In 2022, the 225th General Assembly approved an overture to meaningfully address the wounds inflicted on Alaska Natives, who were directly impacted by the sin of the unwarranted 1963 closure of Memorial Presbyterian Church, a thriving, multiethnic, intercultural church in Juneau, Alaska.
For people and congregations wondering how to get started in their push for justice for people of color, women and the queer community, “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” featured the perfect guest last week: Samantha Davis, the associate for Gender, Racial and Intercultural Justice in the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Racial Equity & Women’s Intercultural Ministries.
Sixty years ago this month, over 200,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the endpoint of a massive protest march organized to draw attention to the civil rights movement. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom may be most famous for serving as the backdrop of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic speech, best known by the phrase: “I Have a Dream.”
On Wednesday during Chapel service, about 50 members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff prayed for and lamented Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which occurred 546 days ago, and the resulting warfare. Thursday is Ukrainian Independence Day, when the nation celebrates its independence from the former Soviet Union, which dates back to 1991.
In “Oppenheimer,” the Christopher Nolan film released by Universal Studios on July 21, there’s one breathless moment when J. Robert Oppenheimer, portrayed by Cillian Murphy, walks General Leslie Groves, played by Matt Damon, out onto a vast plain in the middle of the New Mexico desert.
The PC(USA)’s Office of Public Witness issued an Action Alert Tuesday encouraging Presbyterians to, among other things, urge their U.S. Senators and House of Representatives member to quickly reauthorize the five-year Farm Bill, which expires in 2023 and provides Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and other anti-hunger initiatives to millions of residents as well as support to the nation’s two million farmers.
Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, an author and scholar and the senior vice president for moral injury programs at Volunteers of America, continued her discussion on moral injury on Saturday at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., by emphasizing the church’s role in moral injury recovery through ritual.
Ahead of Sunday’s lectionary reading about the resourcefulness of Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, Presbyterian hymnwriter the Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette offers free of charge to any faith community while worshiping “There Came a Time in Egypt,” a hymn to the tune of “The Church’s One Foundation” that also “relates the kindness that we should share with refugees and immigrants to the holy disobedience of the Egyptian midwives to the orders of Pharaoh,” as Gillette puts it.
“A psalm is a song that we sing to God,” writes Carey Wallace, author of “Psalms of Wonder: Poems from the Book of Songs,” a new illustrated book published by Flyaway Books. “Today, the psalms are known in almost every language that humans speak, but something happened as these songs moved around the world: They lost their music.”
Dividing its time almost evenly between closed and open sessions on Sunday, the Unification Commission — which is working to unify the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian Mission Agency — voted to approve a timeline to complete its work by the 227th General Assembly in 2026.