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Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

By Bruce Bawer.
Crown. 1997. 340 pp. Pb. $26

ISBN 0-517-70682-2

Reviewed by Robert W. Bohl

Bruce Bawer is one of today's most perceptive and articulate cultural critics, especially in the arena of the religious cultural, political and theological climates. At the outset of Stealing Jesus, Bawer brushes aside worn-out phrases like fundamentalism and liberalism, traditional and modern, biblical and non-biblical religion and uses the terms Church of Law and Church of Love.

A Children’s Guide to Worship

By Ruth L. Boling, Lauren J. Muzzy, Laurie A. Vance.
Illustrated by Tracey Dahle Carrier.

Geneva (WJKP). 1997. Pb. $6.95
ISBN 0-664-50015-3

Reviewed by Carol A. Wehrheim

"With parents as partners, each church is called to nurture children in their commitment to Christ and community, through Scripture study, stewardship, worship, fellowship and Christian caring." With this quote and a charming illustration of a mouse child looking up at a mouse adult, this engaging book for children and their parents begins.

Complete Confidence and Godly Grief: Leadership for the Presbyterian Future

Most scholars agree that after Paul's painful second visit to the Corinthians, during which he was bitterly attacked by someone about something, he left to cool off, then decided not to pay another visit right away and wrote a letter instead, the so-called letter of tears that is either lost or preserved only in fragments in what we now call second Corinthians.

A Necessary Ingredient for Christian Education: the Congregation

The Christian faith -- certainly as we know it in the Reformed tradition -- is a faith of the community. While we make our individual professions of faith, we do so as we join the company of the faithful, the church of Jesus Christ. Parents may be the primary faith educators of their children, but it is the congregation that promises to guide and nurture the child by "word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging the child to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of Christ's church."

Capitalism and the Parable of the Talents

Serious Christian education requires that we not simply teach the Bible, but that our understanding of the text always be open to refinement. For 40 years I taught my Middle Eastern students, "Keep your exegetical conclusions tentatively final." They have to be final in the sense that, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I must live out my discipleship today. Obedience to my Lord cannot wait for me to read one more technical article in New Testament studies.

Life After Death

Easter is the great day for the church of Jesus Christ. There would be no gospel, no faith, no hope without the resurrection. Everything depends on God's raising Jesus from the dead, Jesus' ascension, his sitting at the right hand of the Father, his promised coming again. His resurrection is the guarantee of our own, and the gift of life after death to all to whom God chooses to give it.

A Blessing and a Curse

That's the text.

The occasion? Last week I was kicked out of Valley Hospice. It wasn't for moral turpitude or anything like that. I doubt if I will be brought before any presbytery committee or take up the PJC's precious time. It simply was the halfway point in their six-month program and I was too healthy. I don't really need the kind of crisis care in which they specialize. So why not save the last three months for the days I need them.

Advice for Madonna and Guy

Before retiring I had the privilege of being the minister of Dornoch Cathedral in the far north of Scotland. Within a few miles of Dornoch and its magnificent mediaeval cathedral is Skibo Castle, which Andrew Carnegie not only built, but in which he spent the happiest years of his life. He called Skibo his "Heaven on Earth."

On Protecting the Flock

The minister's primary duty -- and the session's -- is to feed and protect the flock over which God, through the actions of the church, has placed them. One of the sad aspects of the church's wars in recent years has been the spectacle of the people of God in the pew being drawn willy-nilly into battles that they really don't need to be a part of.

Feed My Giraffe

After only one month of preaching, my senior elder took me aside and said, "Charles, we think we are going to like you a lot, but your sermons are going right over our heads. You should remember that the Lord said, 'Feed my sheep' not my giraffe." I almost responded that I knew about sheep, but I had received no instructions about grubs.

Across the Aisle

Several strains of thought have converged recently for me and shaped these paragraphs. The Outlook editorial of Jan. 15 by Robert Bullock and William Stacy Johnson brought thoughtful assessment of Amendment O as well as a challenging reminder of work to be done by all the church in the days after the presbyteries have voted.

