksgiving, I preached and celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the renovated chapel at an ecumenical Christian community, Richmond Hill.

Voices

Is peace possible?

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Is peace possible?

I have been increasingly troubled by our continued reliance on the “just war” theory as a path toward credible peacemaking. In the last three years, my chagrin has grown to an almost visceral discomfort with the rhetoric and the reality of the “war on terrorism.”

Voices

My Mother’s Mary

Union Seminary had let out for the 1957 Christmas holiday, and I had come home, looking forward to being with my parents, and to sharing the good news that I had "met someone" with whom I might get serious. As I looked about the neat little house my parents had just built in the York County, S.C. countryside, I noticed that there was a new woman keeping watch over the modest Christmas display.

Outlook Features

Two PC(USA) employees “no longer employed”; Fallout from Hezbollah

The fallout from Presbyterian actions involving the Middle East continues to rain down.

On Nov. 11, the denomination announced that it no longer employs two Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff members who traveled to the Middle East last month and were involved in a controversial meeting with Hezbollah, a group that the U.S. State Department lists as a terrorist organization.

Gone are Kathy Lueckert, who as deputy director of the General Assembly Council was considered part of the top level of the denomination's leadership, and Peter Sulyok, coordinator for the past dozen years of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy.

In announcing the departures, John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, did not make it clear if Lueckert and Sulyok resigned or were fired -- or say precisely why they no longer are PC(USA) employees, citing in a written statement their right to confidentiality.

But the Hezbollah visit, made during a two-week fact-finding tour by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy -- a visit that also included high-level meetings with political, human rights and religious leaders around the Middle East -- had provoked strong and immediate criticism both from Jewish leaders already angry with the PC(USA), and by some from within the Presbyterian church.

Presbyterian-Jewish relations have been tense since the General Assembly's decision, last summer, to begin a process of phased, selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel, in protest over Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people.

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Six criteria recommended for divestment decisions

A committee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has announced six criteria it says the church should use in deciding whether to divest in certain multinational companies doing business in Israel.

The PC(USA)'s Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee, meeting Nov. 4-6 in New York, drafted six criteria to guide the denomination in its divestment decisions, while emphasizing that any decisions will be made in a careful, deliberate way. The PC(USA) holds more than $7.5 billion in investments through the Presbyterian Foundation and the Board of Pensions, and the earliest any stock could be sold as a deliberate divestment action would be after the next General Assembly meets in 2006.

The question of whether the PC(USA) should divest in companies active in Israel, in protest over Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people -- or whether such a proposal is anti-Semitic or a bad idea, as some have contended -- has been white-hot since the General Assembly authorized a process of phased, selective divestment by a 431-62 vote last June.

Editorials

Introductions, regret, and repentance

With this issue The Presbyterian Outlook introduces the columns of Ron Ferguson, who was a journalist before attending divinity school and becoming a Presbyterian minister. He studied at St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Duke Universities. Ron began as a pastor in a huge public housing area in Glasgow, Scotland, called Easterhouse (a place more like Gethsemane and Calvary than Easter).

Voices

What’s in it for me?

In Meredith Wilson’s enchanting musical, “The Music Man”, Prof. Harold Hill comes to River City and tricks the whole town into buying his mail order musical instruments for a new children’s band. The parents are dubious, but the kids are excited. On the day of the promised delivery, they wonder in song if there is anything coming “for me”.

Voices

Beyond Reinhold Niebuhrg

Editorial note: Retired Presbyterian pastor Ralph Bucy in the December 20/27 2004 issue of the OUTLOOK in his opinion piece "Beyond Reinhold Niebuhr" writes about Christian Realism and current events. It responds to an OUTLOOK editorial of November 1 entitled "Where is Reinhold Niebuhr?" by O. Benjamin Sparks. Since this editorial appeared while the OUTLOOK web site was inactive, it and Bucy's response appear below.

Voices

Refuge

on Isaiah 9:2b-7 and cities of no refuge:
Tehran, Baghdad, New York, Sarajevo, Beirut, Hanoi, Selma, Nagasaki…

The decades pass; put princeling’s promised peace to rout.

The warriors’ tramping boots their martial cadence count

dawn to day to dusk to dark by sighs.

Voices

Remarks at a dialogue on anti-Semitism

Editor’s Note: This presentation was made at the recent Dialogue on Anti-Semitism at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. The speaker, Sari Ateek, was presenting the night’s dialogue participants, Rabbi Dr. Elliott Dorff and Fuller President, Dr. Richard Mouw.

Before I introduce our two speakers for the evening, I’d like to share with you a few personal remarks. When I was first asked to do the introductions for this dialogue, I have to admit that I found myself initially hesitant for at least a couple of reasons.

