As the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation is celebrated later this month, that seems to be the case. Just as printing presses rushed to distribute copies of the 95 Theses that Luther reportedly nailed to a church door on Oct. 31, 1517, publishers have released a number of books in the past year on Luther, his fellow Reformers and the lasting impact of his action, which ultimately led to the schism in Christianity between Catholics and Protestants. Read more »
October 11, 2017
Study up: A Reformation anniversary reading list
As the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation is celebrated later this month, that seems to be the case. Just as printing presses rushed to distribute copies of the 95 Theses that Luther reportedly nailed to a church door on Oct. 31, 1517, publishers have released a number of books in the past year on Luther, his fellow Reformers and the lasting impact of his action, which ultimately led to the schism in Christianity between Catholics and Protestants. Read more »
Aware that educational mission played a key role in their native land’s development, members of the Korean Presbyterian Church in Fresno, California, want to strengthen Presbyterian education in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
How does your church commemorate World Food Day? For some congregations, the day during Food Week of Action means a special meal offered to community residents who wrestle with poverty and hunger. Others use the annual campaign to promote what they’re already doing, such as community gardens or food pantries. 
On the day PC(USA) member Francis Ntowe’s sister was buried, there were six other funerals in her small community in Cameroon. “One of them was a pastor, and all of them had died from HIV/AIDS,” he said. “Every single one.” 
Building a church and its membership from the ground up is no small feat. Doing it in a country that persecutes members of your faith makes it doubly difficult. But the Rev. Manh Nguyen, pastor at the Evangelical Community Church in Hanoi, Vietnam, continues to grow his church despite a government that frowns upon religion in general, and Christians specifically. 
On its second day of meeting the All Agency Review Committee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) took up the topic of how certain topics are introduced at the denomination’s General Assembly and the ramifications of decisions made on the work of the agencies, often without input from the agencies. 
In Zambia, most people are farmers, regardless of whether they have another profession — and this includes pastors. For the majority, the thought of zinja, or hunger season, is never far away. Many people in Zambia are smallholder, or subsistence, farmers who grow the staple crop, maize (corn), with which the mainstay of the Zambian diet, nshima, is prepared. 
Having first visited South Africa in 1984, when the struggle against apartheid was reaching a crescendo, I was overjoyed to be present at the 222nd General Assembly (2016) when, after nearly a decade of study and debate, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) formally embraced the Confession of Belhar and acknowledged its profound capacity to illuminate our calling as followers of Christ. 
For more than 17 years, the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), through its Joining Hands initiative, has been tackling the root causes of hunger and poverty. PHP staff recently gathered with representatives from several countries to look at the progress and where to go from here. 
The All Agency Review Committee heard reports at its meeting today that began to give the group a vision of “the church as a whole” as it was asked to do by the General Assembly 222 (2016) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)