Meeting in Chicago this week, the Board of Directors of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians discussed current actions within the Presbyterian Church and adopted the following statement:
"The Covenant Network of Presbyterians is committed to working for the removal of G-6.0106b from the Book of Order.
LOUISVILLE — Still committed to the idea of publishing its own curriculum, written specifically for Presbyterians, the Congregational Ministries Division of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is preparing to roll out its new product, called "We Believe," in January.
LOUISVILLE — A committee investigating sexual abuse that Presbyterian missionaries allegedly committed against children in Africa from 1945 to 1978 has reported back — and leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) plan to send a letter of apology to those who endured the abuse and to set up a work group to consider what steps to take next.
LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council's Mission Support Services Committee received an update Thursday on the financial picture of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for the year so far — and there is some cause for concern.
Receipts are down about 7 percent for the year through August, although it's too soon to tell if that picture will hold, said Joey Bailey, the PC(USA) deputy for mission support services.
LOUISVILLE — The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is considering whether to make a statement about the possibility of U.S. military action against Iraq.
The council is considering whether to make an interim statement — a formal statement the council can make on important issues between meetings of the General Assembly — or to issue a pastoral letter, to summarize General Assembly policy statements regarding Iraq, or not to say anything at all.
It is not surprising that my first reaction on reading "A Future for Our Seminaries" was to say, "Of course, that’s right; our seminaries are doing a good job." The intensive work that C. Ellis Nelson, Bob Lynn and I did (along with Larry Jones, the "outsider" who was dean of Howard University Divinity School) as consultants for part of the major study mentioned by Nelson, opened up avenues of thought that could extend over a lifetime. Here I choose only to quarrel a bit with one of his recommendations, and then to mention five areas which we need to explore further.
Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson wrote several years ago, "Men and women confronting change are never fully prepared for the demands of the moment." But "they are strengthened to meet uncertainty if they can claim a history of improvisation and a habit of reflection."
Presidents of Presbyterian seminaries are often asked, "How is the seminary getting along?" The answer most presidents give includes two observations. The..
Yes — if demographers’ forecasts of significantly increasing enrollment at all levels of the education system over the next decade are accurate.
According to the Condition of Education 2001 report by the Education Department’s National Center of Education Statistics, full-time, four-year undergraduate enrollments will grow faster than part-time and two-year college enrollments during the next decade. The report also forecasts college enrollment of women will continue to outpace that of men during the next 10 years.
The Presbyterian Outlook is pleased once again to present the list of those Presbyterian graduates from theological institutions across the country, and to honor them as many begin careers in ministry. And all of us join General Assembly Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel in best wishes to each of our graduates.
The idea seemed pretty straightforward: take 10 "listening" teams, each with one Muslim and one Christian from another country, and send them around the United States for about two weeks, talking with as many Presbyterians along the way as they could jam into the schedule. Hope that what comes out is a better understanding of relations between Muslims and Christians, and perhaps a desire by Presbyterians in the pews to know more about the Islamic world.
The General Assembly Council will be asked at its Sept. 25-29 meeting in Louisville to review the role of the Presbyterian News Service, and to consider how the denomination’s news service should approach the reporting of controversial stories.
The discussion has been provoked, in part, because there are differing opinions about what the news service should do — how much editorial freedom it should have, or how much it should reflect official church policy — and how well it’s been doing its job.
By Albert N. Wells
Rainbow. 2002. 264 pp. Pb. $14.95.
ISBN 1-56825-082-7
— reviewed by Albert C. Winn, Winston-Salem, N.C.
The year 2002 does not appear to be a good time for publishing a book on the pursuit of peace. But Al Wells has done it, despite the widespread approval of national policies of war and retaliation which has followed the horrendous breach of peace on Sept. 11, 2001. On the cover of this book, the subtitle "It’s the Thing to Do" is altered by an insertion that makes it read, "It’s still the Thing to Do."
As suggested in this column last week, we have an obligation to reach out to those Christian brothers and sisters in our own fold who for whatever reason have become distant or estranged — either by our action, or theirs, or by both — before we go to the Table of our Lord.
When some folks think Presbyterian, they think "frozen chosen," a collection of mostly well-to-do, well-buttoned-up, well-intentioned white people. But the General Assembly’s recent decision to go ahead with the Mission Initiative — a five-year campaign to raise $40 million from big donors for international mission work and new church development in the United States — is a sign that the vision can extend well beyond that, and that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can, if it’s willing, nurture a more diverse, more creative, more open-ended definition of the church of the future.
The claim has recently been made in this space that God has given the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) a moment of grace, following years of intense warfare, in which we have an opportunity to rethink who we are called to be and what God is calling us Presbyterians to do in the new century — to rekindle our commitment to Jesus Christ and to reinvigorate our mission to the world for which he died.
It’s been a distressing, violent year since hijacked planes plunged into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The months since then have brought a whole crop of pain around the world — suicide bombings in the Middle East, retaliation in Palestinian villages, war in Afghanistan, Hindus and Muslims attacking one another in India, a Russian plane filled with children falling from the sky, to name just a few. And, in the United States, economic news so bad that almost everyone knows someone who’s lost a job.
By Walter Brueggemann
Eerdmans. 2002. 150 pp. Pb. $15.ISBN 0-8028-3930-4
— reviewed by James K. Mead, Orange City, Iowa
Every preacher and teacher — and everyone who listens to sermons and lessons — cares about the theme Walter Brueggemann addresses in Ichabod Toward Home, based on his 2001 Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary. Using the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 4-6 to explore what the church does when it stands before a biblical text, Brueggemann contends that the story of the ark’s capture, exile and return offers an alternative vision of the church’s proclamation and life in the world.
The tragedies occurring in Pakistan have devastated Christians around the world. Pakistani Christians are at risk in our hospitals, our schools and..
I have always had a strong desire to be tried for heresy. Heretics are exciting people while orthodoxy such as mine is completely unremarkable and rather dull. I am not so daring as to want to be convicted of heresy but to be charged with heresy would be a great delight. I assume that every physician longs to get sick so he can diagnose himself.
September is here: the beginning of a new school year for many (both religious and secular); the celebration of Labor Day, honoring laborers of every kind and their labor; and, for the first time, the remembering of the awful events that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, a day of infamy which the people of this nation will long remember.
By Andrew Purves.
WJKP. 2001. 160 pp. Pb. $16.95.ISBN 0-664-22241-2
— reviewed by Richard Ray, Bristol, Va.
Turning this little book by Andrew Purves over, weighing it from hand to hand, I realized that I could not easily write an impersonal response to it. I knew its author too well. During the past few years in which we were colleagues at Pittsburgh Seminary we often discussed its basic themes.
More than 60 years ago, in an era of enormous instability and hardship, my father often journeyed into remote regions of North..
In memoriam: Robert McAfee Brown The drums of war are getting louder. A pre-emptive strike against Iraq is emerging as a major..
There are certain things about which people disagree regarding the recent ruling of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in the Ronald Wier case — a case alleging that the installation of a gay elder at Second church, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., violated the rules. But there seems consensus on at least this much:
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO