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:
The schedule for discussions that the Theological Task Force for Peace, Unity and Purity has proposed calls for each of its next four meetings to focus on a basic theological topic and a basic theme of Presbyterian polity, governance and history, as follows:
CHICACO — Trying to find out what's in the hearts of people out in the church, the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held a series of focus groups at the General Assembly this summer — asking people to speak to speak out about the task force's work and their own concerns.
By Michael L. Lindvall.
Geneva. 2001. 135 pp. Pb. $11.95. ISBN 0-664-50142-7
— reviewed by Bill Klein, Lexington, Va.
Anyone familiar with Michael Lindvall’s book, The Good News from North Haven (reprint expected Summer 2002), will welcome his most recent effort. The Christian Life is another in the expected 12-volume Foundations of Christian Faith series being commissioned by the Office of Theology and Worship of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and published by Geneva Press.
God has given the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) a moment of grace to dream new dreams, to see new visions, to lay aside the weapons of warfare, and to rethink mission and strategy on a truly grand scale.
At the end of a quarter century of nearly continuous contentiousness, it is as if a boil has been lanced, followed by an experience of relief, a weary contingent of God’s people wanting to move beyond the trenches that divided and to move forward into a future of obedience and service.
The United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), formed by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the United Presbyterian Church of North America in 1957, elected Edler Garnet Hawkins the first black moderator (1964) ever to so serve these denominations. Of course from the days of Samuel Cornish and Henry Highland Garnet to the organization of the Afro-American Presbyterian Council in Philadelphia (1894), through the years of "Jim Crow" institutionalized as "separate but equal" by the Supreme Court in 1897, Presbyterian blacks made their voices heard about Christian faith and life, breaking down some, not many, walls of segregation in the church.
CHICAGO — Sensing that it has a mountain of work before it and not an equivalent amount of time, the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved what it calls "a plan for moving ahead" — essentially, a blueprint for how it will order its work in the months to come.
According to the Apostle Paul we are commanded not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought, but to think of ourselves with sober judgment (Romans 12:3). This is naturally easier said than done. My grown children still do not always think soberly -- a situation that occurs every time they disagree with me.
LOUISVILLE — Take one student with a heart for children at a Presbyterian seminary. Add one dose of inspiration, courtesy of the Children's Defense Fund.
Gently fold in kids, dozens of them, many from the inner city, with braids and big smiles and often an arms-length relationship with reading. Throw in some books from African-American authors and some college students looking to be role models.
Among the "accomplishments of the 214th General Assembly," the editor of The Outlook states that "the General Assembly affirmed the necessity of compliance with the standards" for ordination that have been the source of judicial decision and orders in the past two years. Actually all the Assembly did was to disapprove the overture from Shenango Presbytery and the amended minority report response to that overture.
Before commissioners had exchanged final hugs; before Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel had issued his last "holy"; and long before the TV screens went blank, the 214th General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, had been labeled: "the Prozac Assembly" and "the do-no-harm Assembly" were two popular monikers.
A better description might be "the 70-30 Assembly."
In advance of the meeting of the 214th General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, conventional wisdom held that there would be very little real work to be done since virtually all matters relating to human sexuality were off the table this time around.
As it turned out, though, commissioners not only did real and important work, they even dealt effectively with a few sexuality related issues.
The 214th General Assembly approved a capital funds drive for $40 million for new church development here at home and missionary support abroad. It is called "The New Initiative" and it is the first capital funds campaign for General Assembly agencies in the last 10 years.
AUSTIN, Texas — Theodore J. "Ted" Wardlaw, 49, pastor since 1991 of Central church, Atlanta, has been called to the presidency of Austin Seminary beginning in mid-November.
Wardlaw's nomination to become the seminary's ninth president was approved by seminary trustees on July 1. He will take office on the retirement of Robert M. Shelton, who has served the seminary for 31 years, as a professor of homiletics, academic dean and, for the last five years, as president.
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