The Crystal Cathedral, which has put its iconic campus up for sale to end a bankruptcy crisis, has an interested party that needs a large cathedral: the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, Calif.
When I welcomed everyone to the Big Tent in Indianapolis recently, I said that the Big Tent is like a General Assembly in that the halls are teeming with Presbyterians, either connecting for the first time or reconnecting with one another.
I also noted the differences between the Big Tent and an assembly – no voting machines, no time clocks counting down the seconds until a speaker is required to sit down, no gavel-wielding Moderator.
David Barnhart has a unique calling within Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He’s a storyteller. More specifically, Barnhart is a director and producer of documentaries such as Kepulihan: Stories from the Tsunami, and he’s often called to disaster areas by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) to connect with those affected. He often provides an outlet for those who simply want to tell their story.
“It has been my experience that stories have the capacity to heal, connect people, and reveal our common humanity across cultural, religious, and socioeconomic barriers and boundaries,” he recently wrote.
Barnhart, with the help of cinematographer, Scott Ippolito and editor, Joshua Borger, is now working on a new project following the lives of Haitians impacted by the 2010 earthquake. As part of that effort, the trio is approaching storytelling in an extraordinary way. They have provided flip cams to survivors. (See inset for “reporter” script.)
Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct,” a five-page document on the conduct of mission “according to gospel principles,” was released during a public presentation on June 28 at the Ecumenical Center here.
The recommendations regarding respectful behavior on the part of missionaries, evangelists and other witnesses when sharing the Christian faith were issued following a five-year series of consultations among the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue (PCID) of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA).
The three bodies include Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal and independent churches …
In a move likely to aggravate tensions with the Vatican, China’s state-run Catholic church announced on June 23 that it may soon ordain more than 40 bishops without the approval of Pope Benedict XVI.
The Episcopal Church is rejecting charges that its top leader, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, mishandled the ordination of a former priest who is now accused of sexual abuse.
As part of its response to record floods, tornadoes and storms that have plagued the U.S. heartland this spring, humanitarian agency Church World Service (CWS) announced it will conduct a series of July training seminars, “Recovery Tools and Training” in Alabama and Tennessee.
The Russian Orthodox Church and American evangelicals have allied to defend a traditional definition of family and fight abortion in Russia, which has one of the highest abortion rates in the world.
The Saudi Arabian embassy on June 24 denied as “completely false” reports that U.S. Jews would not be able to travel to Saudi Arabia under Delta Air Lines’ planned partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines.
After two decades in a refugee project in Nepal that became the United Nations’ largest resettlement program, the faith-based agencies and philanthropic organizations involved are expecting a wider role by 2015.