|
Items
marked with 
are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. For best results,
right-click the link (or click and hold for Macintosh), select "save
target as" and save the document to your desktop for viewing and printing.
|
|
Welcome to Perspectives,
the online magazine published by the Office of the General Assembly.
Perspectives
offers an exploration of issues facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
and its witness in society through
- reflective and
provocative analysis of our life together as a denomination, and
- the lenses of
Scripture, Reformed theology, cultures, and a constitutional and confessional
framework.
IN THIS ISSUE:
The contributors
to this issue offer provocative statements, compelling questions, and
timely reminders that center around the nature of the church and the
quality of our relationships with each other in this denomination and
beyond.
Here is a quick
look at each of the offerings:
 James
G. Kirk reflects on these present days in the life of the PC(USA) and
the world and makes “A Case for Listening.” He writes, “Listening
may be the kairos to which God is currently calling us. From
a theological point of view, listening may be a Sabbath experience.
We have toiled long and hard at telling one another what they ought
to believe. God knows, everyone is weary from the energy that’s
been exuded by one and all.” Kirk, a well-known author of a number
of books, including When We Gather: A Book of Prayers for Worship,
is an honorably retired (Baltimore Presbytery) Minister of the Word
and Sacrament.
Listen
to this: “The issue that is either openly addressed or subtly
at work in all our discussions about a denomination like the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) is the fact that Christendom is over.” That is
how Darrell L. Guder begins his essay, “The Nicene Marks in a
Post-Christendom Church.” Guder’s essay was published together
this summer with two other essays — “One, Holy, Catholic,
and Apostolic,” by Kevin Park, and “We Believe in the One
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: 4 Theses” by Charles Wiley.
Together, the three essays make up the first Re-Forming Ministry Occasional
Paper, Bearing the Marks of the Church. The Re-Forming
Ministry program, a program of the Office of Theology and Worship
of the PC(USA), brings together groups of pastors, governing body leaders,
and professors who share as equals in doing sustained, intensive work
reflecting on the church’s faith. Re-Forming Ministry is shaped
by the conviction that pastoral ministry is best carried out when pastors,
governing body leaders and professors recognize that each plays a role
in excellent pastoral ministry. Guder is Dean of Academic Affairs and
Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology at
Princeton Theological Seminary.
His essay is used here by permission.
If
listening to one another in the PC(USA) is vitally important, perhaps
even more important is listening to those beyond our own denomination,
especially those with whom we most struggle. In “Called to Be
One Church: An Invitation for Churches to Renew Their Commitment,”
Robina Winbush writes, “The best of our Reformed theology articulates
an understanding that “the Church universal consists of all persons
in every nation, together with their children, who profess faith in
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and commit themselves to live in a fellowship
under his rule” (Book of Order, G-4.0100). However, most
would agree that living in fellowship and demonstrating the church’s
visible oneness in Christ are easier said than done these days. Winbush
shares a number of questions developed by the 9th Assembly of the World
Council of Churches (WCC) to member churches of the WCC, hoping that
congregations, presbyteries, synods, and the PC(USA) as a whole might
engage the questions, as well. Perhaps these questions, aimed at helping
us focus on the quality of our ecumenical relationships, will “give
rise to new possibilities of relationship and witness.” Winbush,
a staff member of the Office of the General Assembly, is associate stated
clerk and director of ecumenical and agency relationships. Her article
first appeared in Ecu-Dialogue (vol. 17, number 2, Fall 2006),
a publication of the Worldwide Ministries Division’s Ecumenical
Partnership offices with responsibility for ecumenical
and interfaith relations, as a means for exchanging ideas and information
with the church.
The
new membership of the Central Committee of the World
Council of Churches, named at the 9th Assembly of the council, met
for the first time just over a month ago in Geneva. We feature here
the sermon, “It is not so among you!” that was delivered
by the committee’s newly elected moderator, Walter Altmann, during
morning prayer. He says to his colleagues, “…we have work
ahead of us. The challenges are not small. We are called to give expression
to unity in the midst of diversity and also in the midst of unavoidable
tensions among us. There is much to do. But let us trust that Jesus
is among us and with us.” The Central Committee will make decisions
on behalf of the WCC in-between assemblies. The WCC is the broadest
and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern
ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity. The WCC
brings together more than 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships
in over 100 countries and territories throughout the world, representing
some 550 million Christians and including most of the world’s
Orthodox churches, scores of denominations from such historic traditions
of the Protestant Reformation as Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist
and Reformed, as well as many united and independent churches.
Finally,
the challenges of being relational Christians within and beyond our
PC(USA) family are certainly hefty. And, while we discuss and debate
and argue and wrestle, the world’s cry for help grows louder.
Noted hymn writer Carolyn Winfrey Gillette puts it all in perspective
(especially in the month when we celebrate World Communion) in the hymn
text “Where Is Bread?” Serving as co-pastor of the Limestone
Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, she is the author of Gifts
of Love: New Hymns for Today’s Worship (Geneva Press).
Do
you have suggestions for future issues or other comments to share? Drop
us a line.
Sharon
K. Youngs, Editor
.
All Rights Reserved.
|
|
