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Friday,
July 17, 2009
Come
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All the National PC(USA) news
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| PW
Gathering hosts commissioning service for mission
personnel – by
Pat Cole and Catherine Cottingham / World Mission |
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LOUISVILLE
– Twenty mission co-workers soon to serve
in places from Nicaragua to Taiwan were introduced
to the Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women
July 13 during a service of commissioning.
The 20 co-workers,
who stood on stage with 10 children who will accompany
their parents overseas, participated in the commissioning
while in Louisville for orientation. Most will
depart the United States for their assignments
in August. Also introduced were two Young Adult
Volunteers who will attend orientation next month.
The Young Adult Volunteers are among 59 YAVs who
will soon begin a year of ministry at sites across
the United States and around the world. |
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Caution:
imagination at work
– by Bethany Furkin
/ PNS
Calvin sought to revitalize worship, John Witvliet
tells Calvin Jubilee |
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MONTREAT,
NC – For Reformed leader John Calvin, theological
worship has three crucial elements – the
trinity, the engagement of worshippers and the
indispensible role of tangible signs – said
John Witvliet in his July 10 lecture at the July
8-11 Calvin Jubilee conference here, the celebration
of Calvin’s 500th birthday. |
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| Presbyterian
minister recalls his secret Apollo mission
/
VOA |
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Dean
Woodruff remembers the small, but "top secret"
role he had in the Apollo moon landing 40 years
ago.
The 76-year-old
retired pastor of the Webster Presbyterian Church
in Webster, Texas helped Astronaut Buzz Aldrin
plan an "event of personal religious significance."
It would be completed during the three hours that
Aldrin and fellow Astronaut Neil Armstrong spent
on the lunar surface.
"Buzz asked
me to come up with suggestions on ways he could
give thanksgiving for all people," says Woodruff.
Aldrin was an elder at the church.
When the "Eagle",
or lunar module, landed Aldrin and Armstrong on
the moon, it carried a small container that held
a piece of bread that Aldrin would take as communion,
a significant part of the religious service in
the Presbyterian church. |
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| Letters
from PCUSA missionaries and Young Adult Volunteers |
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Newsletters
received in July |
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| Scripture
lessons for today
– from
the Lectionary |
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"Have
mercy on me, O God,
according to your
steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me
from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever
before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is
evil in your sight..."
"Jesus departed with his disciples to the
lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed
him; hearing all that he was doing, they came
to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem,
Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around
Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have
a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so
that they would not crush him..." |
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Today
in the Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study
Salem
Presbytery – North
Carolina |
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"...Lloyd
Presbyterian Church hosts God’s Open Hand
Outreach in a small room in the basement. Director
Ella Pomeroy shepherds a mighty ministry with
the homeless, hungry, and often forgotten of Winston-Salem..." |
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News of all other churches.
in the USA and worldwide.
and their interaction with
the world around them.
Included: opinions, resources
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Voices
from the entire spectrum
Therefore:
Always something to like,
always something to dislike,
always something to ponder...
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| Ex-gay
ministry expands reach through merger
/ Charisma |
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A
leading ministry to people battling same-sex attraction
is expanding its church outreach by uniting with
ministries within two prominent mainline denominations.
During a press
conference Wednesday in Wheaton, Ill., Exodus
International announced a merger with Transforming
Congregations, an ex-gay ministry affiliated with
the United Methodist Church, and OneByOne, a similar
outreach affiliated with the Presbyterian Church
(USA).
"The compassionate
truth of the gospel is still the hope of the world
today," said Alan Chambers, president of
Exodus International. "Together, we hope
to advance a new era in the global Christian church
that is defined by God's truth as well as His
heart for hurting individuals experiencing confusion
and conflict about their sexuality."
Transforming Congregations
and One by One will function essentially as departments
within Exodus' church-equipping ministry.
Related: Exodus
news release |
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Ex-pastor
admits theft of $213,000 from parish
Stole during 2000-08 at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic
Church
By Michael Beebe / Buffalo News |
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For
a diocesan priest who made $20,000 a year for
most of his career, the Rev. F. Norman Sullivan
lived pretty well.
