When it comes to conversations about church, most of us imagine sitting around a table and engaging face-to-face. Maybe we’re in a church basement, conference center, coffee shop, or local bar. But lately Presbyterians have been gathering for a weekly conversation around their phones or computers, using Twitter and a common hashtag. These online conversations can take place on a couch at home while kids are playing, at a computer on a desk at work, or on a smartphone while waiting in line at the grocery store. Read more »
December 13, 2016
Theology, Passion, and Justice
When it comes to conversations about church, most of us imagine sitting around a table and engaging face-to-face. Maybe we’re in a church basement, conference center, coffee shop, or local bar. But lately Presbyterians have been gathering for a weekly conversation around their phones or computers, using Twitter and a common hashtag. These online conversations can take place on a couch at home while kids are playing, at a computer on a desk at work, or on a smartphone while waiting in line at the grocery store. Read more »
It’s been two months since Hurricane Matthew slammed into Haiti, leaving a path of death and destruction that will take years for its residents to recover. More than a thousand people are believed to have perished when the hurricane made landfall as a Category 4 storm on October 4. 
Maryville College, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-related school in Tennessee, is one of 82 institutions nationwide that has received funding as part of the Lilly Endowment Inc.’s High School Youth Theology Institutes. It is the only PC(USA)-related school awarded the grant. The $433,152 grant will help the college establish Maryville Adventures in Studying Theology (MAST) and continue its long history of youth leadership development. 
A recent breakdown of the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study ranked Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) members fourth in its percentage of households that earn more than $100,000 annually. The study authors found a strong correlation—based on religious affiliation—between people’s income and the level of education they have attained. 
By the eighth grade, Kimo had stopped showing up for school. He preferred the beaches of western Oahu or the island bus system that took him away from the frustrations of the classroom. It wasn’t long before alcohol and drugs replaced surfing and bus riding as distractions, followed by a career of petty theft and assault. When he was 20, Kimo was shipped off to a private prison in the Arizona desert, contracted by the state of Hawaii to house its prisoners. 
Believing we can change things for the better is risky. When we hope that individuals, communities, and institutions are capable of living more wholly, acting more rightly, and treating others more kindly, there is a good chance we will be disappointed and might even look foolish. It is safer to think people and circumstances will never change than to expend the energy that comes with believing they will. It is safer to minimize our own capabilities and responsibilities than to “be the change we want to see in the world,” as Gandhi challenges us. 
“There are no atheists in foxholes” is a famous quote attributed to U.S. military chaplain William Thomas Cummings. I am not here to argue whether Father Cummings’s observation is true in all circumstances, but if it is even directionally correct—and since there are 1,281,900 people in active duty in the U.S. armed forces with an additional 801,200 people in seven reserve components, not to mention spouses and families—then there are conservatively millions of U.S. citizens whose spiritual health and well-being are entrusted to the ministry of military chaplains. 
When a mobile medical clinic arrived in the tiny village, offering free health screenings to women, they found Karine Petrosyan. Day and night, pain gripped her abdomen. Massive fibroids were silently consuming her uterus. Karine needed emergency surgery. 
Today begins the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians join in study, prayer and action, seeking the unity of the church. This year’s international theme is drawn from the First Epistle of Peter and the familiar passage reminding Christians of our identity and purpose. We have been called into a particular relationship with other Christians that mark us as belonging to God. We are claimed by God in order that we might give witness to the transformative power of God. 
As Christy Foster stood on a hillside overlooking the Guadalupe River at the Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, she remembered all at once just how much—and for how long—she had wanted to be in camp and conference ministry.