When people hear immigrants denounced on radio call-in shows, or see violent assaults on immigrants on television or cinema, are they more likely to be violent themselves?
That’s the question a diverse coalition of faith groups will be asking next week as part of the 2009 Media Violence Fast, a movement now in its third year that signs up thousands of people from across the nation to consciously abstain from violence on television and radio, at least for one week.
This year’s seven-day emphasis, Oct. 19-26, is asking its interfaith participants to consider the impact of anti-immigrant hate speech …
Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series of stories about the more than 50 Presbyterian mission workers and international peacemakers who are speaking in more than 150 presbyteries in the coming month as part of World Mission Challenge. — Jerry L. Van Marter
For Mark Hare, being a mission co-worker means living daily with struggle and hope.
Since 2004, Hare has served in Haiti, where he works with a grassroots farmers’ association. The Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP) — Haitian Creole for Farmer’s Movement of Papaye — comprises about 20 farming cooperatives. Hare works with a crew …
Presbyterian mission and ministry among Native Americans was affirmed when Sage Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, Ganado Mission, was dedicated as a National Historic Landmark at a ceremony in Ganado, Arizona, on September 19.
Anne Worthington, superintendent of the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, representing Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, officiated and, with the stated clerk of the Presbytery of Grand Canyon Richard Coffelt, unveiled a granite monument honoring the women who were students along with the school’s founder, Missionary Clarence Grant Salisbury M.D.
Worthington explained that as a National Historic Landmark, the School of Nursing joins “fewer than …
Editor’s note: The Rev. Aimee Moiso, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) delegate to the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Plenary Commission, is writing a blog on the Oct. 7-13 event. — Jerry L. Van Marter
Recommendations to extend and expand a consultation process on “The Nature and Mission of the Church” emerged from 12 small groups reviewing the text of that title on the final day of the Oct. 7-13 meeting of the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Plenary Commission at the Orthodox Academy of Crete here.
The groups’ proposals will be forwarded to the smaller Faith …
Reports of violence in Northern Ireland are no longer frequent in today’s international news, but the relative peace is fragile in the land where violence plagued the streets and countryside only a decade ago.
The Rev. Doug Baker brings that message when he speaks about his work in Northern Ireland and the need to support the world mission work of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
“There’s a relatively low level of violence now,” Baker said. “But the problems are still there, the polarization.”
Baker has been under appointment by the PC(USA) as a mission co-worker in Northern Ireland since 1979 and …
It’s 5:30pm on the first day of Fall here in Times Square. The calendar says it should be cooler, but the only chill in the air is generated whenever a street-level door opens and conditioned air rushes out to mix with the balmy evening air.
Outside the newly-renovated Henry Miller’s Theatre, the cast and crew of Bye Bye Birdie have answered their dinner bell by pouring out the Stage Door and scattering to the four winds, yet still close enough to return in time for their 7:30pm call.
Among their number is Tim Shew, who’s playing the mayor of …
Editor’s note: This is the second in series of stories about the more than 50 Presbyterian mission workers and international peacemakers who are speaking in more than 150 presbyteries in the coming month as part of Mission Challenge ’09. — Jerry L. Van Marter
One program hosted by a Russian Baptist church reaches hundreds of children and is just part of that congregation’s outreach to 16 orphanages across the region.
“It’s like Vacation Bible School in the woods,” said Gary Payton, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)’s regional liaison for Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland.
This same Russian congregation, Smolensk …
With social, political and religious ferment at an all-time high in Puerto Rico, life is good and fascinating at the Seminario Evangelico de Puerto Rico (Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico), says acting president and dean of academic affairs the Rev. Jose R. Irizarry.
“We are in a unique position to be a crossroads of study and conversation because of our history and credibility,” Irizarry tells the Presbyterian News Service while here to represent the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Committee on Theological Education at the denomination’s General Assembly Mission Council meeting. “We are a focal point for examination of religious and political …
Editor’s note: this is the first in series of stories about the more than 50 Presbyterian mission workers and international peacemakers who are speaking in more than 150 presbyteries in the coming month as part of Mission Challenge ’09. — Jerry L. Van Marter
NEENAH, Wis. — Beside a table dressed with a colorful Colombian tapestry and set with baskets of bread, the Rev. Diego Higuita-Arango preached in Spanish on his vision of peace during two worship services at First Presbyterian Church Oct. 4.
Higuita, general secretary of both the Presbyterian Church of Colombia and the country’s Uraba Presbytery, visited …
Keeping word count down while maintaining a clear message is practice for writing for the Web. It’s a three-line poem with a five-seven-five syllable count. It’s haiku.
That’s what Joan Benson, a writing coach and consultant from Iowa City, Iowa, sometimes uses with writers because, as she said, it’s a “great exercise for getting to the heart of the matter.”
Benson led a “Writing for the Web” session here Sept. 3 during the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ communicators conference.
Whether writing a haiku, a 140-character Twitter update or a 160-character text message, the key is communicating clearly and …