ENI – “I implore an end to the violence which must be denounced in all its forms and a restoration of the truce on the Gaza Strip,” Pope Benedict XVI said in his weekly prayer in late December. “I call on the international community to do all it can to help the Israelis and Palestinians [to not] give in to the perverse logic of confrontation and violence but to favour the path of dialogue and negotiations.”
ENI – President-elect Barack Obama defended his selection of evangelical leader Rick Warren to deliver the prayer at his inauguration, a move criticized by some gay groups and supporters of abortion rights.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face.- 1 Corinthians 13:12
The doctrine of the Trinity is, of course, notoriously difficult. But it's also central to Christian faith. One theologian puts it this way: “Those who deny the Trinity may lose their souls, but those who try to explain it may lose their minds.”
According to the late Scottish Reformed theologian T.F. Torrance, the doctrine of the Trinity “is the innermost heart of the Christian faith, the central dogma of classical theology, the fundamental grammar of our knowledge of God.”
It's Nostalgia Night at our house. Ramona and I have been going through some old record albums. Yes, records. You may remember them. A curious form of transmitting sound waves, but nonetheless very popular back when the earth was cooling and we were attending high school. Although we've since opted for compact discs, I still can't bring myself to toss out these old albums. Recorded here is a part of my past. A part of the good old days. A part of me.
The latest census figures for Malawi were just released with the shocking news that Malawi's population has grown to over 13 million. It is a surprise because of the devastation HIV/AIDS has brought with up to 80,000 annual deaths of people in their reproductive years attributed to 'the thinning disease.' What this means is that the population splurge is coming from the next generation, from those in the 13-21 age bracket.
Visiting one of our Livelihoods programmes in a rural district called Phalombe, I was struck by the huge number of children under five roaming about. I saw what I thought were sisters carrying siblings on their backs: it turns out these were the mothers.
With recent market downturns on everyone's mind and a new year ahead, finances were a concern at the November meeting of Assembly Council.
World Net Daily and Orlando Sentinel – An anonymous donation of $50 million is kick-starting an initiative to provide 200 million people with Bibles in their native languages by the year 2025.
It was a common message at the Life and Mission Agency's November meeting: The national church must change how it thinks about mission, or risk losing touch with congregations.
EAA – “The current food crisis is an appalling indictment of our broken food system,” stated Sam Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches in opening a conference on Confronting the Global Food Challenge. With over one billion people in the world now facing constant hunger, Kobia said that such growing tragedies are “a result of the ways our societies have chosen to produce, share, buy and sell food.”
Sixty years ago this fall, the Presbyterian Church USA's Christian Faith and Life Curriculum was launched. It became the most successful Christian education program in the history of American Protestantism. In his A Religious History of the American People, the eminent historian Sydney Ahlstrom gives this program pride of place in his discussion of the impact of neo-orthodoxy, the movement initiated by the renowned Swiss theologian Karl Barth, on the American churches in the 1940s and 1950s. Neo-orthodoxy, he notes, moved into the seminaries and from the seminaries into the churches and then into its Sunday schools.
Dong-Ha Kim, a recent graduate from Knox College, while updating a 22-year-old video for our denomination, made an interesting observation: “Twenty-two years ago there was an underlying assumption that children and families wanted to be in church.”
“This is the best program I know that provides a spiritually formative setting which is age-appropriate for young children,” says Marcia Floding, a Christian education consultant for the Reformed Church in America, of Young Children and Worship, a curriculum used internationally including the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
“Young children are tactile, they love to play, they are concrete, yet they are capable of experiencing God and knowing Him. Children and Worship takes into account what children are, and presents the spiritual nurture they need at their development level.”
I got the call on Monday. She said her husband had passed away a couple of days before and she couldn't find a preacher to come out to her rural community to do the funeral. Her sister-in-law had told her about me.
Saturday found me and Larri in the local Legion set up on a stage opposite the bar. As a troubadour for the Lord, most often it's just me and my guitar representing Christ and his church in these rural, remote Cariboo communities. There was a sizeable crowd out, about 150, a good portion of the surrounding community. I had worked hard over the past days travelling out to the community, getting to know the deceased, his family and some of his friends, and developing the service. In true Presbyterian fashion though, most of my efforts had gone into my sermon. I was convinced that my exposition of the biblical text was just what everyone needed to hear. And so Larri and I launched into the first hymn, country style.
ENI – A sermon on doubt won a best-sermon competition hosted by the Dutch newspaper, Nederlands Dagblad.” Doubt can be hastily perceived as the opposite of faith and something that is not good. Yet, when I read the story of Gideon, I learned that this really is not the case. It seems that even though Gideon doubts, he also believes; doubt is a tool to a deeper relationship with God,” said the winner, Almatine Leene, a theology doctoral student from South Africa, studying in the Netherlands.
Justice Harry LaForme stepped down as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on October 19, citing irresolvable conflict between himself and fellow commissioners Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley.
The two commissioners disputed his authority, LaForme alleged, and weighted the 'truth' side of the commission too heavily when he sought 'reconciliation.'
Wendy Murchy, Terry Richardson and Arn Main have spent a lot of time in jail. Their experiences behind bars have had a profound impact on their lives – and on their faith.
But they are not inmates; they are three individuals who have been called to the ministry of prison chaplaincy. Rev. Terry Richardson is a Lutheran minister who is presently serving as the Director-General of Chaplaincy for Corrections Services Canada in Ottawa; Rev. Wendy Murchy is a Protestant (Pentecostal) chaplain in the Fraser Valley Institution for women in British Columbia; and Rev. Arn Main is a Protestant (Christian Missionary Alliance) chaplain in the Beaver Creek Institution outside of Gravenhurst, Ont.
Welcome to the 133rd year of publication of the Presbyterian Record. It's still fall as I write this – despite the snow – but we already have a full line-up of stories and features for 2009 – not to mention covering the news as it happens.
January 11: Mark 1:4-11
One day, soon after we got our Samoyed, Dexter, from the shelter, I took him to a park where dogs are allowed off leash. Mistake number one. He's uninhibited, curious and affectionate. He doesn't stay on the path. He doesn't cling to my side.
Mistake number two was letting him go down a path beside a pond. He looked good, standing there in the water, barking his head off. His own beam of sunlight made him look oh-so-white and, well, canine.
Then he realized he was wet. Out he came. Snow white on top. Pitch black on the bottom.” Here I am! Aren't I great? I'll just rub myself all over your pants, and sit down here on your foot! Woof!”
– The Anglican Church in Canada eliminated seven positions from its national office in November as part of a plan to slash $1. 3 million from the 2009 budget and reduce its running deficit.
One Saturday morning – at 7 a. m. – I found myself standing before an immaculately dressed and cheerful bride and groom as they prepared to take their marriage vows. I remarked to the congregation that this was the only time I had ever married anyone before breakfast. I also asked the wedding party if they had slept standing up as they were all so handsome and beautiful. No answer. But it was not atypical of Saturday mornings at Malawi's largest congregation, St. Columba's, during the wedding season – the dry months from May to October. And every wedding is the same – same music, same procession, same Scripture and vows. Only the bright young faces are different. People spend months planning weddings so that they can be exactly the same as every other wedding.