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All the national PC(USA) news
"from left to right"
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Presbyterians are not Episcopalians
By PFR Issues Ministry |
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"...As Presbyterians, we regret that the affairs of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) lamentably resemble the errors of the Episcopal Church in many ways. Nevertheless, it is definitely not inevitable that Presbyterians will similarly cave in from the undermining of cultural currents. Indeed, PFR is joining many other Presbyterians to reverse a worldly bent through major programs for the edification and rebuilding of the church..." |
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| Reports from meeting of Theological Taskforce |
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Task Force considers different ways of making decisions
By Leslie Scanlon, The Outlook
Barbara Wheeler said "the possibility that Presbyterians might actually do business differently," had never before occurred to her. ("I just thought Robert's Rules were handed down with the tablets on Sinai," Wheeler joked.) |
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Non-Anglo members give their point of view
By Leslie Scanlon, The Outlook
A Native-American, an African-American, a Puerto-Rican... No Korean? |
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News of and for the wider Church,
in the USA and around the world
plus: opinions, resources
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Hate campaign against Christians heats up in Kerala
The All India Christian Council asks for prayer for beleaguered Christians in the Indian state |
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Up until recently, the Indian state of Kerala has been, for many years, a safe haven for Christians. The anti-Christian violence which is a regular occurrence in North India and other states had not yet found a place in this state.
The All India Christian Council says that now a hate campaign against Christians has started in the state. |
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| Brokaw expects WMD catch, warns of religious tensions |
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“The first evidence of that will likely be biological. Anthrax, smallpox, agents of that kind and than, after that, chemical and even some physical weapons that are illegal. Missiles and that kind of things. I do think that they will get some concrete evidence (about) weapons of mass destruction,” predicted Tom Brokaw in an exclusive interview in Amman, Jordan with Stefan Bos of Assist News Service (ANS).
He warned that U.S. President George W. Bush and other officials have not “a clear idea” about fears among persecuted minority Christians as well as other groups that Iraq will turn into a more radical Islamic state.
Brokaw: “I was twice (in Iraq) last year, when there was that pervasive climate of fear, now there is a climate of tentative happiness and some weariness.” |
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| U.N. top man angry about “American Mismanagement” |
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A United Nations top official for humanitarian tasks in Iraq says aid workers better “stay away” from Iraq because of “American mismanagement,” amid concern over daily attacks against United States soldiers and Christians. |
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| N.H. parish welcomes elected gay bishop |
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The Rev. Gene Robinson returned to his home church Sunday to the hugs and handshakes of hundreds of parishioners and led the blessing there for the first time since becoming the first openly gay Episcopalian confirmed as a bishop.
"We feel as though God's blessing is raining down on us."
Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two who has lived with his partner, Mark Andrew, for more than 13 years, had predicted his confirmation would strengthen the church by underscoring its diversity, though some conservative Episcopalian leaders have threatened to break away. |
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| Why, after 20 years as a priest, I am leaving the Church of England – By Simon Parke, The Independent |
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One thing we must understand about the Church of England is this: the Pharisees, known today as the evangelicals, are running the asylum. These are worthy people, but they hide behind rules, unable to cope with mystery and spirit. They look in the book of Leviticus and see clear denunciations of same-sex relationships; they read verses in Paul's Letter to the Romans talking about "unnatural relationships". There is, in this psyche, a deep desire for issues to be black and white, fenced in, particularly in the tumultuous sphere of sex...
And hope? Is there hope in all this? Yes, there is. Rowan Williams is a good and wise man, even though he stands in the midst of this crisis like a frightened rabbit.
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The great divide – by Jack Kelly:
An openly gay bishop is a fundamental contradiction |
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"Shortly after the vote in Minneapolis was taken, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson said: "God has once again brought an Easter out of Good Friday," implicitly likening the "ordeal" he had endured – a 24-hour delay in his selection as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church – to Christ's suffering on the Cross..." |
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Episcopal Church plays Russian roulette on gay issue
The treatment has been successful, but the patient, if not quite dead yet, looks to be dying – by Charlotte Allen |
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"Since the late 1960s, the Episcopal Church has served as a laboratory for the proposition that Christianity must liberalize – jettison its more demanding traditional teachings and get in step with the times – to survive. The Episcopalians have done it all: allowed women clergy, dropped sanctions against divorce, made belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ optional...
"...there has been only one snag: The Episcopal Church has declined precipitously in both membership and influence..."
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| In gay-union debate, religious influence hard to measure |
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"...the question remains whether the religious community has the clout, especially when it is sending such mixed messages, to influence the parallel civil debate over gay rights...
"Will voters, politicians and judges weigh the scriptural interpretations of religious leaders or keep their eyes on the unexpectedly high ratings of gay-themed television shows like "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"?..."
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| Gay dispute rocks faithful institutions |
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Last week the Episcopalians grappled over whether to confirm a gay bishop. Before that, the Vatican issued a plea for Catholics and others worldwide to ban same-sex marriage and adoption by gays.
