With the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) days away, 16 former GA moderators are calling for commissioners to approve a study report on Middle East peace that was requested by the 218th GA.
“Breaking Down the Walls” is the report of the Middle East Study Committee. The committee was charged with preparing a comprehensive study focusing on Israel/Palestine with regard to the context of the Middle East. The report includes recommendations and study materials.
The head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, and Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church have met for talks at the patriarchal residence in the Kremlin.
WCC general secretary Tveit said he stressed the importance of the Russian Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement and as a witness to Christian faith in the world, and that he and Patriarch Kirill spoke frankly about tensions in the ecumenical movement over such issues as human sexuality.
The June 28 meeting was held after a service in the Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow.
In …
A group of 20 religious leaders recently met with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to press for pending legislation to help fight childhood hunger in the United States.
Ruth Farrell, Coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, said, “Presbyterians care about hunger. Most congregations are directly involved in hunger work in their communities and may know the names of children who depend upon programs in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act pending before Congress.”
Meeting with the group around a table symbolically spread with five loaves of bread and two fish, Vilsack said he sees the biblical story of the feeding …
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 28 that a Christian student group must accept gays and non-Christians as members if it wants to be officially recognized by a public university.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s 5-4 majority, said the “all-comers” policy at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law is “reasonable” and “viewpoint neutral.”
The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, pitted a campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society against the law school’s nondiscrimination policy that requires registered student organizations to accept any student as a member or potential leader.
Registered student groups receive …
At a time when many states are cutting back on funding for AIDS Prevention and Treatment programs, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is stepping up its efforts to fight stigma and prevent further HIV infections. This year, in conjunction with an overture encouraging all Presbyterians to “Know their Status,” the Presbyterian AIDS Network teamed up with the Peacemaking Committee of the Twin Cities Area Presbyterian and a local non-profit African Health Action (AHA) to offer free HIV and Hepatitis C Testing over the course of four days during this year’s General Assembly.
It is estimated that over 1 million people in …
A renowned Native American leader appealed to the newly created World Communion of Reformed Churches to establish a truth and reconciliation-like commission to “seek ways to make restitution to tribal people” for the churches’ complicity in “co-opting the Bible as a tool of colonialism and imperialism” in North America over the last 400 years.
Richard Twiss, a Lakota/Sioux originally from South Dakota and now living near Portland, Ore., said such a commission — comprising indigenous people from North America and the global South — is necessary to overcome “cowboy theology,” which he said has perpetuated “a distinct evangelical bias against …
When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law in April, the state’s new immigration law was front page news. But for many Presbyterians who work on the Arizona/Mexico border, the law adds another complicated layer to the ministries that they’ve been involved in for years.
The Rev. Jerry Pillay of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, was elected the first president of the fledgling World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) June 24.
Delegates to the WCRC's Uniting General Council also elected four regional vice-presidents, a general treasurer and 16 members to its Executive Committee. Included among them was the Rev. Gradye Parsons, General Assembly stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
More than 300 delegates from 108 countries met here June 18-26 for the founding meeting of the new organization, which represents 80 million Christians from Presbyterian, Uniting and United, Reformed and Waldensian churches …
The United States has been criticized for denying visas to 10 percent of the voting delegates due to attend a global meeting of Reformed churches in Michigan.
As the opening worship of the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches began on June 18, a banner stating, “In honor of the missing 73,” was brought to the front of the assembly hall at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids.
This referred to 46 voting delegates, as well as other participants, from Africa, Asia and Latin America, who had been refused visas, the Rev. Susan Davies of the U.S. …
The constant loop of disheartening images from the Gulf of Mexico — oil-covered pelicans, dead sea turtles, despairing fishermen — has prompted many Americans to seek ways to do something, anything, to take better care of the Earth.
But what, and how?
While the political debate over the oil spill’s cause and ripple effect remains polarized, Christian environmentalists pondering the familiar question “What Would Jesus Do?” believe part of the answer includes cutting back on fossil fuels.
“He would probably take the bus,” said Matthew Sleeth, co-founder of Blessed Earth, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading environmentalism among …