More News - Homepage Archives - The Presbyterian Outlook

The holy work of disaster prevention

November 15, 2019 by Christine Chakoian Leave a Comment

The work of disaster relief is more crucial than words can say — crucial, as in highly important and urgent, but also crucial, as in cross-shaped, cruciform. Emptying ourselves in the service of others is essential if we are to follow the way of Christ (as in Philippians 2). And the “others” include not only neighbors and friends, but also the stranger and even the enemy whom Christ calls us to love. Disasters manifest themselves in many forms. Some are weather-related. Some are terrorist-instigated. Some are racially and ethnically motivated. Often our attention is captured by the immediacy of sheer numbers; the greater number of lives lost, the more our hearts break. But immediacy is not the only measure of need. Cumulative pain is just as essential for us to attend to — it’s just harder for us to notice. It takes effort to keep on our radar asylum-seekers escaping drug cartels and violence and undocumented Bahamians fleeing the devastation of Hurricane Dorian who are no … [Read more...]

Tagged With: disaster relief

What’s right about First Presbyterian Church of Brawley?

November 11, 2019 by The Presbyterian Outlook Leave a Comment

First Presbyterian Church of Brawley, California Six years ago, we discerned God calling us to explore an alternative to our conventional Vacation Bible School. Out of this discernment process came Summer Service Nights, which is now “something right” the church facilitates each summer. We collect and purchase backpacks, school supplies and hygiene items to provide for 400 local children in need. Businesses, community clubs, Girl Scout troops and other ministries partner with us to donate items and come to church on “service nights” to assemble the backpacks and hygiene kits. After many service nights throughout the summer, we are prepared to host a Back to School Event in August. Children are invited to the church to receive a hygiene kit, a backpack filled with school supplies, a haircut and a dental and vision screening. We have crafts, snacks, books and Bibles available. They can also pick out an outfit for school and are ready to begin a new school year! We put faith … [Read more...]

I Was Hungry: Cultivating Common Ground to End an American Crisis

November 7, 2019 by The Presbyterian Outlook Leave a Comment

Jeremy Everett Brazos Press, 176 pages Reviewed by Nancy Neal Our politics are more polarized than we’ve experienced in recent history, but the hunger crisis in the United States can and should unite us. Everett argues that by coordinating our efforts across social and political divides, we can end what he calls the “systemic hunger disaster” in our country. As the founder and executive director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, Everett seeks to awaken compassion for the plight of people in the U.S. who struggle with food insecurity and to inspire and equip readers to take action in their own communities. “I Was Hungry” tells the story of the Texas Hunger Initiative, an organization that partners with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas state agencies, the corporate sector and thousands of faith- and community-based organizations to develop and implement strategies to alleviate hunger. Along the way, Everett weaves in his own story as the son of a Baptist preacher, inspired … [Read more...]

Mid councils and financial stress: Per capita work team hears from presbytery and synod leaders

November 6, 2019 by Leslie Scanlon Leave a Comment

The financial pressure in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), where it is most deeply felt, is not at the denomination’s national offices in Louisville, but closer to the people — in presbyteries and congregations. And part of it is tied up in memory: in not only what’s happening now, but in the collective trauma of what’s come before. It’s the impact of deciding the congregation can’t afford a full-time pastor anymore, and that long gone are the days when the pews were pretty much full every Sunday. But the church is now being asked to pay a higher rate of per capita – currently $8.95 per member – to support the work of the broader church. And the utility bills are going up too. Presbytery and synod leaders remember a time when at least some mid council offices had robust staffs and more money available for training and to do the work. Now, in some presbyteries it’s just one person, sometimes part-time, trying to do it all — holding it together with duct tape, one committee … [Read more...]

Tagged With: per capita

Strengthening reckless minds

November 6, 2019 by The Presbyterian Outlook Leave a Comment

Mark Lilla’s “The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics” is a cautionary study for all of us. Rather than an indictment of intellectuals in politics, he broadly examines how some of the most well-recognized philosophers of the 20th century – the smartest people on earth – so egregiously misjudged the ideological ramifications of their intellectual commitments. Take German philosopher Martin Heidegger, for example. Heidegger published “Being and Time” in 1927. In the philosophical world, “Being and Time” was cataclysmic. It reset the agenda for conventional philosophy, and secured Heidegger’s place as the most influential thinker in Europe. And yet, perhaps as early as 1931, Heidegger, influential thinker of continental and international renown, began voicing support for Nazism, and even gave propaganda lectures across Germany, ending them with the standard, “Heil Hitler!” It’s easy to pick on people like Heidegger — breathtaking geniuses whose thinking is exposed as lacking. … [Read more...]

Tagged With: faith & public life

I am a racist

November 6, 2019 by Samuel Son Leave a Comment

I am a racist. I serve as a manager of diversity and reconciliation for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and I am a racist. If not being a racist was a qualification to serve in this position of such presumptuous claim (as if diversity and reconciliation hasn’t happened yet because it hasn’t been managed well), no one could qualify for it. I am a second-generation Korean American. I am a person of color and know firsthand the havoc racism creates in my external opportunities and internal self-valuation; I’m still a racist. A person of color can be a racist to another person of color if there is power involved, because racism is not so much a personal character flaw but the worldview and structures of our American society. And if you grew up in America, racism is your default operating system. Our mind turns sensory data into knowledge by categorization because only by categories can we move from the particular to the universal, and knowledge is useful only if it helps us … [Read more...]

Tagged With: race relations