Address at the Presbyterian Voices for Justice (formerly Voices of Sophia) Breakfast 220th General Assembly, PCUSA July 3, 2012 Pittsburgh, PA This
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“I didn’t know church could be like this,” said Sam, a teenager who had come to an event in Fellowship Hall. That Sunday after worship, we had Anna Baltzer speaking about why, as a Jewish-American, she had come to be
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This article was originally published on November 9, 2016 on Denise’s blog, ‘SOULa Scriptura” at The United States of America has elected Donald Trump its next president. It’s sinking in as I type that. We (the royal “we”) elected Donald Trump, a beloved child of the Most High God. We
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“I didn’t know church could be like this,” said Sam, a teenager who had come to an event in Fellowship Hall. That Sunday after worship, we had Anna Baltzer speaking about why, as a Jewish-American, she had come to be an outspoken critic of Israeli policies, part of her national
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Watering down the LGBTQ/Q Apology Overture at GA222 I never thought “collateral damage” was a term I’d identify with as a church-lady. I was wrong. I was baptized as a young girl in a Presbyterian church that would become my family’s spiritual home for the next fifteen years. I remember
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When I heard the reports and then saw the video of Eric Garner’s arrest, something deep inside me clicked. I’ve been involved in interreligious social justice movements for more than 25 years and thought that nothing could surprise me. However, in those moments I didn’t just see the injustice of
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A Response to Dr. Barbara Wheeler Barbara Wheeler, former President of Auburn Theological Seminary has written an article in response to Overture 11-05 coming before the General Assembly this summer in Portland, an overture apologizing to LGBTQ/Q members of the PC(USA) for “harms done”. Wheeler does not contest the damages
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Gender Justice 2014 Week 1 Stories That Need to Be Told, Rev. Ginna Bairby Daughters of Eve: Biblical Women Take Back the Microphone, Miriam Foltz and Rachel Shepherd The Cry of Tamar, Rev. Marci Auld Glass Re-Imagining “Re-Imagining” and the Next 20 Years, Sylvia Thorson-Smith Re-Imagining God: Reflections on
MoreFeminism, Evangelism, and New Worshiping Communities If you were going to create a church that fully lived into gender equality as one of the central values, what would that look like? Who would preach? What language would you use to represent God? Who would preside at the table? Who would make up
MoreI’ve always loved telling my story. In college, my campus Christian group would pass out spiritual gifting inventories, and we’d take a test to help determine whether we had the gifts of prophesy, faith, teaching, healing, evangelism, service, etc. I never identified strongly with any of these gifts, so I
MoreThoughts about creating life out of the good for nothing rags of injustice threadbare hope The following article was originally published in the May/June 1994 edition of Church & Society. Download a PDF of the original here. I begin with a poem by Kathleen O’Keefe Reed, a clergywoman of the
MoreAffirming Diversity and Life-Sustaining Relationships The following article was originally published in the May/June 1994 edition of Church & Society. Download a PDF of the original here. Listen to the words of Elizabeth, an enslaved woman and minister, born in Maryland in 1766: “I betook myself to prayer and in
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