Most Presbyterians have heard the words from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered 150 years ago yesterday, on Nov. 19, 1863.
But how many know that Lincoln considered New York Avenue Presbyterian Church his home church?
After serving as vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the past three years, there was little surprise when Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., was elected this week to the top post in the American hierarchy.
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise,” making annual an inconsistent national tradition. George Washington had issued two Thanksgiving proclamations, in 1789 and 1795; Thomas Jefferson zero. Some states had celebrated Thanksgiving, while others had not. Even the dates of celebration had differed.
Throughout the Civil War, the Union and Confederate States would use competing Thanksgiving proclamations to lift public morale. Many of the Thanksgiving sermons held by the Presbyterian Historical Society are pointed responses to such decrees.
Cathy Coons has been passionate about fighting hunger since she was a teenager in Westchester County, N.Y.
The Presbyterian Writers Guild (PWG) is accepting nominations for its 2014 David Steele Distinguished Writer Award.
Respected Old Testament scholar and Presbyterian Patricia K. Tull has released a new book from Westminster John Knox Press that explores the Scriptures for guidance on today’s ecological crisis. In Inhabiting Eden: Christians, the Bible, and the Ecological Crisis, Tull looks to the Bible for what it can tell us about our relationships, not just to the earth itself, but also to plant and animal life, to each other, to descendants who will inherit the planet from us, and to our Creator.
Representatives of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) met here last month for the final round of an official dialogue that began in 2010.
Almost 13 years ago, just after our arrival in Russia, I made a trip with Donald Marsden (now with the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship) and other colleagues to the city of Surgut in western Siberia. It was March, the beginning of the end of their long winter, but still cold and lots of snow on the ground.
According to first-hand reports Monday afternoon from Jinishian Memorial Program staff in Syria, mortar shells targeted at St. Sarkis Armenian Orthodox Church and school in Damascus caused the death of six elementary students on November 11. The property is shared by the Jinishian Memorial Program offices, where two staff members witnessed the tragedy and offered help to the children and their families.
Speaker of the House John Boehner signaled Oct. 13 that there would be no immigration reform this year, an announcement made the same day that some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical pastors met with President Barack Obama to try to advance the issue.