Reflections from a Sojourn in Egypt

Living for 15 months in Egypt introduced us to a different world -- Arabic and Islamic; ancient yet modern; a third world, and an industrial nation unable to give up its old ways; a gracious hospitable people who want you to like their country.

The Unity We Seek

We Presbyterians are searching frantically to preserve the unity of our denomination, anything to keep the church from splitting. Let's try this way, that way, a third way. There must be some way we can find! But maybe what we need is to give up our ways and concentrate on what God in Christ has done.

‘Maranatha’

If the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is at a crossroads in its life -- a time when many aspects of our life together need to be subjected to careful scrutiny to determine their usefulness to the church -- then certainly a re-examination of the meeting of the General Assembly itself is in order.

Questions and Answers about Amendment Q

As presbyteries consider Amendment Q, some important questions are being raised. As co-authors of the original overture from Genesee Valley Presbytery, we offer the benefit of our thoughts.

1. It sounds like this amendment is just trying to punish the offender.

A Merciful Dissonance

The Guest Viewpoint by Jerry Andrews and reply by Robert Bullock and me offers a poignant example of Christian friends engaging each other -- reluctantly -- in disagreement. What are we to make theologically of this fact: that disagreement seems to be a permanent mode of the church's existence?

Connecting Faith and Practice, Correcting Misunderstanding

The theology, constitution and policy of our church, in concert with the church universal and ecumenical, teaches that sexual expression belongs only within the covenant of marriage. The polity of the church is to conform to the profession of the church, as our Preliminary Principles say: "We are persuaded that there is an inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth and duty."

‘The End of the Church’ – How it applies to the PC(USA)

Ephraim Radner has written an interesting book. An Episcopalian priest, Radner argues that the present divisions within the church are themselves a sign of "pneumatic deprivation," that is, the abandonment of the church by the Holy Spirit. That is the message that the title of his book is meant to convey: The End of the Church: A Pneumatology of Christian Division in the West (Eerdmans, 1998).

Hope and God’s Faithfulness

I have experienced an epiphany, or at least a reawakening of personal hope for our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). In a day when it seems that our beloved church is being torn asunder by irreconcilable issues, such as the Amendment O debate, little did I realize that a request from my session would lead me to a rediscovery of hope for the church.

Outlook Response to ‘Connecting Faith and Practice’

It is too bad that with so many challenges facing the church today we have to be conducting a dispute with our good friend Jerry Andrews over Amendment O. This diversion of valuable energy is just one more reason we are against the amendment.

Answer the Questions the Need Answering

Last Saturday evening I spent about an hour and a half sitting crossed-legged on the bed in the basement room of one of my 13-year-old parishioners while she and her two friends fired questions at me non-stop. As soon as I took a breath in an answer, mostly to check my own brain to be sure that I was on track, the next question shot out, hung in the air in a pleading way and fell into my lap.

Big Question about Young Pastors is ‘Which Ones Will Stay with the PC(USA)?’

What will the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) be like in the next 10 or 20 years? Only God knows with certainty. But if young pastors, those age 40 or younger, are any indication, the denomination may very well continue to retreat from causes associated with the Great Society and its heirs, while returning to its theological roots.

‘A Sacred Trust’

For more than 50 years, The Presbyterian Outlook and its predecessor publications worked passionately for the reunion of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A./United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church, U.S. -- the Southern branch separated from the main body since 1861. Year after year, patiently and persistently, our editors worked through individual Presbyterians, North and South, and through the governing bodies of the church to make reunion possible.

Response to ‘A Sacred Trust’

I would like to make three comments on Robert Bullock's important editorial, "A Sacred Trust." Before I do that, let me say that even though I differ with him on a number of issues, not the least of which is Amendment O, I know that Robert is a dedicated servant of Jesus Christ and of the PC(USA).

Decently and in Ordure

Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but part of the problem with Presbyterians today is they do not often enough smell to high heaven. That is, Presbyterians look down their noses more regularly at bad order than at bad odor. Obviously God made human beings with five senses. Puzzling over how they worked together caused Aristotle to posit a "common sense" (De Anima, III).

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