A summary of the 219th General Assembly’s action to create a middle governing body commission:
What did the Assembly do? What has changed?
The 219th General Assembly (2010) has created a Middle Governing Body Commission with the power to act as the General Assembly, upon request of presbyteries and synods. The commission has the power "to organize new synods and to divide, unite, or otherwise combine synods or portions of synods previously existing" (G-13.0103m) and "to approve the organization, division, uniting or combining of presbyteries or portions of presbyteries by synods" (G-13.0103n) upon the request, by a majority vote, …
A recent study analyzing a half century of research and data on race and religion in the United States has concluded that religious belief does not inoculate believers from racial prejudice — a finding its authors call “the religion-racism paradox.”
The study is entitled, “Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism,” One of conclusion of the study is that religious racism “partly reflects intergroup dynamics,” the study. News about the study is carried by Miller-McCune.com, an online magazine that carries news about academic research.
Such racism, “arises because religions are social groups,” said Wendy …
Members of Metro Community Church in Englewood, N.J., support the missionaries sent by their denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, to the Congo, but Africa is a distant and dangerous trip from the 400-member flock.
“We can’t send our short-term missionaries there,” said Stephen Sharkey, the church’s life ministries pastor.
Church members wanted something hands-on. For a while, they helped build villages for AIDS orphans for an organization featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, but they were discouraged by gaps they saw in the foreign aid system.
Three years ago, they took matters into their own hands.
They started Zimele USA, …
The environmental and economic impacts of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been well documented. But what hasn't been discussed as much are the psychological wounds it is inflicting on residents in the Gulf states.
People in the community have their entire lives invested in fishing, and being forced to leave or change careers brings up issues of loss — loss of vocation, loss of identity, loss of family tradition, said the Rev. George Bendall, pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, Miss. He was one of several area pastors who met with a General Assembly Mission …
The Rev. William J. Wiseman, 91, who mentored several generations of Presbyerian peace and justice advocates, died July 13 in Tulsa, Okla., after a lengthy illness.
A native of Ottawa, Canada and son of a senior bishop in the Free Methodist Church, Wiseman graduated from Asbury (Ky.) College and Princeton Theological Seminary. He earned his Ph.D. in theology from Temple University in Philadephia, with additional studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Wiseman's first pastorate was at Temple Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. After nearly 20 years of service there, he became pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, Okla., where he served …
A summary of the 219th General Assembly’s action to approve the new Form of Government:
What happened? What changed?
The General Assembly voted to recommend a revised Form of Government to the presbyteries by a vote of 468 in favor, 204 against, and 6 abstentions — a 70%-30% margin. The new Form of Government includes:
Some Haitians feel as if it happened just days ago, the Rev. Kerwin Delicat, an Episcopal (Anglican) priest based in the city of Léogâne, said as people prepared to mark six months since a calamitous earthquake struck on Jan. 12.
While some progress is discernable such as students being back at school for some time, Léogâne, like the capital of Port-au-Prince, is still years from recovery.
“Eventually, there will be a return to normal life,” Delicat said in interview. “But it’s been just less than six months. It’s like something that just happened.”
Many residents still mourn loved ones. For …
In the months since news of child sexual abuse scandals roiled German society, barely a week goes by without news of yet another Catholic parish reporting declining membership.
While it may be premature to estimate the long-term impact of the scandal — especially since many of the cases were decades old — the latest figures were startling enough to raise concern in the German Conference of Bishops.
Last year, well before the scandal erupted in earnest this spring, 125,585 Germans chose to leave the Catholic church, up from 121,155 in 2008, according to the bishops.
“This high number of departures …
A summary of the 219th General Assembly’s actions on issues of civil union and Christian marriage:
What did the General Assembly do? What has changed?
The General Assembly approved both the final report and the minority report of the Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage and ordered they be sent out for study by the wider church. The vote was 439 in favor, 208 against, with 6 abstentions. By this action (sending both reports for study) the Assembly maintained the definition of marriage as between “a man and a woman.” With the action to …
In Africa, HIV/AIDS isn't just killing individuals. It's killing entire countries. In Swaziland, the infection rate is more than 30 percent. In the last 25 years, the southern African country's population has declined from more than 2 million to less than 1 million.
"There's not a single person in Swaziland who has not been affected," the Rev. Arnau van Wyngaard told workshop participants during the Uniting General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches here June 18-28.
A pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa who has served as a missionary in southern Swaziland since 1985, van …