Reports from July are listed on the July archive page.

All our reports from June are indexed on the June archive page.

Check earlier months through the general archive page.

The Orange County (California) Superior Court has ruled in favor of the Reverend Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel, Moderator of the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The court dismissed the slander lawsuit brought against him by Paul Rolf Jensen, for lack of "subject matter jurisdiction over the allegations of the complaint."

"Holy Land" - What is it and who owns it? A Christian transformation of the question

Land - "holy land" - and who owns it is at the center of the terrible, seemingly endless conflict in Israel/Palestine.

The Rev. Thomas C. Davis, pastor of Hanover Street Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, decided to preach two sermons exploring the notion of holy land in the Hebrew scriptures, and its radical transformation in the New Testament. In the first sermon, "God's Abode," he points to Jesus' insistence that God's presence was now to be found not in a place - the Temple or the Land - but in the Person of Jesus (the Way), and thus in all persons.

And in the second sermon, "Everywhere Lies Holy Ground," he traces the pattern of "ethnic cleansing" from the ancient Hebrews' conquest of the Promised Land, through their Puritan descendants' conquest and extermination of the native peoples of North America, to the apartheid system in South Africa. He shows how, again, Jesus overturns the idea of a "holy land" as the property of one people; now all land is holy, for God moves among all peoples.

"The Jews can't lay exclusive claim to [the Holy Land] any more than they can to holy ground. Everywhere lies holy ground, because the spirit blows where it wills." And so, he concludes, "Christianity, in Luke's view, is not tied to any specific land. It''\s mission is to the ends of the earth."

Anti-hunger group offers free worship resources

Bread for the World, a Christian anti-hunger group, has produced a new worship resource to help congregations renew their commitment to fighting hunger during an annual day of observance called "Bread for the World Sunday."

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, calls for a new sexual ethic that contrasts radically with the neo-Puritan ethic being demanded by President Bush - even in Africa, where it will harm rather than help efforts to combat the rising incidence of AIDS.

What's needed, she says, is not merely sexual freedom, but an end to "sexual illiteracy," which can come only by replacing the still-current "male ethic of sexual exploitation" with a truly egalitarian sexual ethic, which allows learning through experience - but experience in stages of growing maturity and responsibility.

The Ten Commandments are a pretty big deal these days. But they've been around for a while, and may not evaporate with their removal from a governmental display of them.

A couple years ago we posted a helpful essay by the Rev. Bruce Gillette on "teaching the Ten Commandments, which includes a list of good resources.

If you have other good material, or thoughts of your own on this issue, please send us a note to be shared here!

The Rev. John Shuck, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Billings, Montana, reports:

Witherspoon-Montana has now been formed and about 45 folks (so far all in Yellowstone Presbytery--but we know some Glacier Presbytery folks will hop aboard, too) have signed on to participate in conversation, education, action and dancing regarding social justice issues in Montana in church and society. We hope to have some programs and speakers, BBQ's, talent shows, and what all to show that social justice and inclusiveness can be fun as well as important especially when we do it together!

And he invites you to visit their very own website!  

And click here for more information about forming your own chapter.

The Rev. David Garth McKechnie, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Houston, TX, has become the first candidate for moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

The Presbytery of New Covenant voted unanimously to endorse his candidacy on Aug. 23. His presenter, the Rev. Gerald Hurst, pastor of Southminster Presbyterian Church in Missouri City, TX, called McKechnie "one who will work with both sides of the aisle toward the peace, unity and purity of the church ... (and) the healing and reconciliation of the church."

Carolyn Gillette's hymn for this Sunday (August 31st) and September 7th is "Be Doers of the Word of God." Built on texts from James 1, Ephesians, and 1 John 3, it is posted on the Church World Service website.

October 26, 2003 is the two-year anniversary of the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act and the last day before the Muslim holiday Ramadan. The weekend is a fitting time for people of all faith traditions to affirm and celebrate fundamental freedoms. Through education, worship, and community action, participating congregations can help to ensure that freedom in the United States is truly for all people. -- regardless of citizenship, nationality, race, or religion.