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Judicial Commission rules on per capita pledge question

A presbytery cannot require a congregation to pay all of its per capita or to fulfill a mission pledge in order to receive financial assistance from the presbytery, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission has ruled.

The ruling helps answer the ongoing question of what presbyteries can do -- or not do -- when congregations refuse to pay all or part of their per capita assessments, often to protest positions taken by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). And it affirms a decision issued last April by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Mid-America.

The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the PC(USA)'s highest court, had earlier ruled, in July 2003 in the Minihan v. Scioto Valley Presbytery case, that a presbytery can't force a session to pay per capita, the per-member assessment that the General Assembly sets, and it can't punish a session for failing to pay per capita. While paying per capita is not mandatory, in a connectional system it is strongly encouraged, the judicial commission ruled in that case, stating that withholding funds "as a mean of protest or dissent" is "a serious breach of the trust and love with which our Lord Jesus intends the covenant community to function."

Editorials

“Test any word…”

Reformation Day (which this year – perhaps too appropriately – fell on Halloween) provides a needful occasion on which to reflect on the role of Scripture and preaching in the Presbyterian Church. The matter is made urgent by the recent election that sacrificed (at a cost of 600 million dollars on the presidential race alone) substantive debate about the serious issues before this republic on the altar of entertainment, spin, and downright dirty lies.

Voices

Thank Offering

Gratitude, if and when it does arrive,
seems very seldom centered on the meal itself.
Yes, the sacred bird with all its panoply
is blessed in solemn, if embarrassed grace.

Voices

Glimpses of Ghana: WARC reflections

Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate said the words of the theme song for the 24^th General Assembly of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) held in Accra, Ghana, July 30-August 13, 2004. It focused on the Scripture assuring life in fullness (John 10:10). The words and the tune reverberated throughout the campuses of University of Ghana, Legon and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

Voices

Coming or Going

Does there come a time for everyone
when looking forward yields
to looking back; when fond memory
takes over from anticipation
and what has been holds pride of place

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Presbyterian churches and the “M” word: Giving with gratitude

It's the sermon pastors hate to preach, the ones congregations hate even more to hear.

It usually comes in the fall, and it's when they ask, cajole, even plead for ... money

And, theologically, it's all about God, our relationship with money, and thanksgiving.

"Gratitude is at the heart of our spirituality in the Reformed tradition," Tim Hart-Andersen, pastor of Westminster church in Minneapolis, preached last spring at a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gathering on stewardship. "There is no other human response to God more basic than gratitude, a deep thanksgiving that wells up from within . . . Our churches and those who inhabit them need such a rekindling of biblical stewardship, where we learn again what once we knew so well: `The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.' " (Psalm 24:1)

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GAPJC rules in Heartland Presbytery case

(PNS) The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has ruled that a session's failure to pay its per capita apportionment cannot be the sole factor in the presbytery's determination whether that congregation is eligible for requesting financial assistance from the presbytery.

In it's Oct. 18 decision in Johnston, et. al. v. Heartland Presbytery, the commission also ruled that a congregation's failure to pay its per capita apportionment and mission pledge could not be the determinative factor in a presbytery's refusal to grant assistance to that congregation. At the same time, the GAPJC determined that "a congregation's effort to pay its full per capita apportionment and to fulfill a mission pledge is clearly relevant as one factor among many others that a presbytery may consider in exercising its stewardship responsibility to allocate limited resources in action upon a congregation's request for assistance."

Editorials

Thanksgiving: Of plenty and plunder

It’s clearly possible that we Americans need to distinguish between what has been given us by the hand of Almighty God, and what we have wrested by exploitation from others who were in this land before we were, as well as from those who were brought to the ‘New World’ against their wills and purchased by us, and as our property made enduring contributions to our national wealth. Thanksgiving is a peculiar American holiday.

Voices

At the gate: The injustice of poverty

It was my privilege during August this year to visit both Guatemala and El Salvador. I was in Guatemala in the company of my son Herb, who is a journalist/editor for the Diocese of Michigan. We then joined a group of Episcopal communicators for a week in El Salvador.

Voices

Remembering two leaders: In gratitude for Kennether Hall and Shirley Guthrie

The PC(USA) lost two outstanding leaders almost exactly a week apart with the deaths of C. Kenneth Hall on October 15 and Shirley Guthrie on October 23 (see obituaries in the November 8 and today’s issues of OUTLOOK). Both exercised extraordinary spiritual gifts in lives wholly committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to ministry in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Voices

Are Presbyterians Thankful Enough?

At this time of year it is worth thinking about our attitude toward God in prayer. So many negative things happen in our own lives, the church, and in the world that are dangerous and disheartening. we often start our prayers by listing our fears about potential disaster. As a denomination we run the risk of constantly focusing on our disagreements, our declining membership, and our lack of power in the world.