Introduction The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been engaged in a decade-long struggle to divest from companies that are profiting from the Israeli
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Ark of Escape or Community of Reconciliation? When I teach the Reformed Confessions to students at Union Presbyterian Seminary, I like to point out that one of the benefits of belonging to our communion is belonging to a tradition with
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Gun Violence and the PC(USA) Seventy-four. That’s how many school shootings have occurred since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012. That’s an epidemic. No, scratch that. That’s a crisis. A nation-wide crisis. In the year 2010, there were an estimated eighty-five deaths per day due
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“Therefore, we reject any doctrine; which absolutizes either natural diversity or the sinful separation of people in such a way that this absolutization hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church, or even leads to the establishment of a separate church formation…” -The Belhar Confession I cannot
MoreLet’s not drop the urban ministry conversation after the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaves Detroit. Instead of responding decently and in order through debate and a simple up or down vote on the ACSWP resolution “The Gospel from Detroit,” with its appropriate urban history, statistics, and
MoreA Response to “Risking Peace” and the Peace Fellowship’s Proposals The forthcoming General Assembly is facing a number of issues with important consequences for the present and future identity of the Church. While the two issues that have created the greatest pre-assembly discussion are whether to permit Presbyterian ministers to
More“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9). Humanity, Scripture tells us, has been made in the image of God. Jesus was recognized as the son of God. Central to the notion of being “sons and daughters of God” is that of being a
MoreAs I entered the scene, it felt like I was standing on sacred ground. A paradox, like so much of life in this part of our globalized world. There lay a woman, motionless and blanketed by the compassion of her counselor. Her integrity had been desecrated only the day before
MoreA Reflection on Education Policy in the PC(USA) and Response to Item 14-02: “Educate a Child, Transform the World” My students are the legacy of Brown v Board of Education. Let me introduce you to my students. They are eighth-graders living in Tuscon, AZ, who find themselves tasked with studying
MoreThis article was originally published on the blog of the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness. “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunities of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to
MoreGeneral Assembly Takes on Taxation in a Gilded Age “Tax Justice: A Christian Response to a New Gilded Age” provides Presbyterians with a framework for engaging in discussions about the large and growing concentration of income and wealth in U.S. society and about the tax structure as a way of
MoreThe Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will soon make headlines, one way or another. The decisions we make at our 221st General Assembly will be reported across national media outlets through words loosely connected to what we actually experience together as a denominational family. (Prayers for you, reporters!) Amongst other decisions—some of
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