For a complete list of the national religious groups sponsoring Witness for Civil Liberties Weekend, see: www.witnessforcivilliberties.org

Made in God's Image: A Resource for Dialogue about the Church and Gender Differences is a groundbreaking educational booklet combining valuable information, personal sharing, and resources. A perfect starting place for any congregation, family, or individual.

One, an honorary canon at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis, responds to Katherine Kersten's widely note attack on the decision as substituting a "gospel of inclusion" for the true demands of scripture.

TURN BACK:
HOPES AND FEARS FOR THE PRESBYTERIAN FUTURE

Barbara Wheeler, President of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, joined with the Rev. Jack Haberer, pastor of Clear Lake Presbyterian Church in Houston, TX, and current member of the Board for Presbyterians for Renewal, in a conversation for the Semper Reformanda gathering at the beginning of the General Assembly in Denver, on May 23, 2003.

The participants engaged in a free-flowing conversation, but each of them provided written texts from earlier presentations as helpful background.

Ms. Wheeler provided an address she gave at Fuller Seminary on January 21, 2003.  We posted the text of that address during General Assembly, but have just discovered that we posted only part of the full text.

A call to the March on Washington
40th Anniversary -- August 21-24, 2003

This week the SCLC, the NAACP, the Urban League and many of faith groups including the National Council of Churches will convene a march to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the historic March on Washington.

The National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, with headquarters in Chicago, encourages interfaith action to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions for workers, especially low-wage workers.

NICWJ has just published a twelve-page booklet entitled "Presbyterian Resources for Worker Justice." Mark Wendorf traces the Reformed heritage, Richard Poethig reminds Presbyterians how they dealt with industrial change in the twentieth century, and Noelle Damico writes about the Taco Bell boycott. Presbyterian statements about labor rights are quoted, and a timeline highlights major turning points. There are a reproducible "labor litany" and "labor prayer."

The price is $1 each for 1-20 (plus $3 shipping and handling), 50 cents each for 21-50 (plus $5), and 25 cents for 50-100 (plus $7). You can phone them at (773) 728-8400, or go to their web site, www.nicwj.org/pages/materials.Presbyterian.html.

After the big blackout ... what about energy?

The political right wing, operating through a number of so-called "renewal groups," particularly one named the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has acquired the money and political will to target three mainline American denominations: The United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Episcopal Church.

Gene TeSelle recently noted the publication of United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake Up Call by Leon Howell. Andrew J. Weaver, a United Methodist pastor and a clinical psychologist, has recently published another review (entitled "The Fighting Methodists" ) on Martin Marty's website version of his newsletter, Sightings.

Following a fairly heated response from Mark Tooley, who directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), Dr. Marty offered his thoughts on the rhetoric involved, drawing two conclusions:

First, infighting within denominations inspires inflaming rhetoric unmatched by most of that in politics. Somehow, when people invoke the name or cause of God they tend to demonize "the other" more readily than they do in the affairs of the republic. On such premises, for instance, discuss stem cell research or homosexuality or policies toward Israel, and soon you will be debating what God had in mind back in creation or has in mind with the second coming of Christ to Israel. Pity would-be reconcilers on such fronts.

Second, such rhetoric points to the fact that the "day of denominations" is not over. People fight fiercely over their fates and meager spoils. And we see that denominations do not belong simply to the private sphere but they lead public lives and what they say and do has a bearing on the cultural and social worlds.

A recent article by syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, posed the interesting (and currently pressing) question: "Should judges be disqualified if their religious beliefs impact their votes?" Goldberg suggests - or even asserts - that it is religious prejudice to object to Supreme Court nominees who take strong positions on the basis of their faith.

This is an issue of great concern to many conservative Presbyterians (among lots of others), as evidenced by its inclusion in the PresbyWeb listings for Thursday, August 14, 2003.

Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle offers some thoughts on various ways our society and our theologians have tried to define a proper - and properly limited - role for religious faith in political discourse.

For another perspective on religion and politics in America, you might consider a provocative essay in The Guardian, by George Monbiot.

To explain why the Bush administration is so selective in its "intelligence" about the world, and specifically about Iraq, he says that

The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory, "wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, "come out," and to those in darkness, "be free."

So American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons.

He concludes:

The dangers of national divinity scarcely require explanation. Japan went to war in the 1930s convinced, like George Bush, that it possessed a heaven-sent mission to "liberate" Asia and extend the realm of its divine imperium. It would, the fascist theoretician Kita Ikki predicted, "light the darkness of the entire world". Those who seek to drag heaven down to earth are destined only to engineer a hell.

The full text of this article is available on Monbiot's own website and on The Guardian's site.

Who is this man Monbiot? You can check the "Who I am" page on his website.  When you finish you may wonder what he does for adventure. 

Well, it seems that for one highly respected Presbyterian-related college, Davidson in North Carolina, DIVERSITY HAS ITS LIMITS.

Dean Leslie Marsicano, Director of Residence Life, is quoted in Newsweek on finding compatible roommates for new students:

As the Bush administration deals with a very different situation in Liberia from the most recent "crisis" in Iraq (or whatever you want to call it), it may be helpful to think beyond issues of military intervention.

Foreign Policy in Focus, a progressive "Think Tank without Walls," has posted a thorough analysis of the real needs in Liberia. They conclude that "If Liberia is to break its cycle of violence and decline, six major peace-building tasks will need to be undertaken - all of which would benefit from American financial and technical assistance: establishing a governing structure; enforcing peace; stemming the flow of weapons to the region; kick-starting the economy; and recovering looted assets."

In June, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-2 to adopt the Precautionary Principle, consolidating the city's environmental laws into a single code to "create and maintain a healthy, viable Bay Area environment for current and future generations," reports Rachel's Environment and Health News.

The study's findings concluded:

The five elements needed for the Precautionary Principle to succeed are summarized on Utne's Webwatch.

"We Stand Our Ground"

The New York Times reported this morning (August 7, 2003) on the variety of ways in which Episcopalians at the National Convention are expressing their objections to the Convention's action in confirming the election of the Rev. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

One of the most conservative of the right-wing groups, Forward in Faith, is mentioned (though not by name) as meeting at Westminster Presbyterian Church, just a couple blocks from the Convention Center.

According to The Times, "A few blocks away, about 300 opponents of approving Bishop-elect Robinson, some 20 bishops among them, prayed together in a worship service at Westminster Presbyterian Church. In the pews, several people wept. Some spoke of the decision [to approve Robinson's election] as a death."

We contacted the pastor of Westminster, the Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, to ask about this apparent support by a Presbyterian church for the far right of a sister denomination. He explained that Westminster was contacted by the organization months before the convention, and asked to rent their chapel to the group for daily morning worship. Westminster, said Hart-Andersen, agreed as a matter of simple hospitality, and without knowing much about the nature of the group.

In case you're wondering, a quick search on the Web reveals that Forward in Faith is indeed pretty far to the right. They regard the American Anglican Council, which has led the fight against Robinson's confirmation, as a bit too far to the left. The Council, for instance, allows for the ordination of women, while Forward in Faith does not. In their efforts to restore true worship to their denomination, they use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune provides a fairly complete and informative report.

And the Episcopal News Service gives a shorter version

We've noticed in many of the headlines over reports of this event the implication that the election of a gay bishop threatens to split the Episcopal Church. The New York Times, for instance, offers this headline:
Gay Bishop Wins in Episcopal Vote; Split Threatened.

