Call me crazy, but it’s time for us Presbyterians to act like Congress. Yes, I know that the voter approval rating of the U.S. Congress — 19% in mid-June, even worse than the president’s — is the lowest in recorded history.  But Congress does have three attributes we do well to emulate. 

Retired Chaplain Bucher, Jr., asks: “Have we a serious theologian in the PC(USA) (who) argues for having a U.S. flag in the sanctuary?”

In his editorial comment, Jack Haberer states "Change is in the air, or to be more exact, a yearning for change fills our church's air like the scent of coffee fills the neighborhood Starbucks".

“It was his youthfulness.”

“He’s the new Rick Ufford-Chase.”

The initial reactions to the Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108 approved by the General Assembly in San Jose were dramatic. Some were rejoicing, others despairing, because they believed that the General Assembly, in approving the overture submitted by the John Knox Presbytery, had removed the impediment to the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians that had been declared by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission in the case Bush v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh.

The June 28th, post-G.A. letter from PC(USA) leaders to members and churches is offensive on so many levels.

 First, the letter is dangerously misleading in that it does not tell the “whole truth”.

Welcome to the ’tweener edition of The Presbyterian Outlook. We go to print too early to be able to report any news of the General Assembly (one exception: see p. 6). You receive the magazine about the time the Assembly is adjourning, so any pre-Assembly analysis we might offer is moot. Hence, we find ourselves caught in the middle — in between the times.

Pastor John Buchanan’s remarks this week to the Covenant Network at the 218 General Assembly compel an answer. 

In regard to the Covenant Network’s goal of gaining ordination of homosexuals by removing current ordination standards, Buchanan is quoted as saying:  “We’re going to get there because our children are already there. 

As proud bearer of the nickname, “Honest Habe,” I begged to be given the part of that heroic senatorial candidate, when Mr. Warnaar assigned our fifth grade class to re-enact the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Greg Smith was assigned the role of Stephen A. Douglas, and, sure enough, I drew the name of Abraham Lincoln.

I read where the new moderator is an emergent church leader.  No doubt some of the more liberal elements will rejoice while the conservatives will wonder just who and what he is.

Re: Facing off on FOG (pub. May 5, 2008)

Recently the members of Blackhawk Presbytery invited Gil Rendle to speak to the presbytery.