He owns a home
on nine acres of wooded land in Colden, a condominium
at the Estero Beach & Tennis Club in Fort
Myers, Fla., and another condo in the U. S. Virgin
Islands.
And on Thursday,
when he pleaded guilty to stealing $213,732 from
Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Cheektowaga
– including taking money out of the collection
plate – he avoided a prison term by repaying
every cent of his theft.
Sullivan skimmed
$1,700 a month from his parish’s collection,
a theft he was able to pull off because, after
he became pastor, he changed the rules: He counted
the money by himself in apparent contravention
of diocesan rules. |
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Survey:
1 in 3 scientists believe in God
By Michelle A. Vu / Christian Post |
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About
one out of every three scientists in the United
States professed believing in God, a recent survey
found.
That figure is
strikingly lower than the proportion of the general
American public that say they believe in God (83
percent), according to the report by the Pew Research
Center for the People and the Press and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Fazale Rana,
vice president of research and apologetics at
Reasons to Believe ministry, said the percentage
of American scientists who believe in God has
remained constant for more than three-quarters
of a century.
“The take
home message is that if science and religion are
incompatible then there is no way we would still
see 30-40 percent of scientists acknowledge there
is a God or higher power behind everything,”
he contended. |
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“A
mind for the poor”: Avoiding the traps
By Jim Tonkovich / IRD |
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"Abdoulaye
Wade has been president of Senegal in West Africa
since 2000. During that time, he has been one
of Africa’s most enthusiastic proponents
of economic development. “I don’t want
money,” he has said, “and I don’t
want hand-outs. I want trade agreements.”
"I thought
of President Wade while reading an essay in the
book In
the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World
on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty
The essay by Andreas Widmer, co-founder of the
S.E.VEN. Fund, “A Mind for the Poor,”
provides the principles for economic development
that the stories and ideas in the book illustrate.
Widmer learned these principles in, of all places,
a pastoral counseling class at seminary.
"Father John,
the instructor, warned his students of four traps
into which would-be counselors fall: “employing
crisis intervention instead of counseling, having
sympathy rather than empathy, being a codependent,
and playing the redeemer.”
“As I listened
further,” writes Widmer, “it struck
me that counseling and development are susceptible
to the same set of traps.” |
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Separated
brothers /
The Economist
Latinos are changing the nature of American religion |
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Some
68% of Hispanics in America are still Catholic,
according to the Pew Research Centre, a think-tank,
and their absolute number, thanks to immigration
and higher birth rates, continues to increase.
But about 15% are now born-again evangelicals,
who are fast gaining “market share”,
as Gaston Espinosa, a professor of religion at
Claremont McKenna College, puts it. He estimates
that about 3.9m Latino Catholics have converted,
and that “for every one who comes back to
the Catholic church, four leave it.”
The main reason,
he thinks, is ethnic identity. |
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Crusade
'09: Hip-hop & rock
– Franklin Graham
remakes his evangelistic model with outdoor festivals
targeting youth
By Tim Funk / The News & Observer
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It's
being advertised via texting, Twitter and Facebook
as an "evangelical summer concert tour,"
with hours of Christian hard rock and hip-hop
at each outdoor stop along the Mississippi River.
When things get
really hot on the Rock the River Tour, host evangelist
Franklin Graham is also promising "mist stations"
– places where the crowds can get relief
from soaring temperatures, courtesy of tubes that
spray light amounts of water.
The religious crusade
model Graham inherited from his world-famous father
is getting a makeover this summer as the Boone-based
evangelist seeks to reach a younger audience that
has little use for tradition. |
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| The
Baptist and the Mullah launch a faith-based attack
on the Taliban – by
Michael M. Phillips / The Wall Street Journal |
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HAJI
MOHAMAD ZARIF, Afghanistan – In a country
soaked with religion, it has fallen to an Oklahoma
Baptist to turn Islam into a weapon against the
Taliban.
The U.S. military,
eager to hand the war over to the Afghan government,
has placed mentors throughout the Afghan National
Army. The Americans help commanders command, fliers
fly and spies spy. U.S. Army Capt. James Hill,
a baby-faced 27-year-old from Lawton, Okla., drew
the job of mentoring Lt. Col. Abdul Haq, a 51-year-old
army mullah who has never shaved.