Some coverage carries the implication further, as in the headline on PresbyWeb's link to the Times story:

Gay bishop wins in Episcopal vote, threatening split
Conservatives: This body has divided itself

Dialogue, listening, sharing stories and experiences are the ways to understanding the complexities of our humanity. Adopting a hard-line stance does nothing to enhance church unity, which is, we understand, the desire of Christ for the church. The way of Jesus, on the other hand, seems to have been to listen and talk and include, rather than refuse to listen and exclude people. Indeed those deemed "other" in Jesus' own day were the very people Jesus seems to have sought out and included in his circle - women, lepers, Samaritans, tax collectors and other so-called undesirables were those to whom he showed love.

"Queer Church Logic"

Michael Worsnip, programme manager for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa, takes "all this recent stuff in the news about gay bishops" in stride, saying that gay bishops are nothing new; it's the honesty and integrity that are new, and very welcome.

He adds:

Do you remember the big fuss about divorcees? Do you remember the big fuss about women priests? The church was wrong. And eventually (but after how long and after how much pain and undeserved suffering?) it changed the rules. I have no reason to believe that anything different is going to happen here. Eventually, dragged kicking and screaming by a prophetic society, rather than the other way around, the church will change the rules on this issue as well.

The Rev. Gene Robinson has been confirmed by the Episcopal House of Bishops as the bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Robinson was confirmed early this evening by the Episcopal House of Bishops, by a vote of 62 for out of the 107 eligible to vote.

The charges against him were dismissed decisively a few hours earlier by the bishop named to investigate them, the Rev. Gordon Scruton of western Massachusetts.

Episcopalians Schedule Vote on Bishop
Investigation Ends Day After Misconduct Allegations Emerge

The Washington Post reports that Episcopal Church officials have finished investigating last-minute allegations against the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, allowing senior bishops to debate and possibly vote today on whether to confirm his election as the church's first openly gay bishop, the presiding bishop said.

Out of the many press reports on the events at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, here are two that seem to offer helpful background and analysis.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune also draws on wire service reports.

(You may be asked to register to access this page, but there's no charge, and it's pretty painless.)

The Boston Globe offers good information about Gene Robinson's accuser, and about the website which he is accused of supporting.

At the last minute, one David Lewis of Manchester, Vt has charged that the Rev. Gene Robinson, now awaiting the last vote to confirm his as bishop of New Hampshire, "inappropriately touched" him "a couple of years ago."

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold has appointed Bishop Gorton Scruton of Western Massachusetts to conduct an investigation.

Efforts by Episcopal News Service to reach Lewis by phone have been unsuccessful.

Episcopal House of Deputies approves Gene Robinson as bishop

from Episcopal News Service, posted 8/3/2003

Gene Robinson's journey to becoming bishop of New Hampshire passed a crucial milestone Sunday afternoon when the House of Deputies voted to consent to his election as bishop coadjutor.

In a vote by orders on resolution C045, lay deputations voted 63 yes, 32 no, and 13 divided. Clergy deputations voted 65 yes, 31 no, and 12 divided. With the deputies' action, the final decision now rests with the House of Bishops, which will take up Robinson's consent at 2 p.m. Monday.

Ritual for same-sex blessings may be approved

Convention Daily. Posted 8/3/2003

The Episcopal General Convention's committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music offered a compromise resolution Sunday on preparing rites for same-sex blessings that would allow for local option.

The new resolution, which combines resolutions C005, B007, C022 and C051, directs the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music to prepare ""rites for possible inclusion in Enriching Our Worship by means of which support and blessing may be expressed for same-sex relationships with the permission of the ecclesiastical authority."

The resolution now goes to the House of Bishops for consideration.

For more news from the Episcopal Church's General Convention, click here.

And there's more:

If you're a perplexed Presbyterian trying to understand to voting system in the Episcopal Church, check out a report by Martha Sawyer Allen, religion reporter on the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

She also provides good glimpses of the arguments for and against the confirmation of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay priest to be confirmed as a bishop in the Episcopal Church - or anywhere in the world-wide Anglican communion.

NOTE:  You need to register to access the Star Tribune website -- but it's free!

Reports from July are listed on the July archive page.

All our reports from June are indexed on the June archive page.

Check earlier months through the general archive page.