Mark Twain commented that “You never see Presbyterians ranting, shouting and tearing up the ground. You never heard of a Presbyterian going crazy on religion… You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors.” Presumably to this famous American author, Presbyterians were God’s “Frozen Chosen.”
Events in honor of the 140th anniversary of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico begin May 18and will continue for the next several months.
The statistics, some evangelicals say, can no longer be ignored.
Eighty percent of young evangelicals have engaged in premarital sex, according to a new video from the National Association of Evangelicals, and almost a third of evangelicals’ unplanned pregnancies end in abortion.
An anonymous donor has contributed $2 million to the mission agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to fund ministries in the United States and overseas.
“This generous gift will enable us to continue our faithful mission efforts and also allow us to expand ministries to meet pressing needs,” said Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC). The donor designated half the gift for Presbyterian World Mission, one of the GAMC’s six ministry areas, and the other half for GAMC mission efforts in the United States.
In a standing 74-18 vote at its May 15 meeting, the Presbytery of the Redwoods stated its opposition to the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision to “rebuke” the Rev. Janie Adams Spahr, who had been convicted of performing same-gender weddings.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, New Rome and the entire Orthodox Church has been chosen to receive the “Freedom Award,” which acknowledges his efforts in promoting religious freedom, dialogue and environmental concerns.
Hani Sarhan is a Christian who says none of his relatives works with Bashar Assad’s regime or has anything to do with it.
“But what we heard from (the protesters) at the beginning of this revolution saying, ‘Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the coffin,’ started us thinking about the real aim of this revolution,” he said. “So from this point of view, fearing for my life, I declared my support for President Assad.”
― Following Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a third term as President of Russia at the Kremlin on May 7, Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church held a prayer service for his health and successful rule and praised him as Russia’s legitimate leader.
African-American Christian spirituality ― especially in relation to the Holy Spirit ― cannot be understood without understanding the phenomenon of “spirit possession” that was predominant in native African religion before the slave trade brought blacks to North America, a leading scholar said here recently.
Plans for the future of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) are the focus of a meeting of the organization’s executive committee scheduled for Indonesia in May.