Capt. Hill's faith-based
mission is to counter the propaganda of Taliban
fighters, who ride motorcycles through isolated
villages spreading the word that the Afghan army
is led by godless communists working to purge
the country of Islam. Show the people that the
army is a Muslim one, and they'll be more likely
to support it against the insurgents, his theory
goes.
To that end, the
captain supplies the army with prayer rugs to
give out in villages. He requisitioned loudspeakers
for 30 bases and checkpoints so locals can hear
soldiers being called to prayer. And he spends
long hours encouraging Afghan soldiers, particularly
Lt. Col. Haq, to make a greater display of their
faith. |
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Redefining
marriage is undoing marriage
Viewpoint of Michael Neubert |
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"...Marriage
is a male-female relationship. This has been true
through all of human history, even in countries
that widely accepted homosexual practice. Marriage
as marriage always remained male and female. To
change that changes everything. It would mean
that heterosexual and homosexual relationships
are the same: legally, socially and morally...
"Accommodate
the desire of the minority if you like, but not
by redefining the very nature of marriage..." |
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The
motivated belief of John Polkinghorne
By Edward B. Davis / First Things |
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"...John
Polkinghorne, a world-class mathematical physicist
who resigned his chair at Cambridge in mid-career
to study for the Anglican ministry... offers an
open-minded, critical attitude toward both science
and theology that constitutes a powerful, deeply
insightful case for the truth of Christian theism.
I know of no more attractive alternative to the
narrow bibliolatry of the fundamentalists or the
reckless modernity of many liberals..."
"His two most
recent books are written in his characteristically
clear, often eloquent manner. The title of one,
Theology
in the Context of Science
(Yale University Press, 2009), reflects the fact
that Polkinghorne’s work has become increasingly
theological over the years. Indeed, theologians
and their students are his target audience here,
though he hopes that others will also find the
book helpful – as I suspect they will...
"Anyone familiar
with the writings of such preachers of scientific
atheism as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, or
Christopher Hitchins will immediately appreciate
the very different world in which Polkinghorne
dwells. “The tendency among atheist writers
to identify reason exclusively with scientific
modes of thought,” he notes pointedly, “is
a disastrous diminishment of our human powers
of truth-seeking inquiry.”..." |
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A
gut check for American Catholicism
By John L Allen Jr / National Catholic Reporter |
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"...when
the definitive history of Benedict XVI’s
papacy is written, the first week of July 2009
might well deserve a chapter all by itself.
"Twice in
that short span, Benedict propelled himself into
the thick of global debate by offering his slant
on two of the hottest topics on the planet today:
the economic crisis and Barack Obama...
"Rather than
rehash the details here, I'm going to try to answer
just one question: Did we see or hear anything
that poses a direct challenge to the American
Catholic church?
"I think the
answer is "yes," and the fact that it
hasn't quite registered yet tells us something
important about where things stand...
"[In a sense]
Caritas in Veritate amounts to a direct
challenge to the sociology of American Catholicism...
"...the real
"losers" from Caritas in Veritate
are Catholics who operate as chaplains to political
parties, cheerleaders for political candidates,
and spin doctors for either the Bush or Obama
administrations, cherry-picking among church teachings
to support those positions. Needless to say, the
American Catholic landscape is dotted with prominent
examples of all the above..." |
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The
workers are few – by
Bobby Ross Jr. / Christianity Today
Gap exists between what large churches need and
what seminaries produce. |
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Need
a seminary graduate with ministerial experience
who is eager to serve as senior pastor of a church
with 1,000 members or more? No problem.
A posting for such
a position can draw anywhere from 50 to 200 applicants,
said Don Goehner, president of the Goehner Group,
a California-based consulting firm for Christian
organizations.
But need a senior
pastor with the right combination of preaching
talent, administrative expertise, and people skills
to succeed?
"The seminaries
are not preparing guys to pastor large churches,"
Goehner said. "Usually, where these pastors
fail is not in their preaching… It's in the
issue of management."