This week, the Lutherans become the latest mainline denomination to confront a burgeoning controversy that is sweeping the country and into church pews.
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| Other things about marriage – By William F. Buckley, Jr. |
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The dismissal of marriage as nothing more than that which is supposed to happen before children eventuate is sociology -- the taboo-lifting license given to newlyweds who have formalized mating arrangements. Although we don't think very much about it, the breeding of children is of course required for the perpetuation of the race.
Mocking Swedish emphases on unburdened sex and birth control and free abortion, the late Malcolm Muggeridge quipped to a friend, "Just think of the good side of it. By the year 2050 there will be zero Swedes left!" That was high mockery, but in its own way a reminder that if the world is to go on, so also do people need to be generated to inhabit it. If there is nobody living, who will be left to inveigh against the neglect of the environment?
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| Lead us not...! – By Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal, Arab News |
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"...Westerners give themselves the right to change even Christian scriptures to suit their whims, and in the process trample all over the religious sensibilities of other Christians who are unfortunate enough not to have been born in the West.
"...having trampled over centuries of doctrine, they go on to trample over the religious sensibilities of all their non-Western "brothers" and impose their decision by elevating one of their own Western homosexuals to the position of bishop of the Anglican Church. They are exploiting the poverty and vulnerability of their non-Western "brothers" by ignoring their more traditional views..."
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| Courts weighing rights of states to curb aids to religion majors |
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Eleven states prohibit aid for the study of theology.
"An atheist committed to scientific materialism may study the Big Bang, the laws governing the subsequent organization of matter and, ultimately, the amphibian from which man is said to have evolved — all without forfeiting his scholarship," they wrote in court papers. "But Teresa must forfeit her scholarship if she wishes to discuss the Uncaused Cause that created the stuff of the Big Bang, and the notion that the laws that govern creation are not merely statistically improbable but so irreducibly complex that the heavens proclaim the glory of the Lord."
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Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war – By Patrick J. Buchanan
The sad sundered Episcopal Church is a mirror for America. |
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With the Episcopal Church heading for schism, the Supreme Court discovering sodomy to be a constitutional right, President Bush maneuvering to back an amendment outlawing "gay" marriage, and the pope denouncing homosexual unions as immoral and homosexual acts as deviant, there's no way this issue can be kept out of the campaign of 2004. Nor should it be.
But it does reveal a painful truth. America is again a house divided. The "don't ask, don't tell" moral community in which we grew up has dissolved irrevocably. Christianity, dying in Europe, is under siege in America. A paganism that holds homosexual unions to be "sacramental" – the Rev. Robinson's term – is ascending.
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| Privacy law keeps clergy from flock |
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New federal regulations designed to keep patients' health-care information private are having the unintended consequence of keeping clergy from visiting some hospitalized parishioners.
Nearly four months after the health-care privacy regulations went into effect, clergy members said they have received complaints from people wondering why they were not visited in the hospital.
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Next generation of churches is alive at Vineyard
By Peter Bronson, Cincinnati Enquirer |
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The church in Springdale near Interstate 275 and Kemper Road has been called the biggest in Southwest Ohio. It's not all college kids – but it looked that way from where I sat. And "church" hardly describes it.
The good news is that while dying churches cling to ritual and abandon the Word, the living churches are doing just the opposite.
The message at The Vineyard was Matthew 7: 24-27, about the quality of workmanship in our lives.
It applies to churches, too. And the young people who are helping to build The Vineyard are building a faith that will last.
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| Funerals are seeing an evolution of the eulogy |
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Before 1980 fewer than 10 percent of funerals included a eulogy by someone other than a clergyman, said Robert Vandenbergh, past president of the National Funeral Directors Association. By 1990 the percentage had risen to about 25 percent, he said. "Now, it's in excess of 50 percent." Other funeral directors say the new popularity of the eulogy has almost doubled the average length of a funeral service, from 20 or 25 minutes in the 1980s to 35 or 40 minutes today.
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| Why do we make good girls dress bad? – by Barbara Kay |
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In the style section of the New York Times a few weeks ago, a layout was entitled: "The Mirror has Two Faces: Fall fashion addresses that great cultural dichotomy – good girl or bad?" An immigrant might be puzzled reading this. Does the Times give fashion advice to streetwalkers?
No, the Times merely deconstructs the cultural zeitgeist and dresses its models accordingly. The message we absorb is that a lot of women think looking "bad" is good... |
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| Letters from readers |
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Earl Tilford, responding to Edward Koster: "...The Church is about belief. And belief... is about faith in things we cannot see nor prove. What we do have is God’s Word… the Bible… and in that Bible God is totally righteous, totally truthful and His Truth does not change. We may be wise as humans if we do not let ourselves become convinced that we have a lock on the truth, nevertheless, the Truth of God is unchanging and immutable. Something that is true does not change..." |
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Earl C. Apel "...my question to Mr. Koster and others is how can one claim that the PC(USA) honors ambiguity as long as G-6.0106b remains in the BoO?..." |
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Nathan Gates "It sounds to me like Edward Koster desires to be part of the church at Laodicea..." |
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