The mere existence
of pastor search firms – which can earn $40,000
or more for a successful hunt – underscores
the difficulty of filling such positions. |
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The
great evangelical anxiety
Why change is not our most important product.
By Mark Galli / Christianity Today |
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"...Contrary
to our aspirations and assumptions, the Christian
faith is not a bulleted list that equips us with
principles to create the good life, let alone
the best life now. Nor does it present us with
an agenda, as some would have it, for making the
world a better place. The core of the faith is
good news. It is a revelation of the deeper realities
that plague us (of which our anxiety about change
is just a symptom) and the unveiling of an unshakable
hope.
"As Michael
Horton puts it in his Christless Christianity,
"You don't need Jesus to have better families,
finances, health, or even morality." Lots
of religions, therapies, and self-help regimens
enable people to break addictions, control tempers,
repair relationships, and even practice forgiveness.
Many social reform groups help us serve the neighbor.
At this level of ethics, God appears to work through
many means.
"The good
news drills down deeper...
"The good
news does not hinge on words like do or
change, but on the powerless, irrelevant,
and frightening word faith..." |
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| The
bishop discovers heresy? – by
Albert Mohler |
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"...
the only heresy recognized in much of liberal
Protestantism is the heresy of believing in the
possibility of heresy. This is not only a matter
of observation – it is a declaration proudly
made by many, who declare the categories of heresy
and orthodoxy to be both out of date and out of
style.
"All this
makes recent comments by Dr. Katherine Jefferts
Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church,
all the more interesting. In her opening address
to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church,
meeting this week in Anaheim, California, the
Presiding Bishop raised, of all things, the issue
of heresy...
"...note
carefully that the Bishop identified as heresy
what the church – throughout all the centuries
and in every major tradition – has recognized
as central to the Christian faith. The confession
that "Jesus Christ is Lord" has been
central to biblical Christianity from the New
Testament onward. In every tradition, some individual
profession of this "specific verbal formula"
has been understood to be essential to Christian
identity...
"Don't miss
this – the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal
Church openly lamented a focus on evangelization
that would seek conversions for such a focus would
divert the attention of her church from ecological,
economic, and other political imperatives..." |
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What
is the life revealed by God? – by
Mark D. Roberts
Part 4 of series: What is the Christian Life?
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"In
the opening verses of 1 John, we discover some
essential characteristics of the life revealed
by God. First, it was “from the beginning”
(1:1). Second, it is something John has experienced
personally: heard, seen, and touched (1:1). Third,
prior to its being revealed, it was “with
the Father” (1:2).
"For John’s
original readers, these clues pointed to an obvious
candidate for the revealed life: Jesus, the Son
of God. The language of John’s letter echoes
the introduction to the Gospel of John..." |
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What
went wrong with economics / The Economist
And how the discipline should change to avoid
the mistakes of the past |
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"...In
the public mind an arrogant profession has been
humbled. Though economists are still at the centre
of the policy debate... their pronouncements are
viewed with more scepticism than before. The profession
itself is suffering from guilt and rancour...
"In its crudest
form – the idea that economics as a whole
is discredited – the current backlash has
gone far too far. If ignorance allowed investors
and politicians to exaggerate the virtues of economics,
it now blinds them to its benefits. Economics
is less a slavish creed than a prism through which
to understand the world. It is a broad canon,
stretching from theories to explain how prices
are determined to how economies grow. Much of
that body of knowledge has no link to the financial
crisis and remains as useful as ever.
"And if economics
as a broad discipline deserves a robust defence,
so does the free-market paradigm. Too many people,
especially in Europe, equate mistakes made by
economists with a failure of economic liberalism.
Their logic seems to be that if economists got
things wrong, then politicians will do better.
That is a false – and dangerous – conclusion.
"These important
caveats, however, should not obscure the fact
that two central parts of the discipline –
macroeconomics and financial economics –
are now, rightly, being severely re-examined.." |
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| Joe
Biden: ‘We have to go spend money to keep
from going bankrupt’ – by
Penny Starr / CNSNews.com |
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Vice
President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP
town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported
health care plan becomes law the nation will go
bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate
is for the government to spend more money. |
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