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On Tuesday, November 18, John Knox Presbytery voted 77 to 23 (or maybe 71 to 23 – accounts vary) that Scott Anderson’s “affirmation of conscience” as an out gay man, does not violate any essential tenet of the Reformed faith. The Presbytery then voted to enroll Anderson as a candidate for ordination.

When two ministers called on Anderson to speak about his “sexual practice,” another presbyter objected that this line of questioning was inappropriate, and the matter was not pursued.

A personal note: Your WebWeaver thinks “affirmation of conscience” is a much better term than “scruple” (sounding a bit medieval) or “departure” (sounding a bit like what is so often delayed at airports).

The full text of Anderson’s Affirmation of Conscience, in PDF format >>

Presbyterian Outlook provides a good report on the meeting >>

Human rights leader and professor urges Obama: “.... you must act quickly and decisively if you are to get human rights back on track.”

Julie Mertus is a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, a professor at American University, and the author of the award-winning book Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (2nd ed. 2008). She is also a member of Towson (MD) Presbyterian Church.

She urges in president-elect to take four concrete steps to restore the standing of the U.S. as a supporter of human rights:

Let’s not hold justice hostage for “consensus”

Carolyn Gillette was inspired by Matthew 25:31-46, this year's lectionary text for this coming Christ the King Sunday. Many churches have special offerings for the poor around Thanksgiving that make this hymn very appropriate.

Gene TeSelle takes on a subject that's being discussed frequently, but that many of us would prefer to ignore:  The many expressions of hatred toward president-elect Barack Obama and those who support him, based largely on racial resentments and fears.

TeSelle views these threats as part of a wider effort to "delegitimize" Obama as the newly elected leader of the U.S.

We encourage you to read his essay, consider how well it does or doesn't match your own impressions of our society today, and offer thoughts about ways communities of faith might respond to this climate of fear and threat.

This note comes to us from the Rev. Noelle Damico, staff for the Campaign for Fair Food of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

“In life, in death, in life beyond death, we belong to God.” These words resounded within my heart last week as I attended the memorial service for Evan Silverstein, reporter for Presbyterian News Service. Evan died suddenly from a massive heart attack at the age of 42 on November 9th.

An AP-award winning journalist, Evan covered an incredible range of subjects and stories including our efforts together with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in the Campaign for Fair Food. Evan was an esteemed colleague and a dear friend to so many of us. For those of you who did not know Evan, he infused his relationships and his journalism with dedication, humor, kindness and integrity.

The CIW had the highest respect for Evan. Lucas Benitez, co-founder of the CIW, wrote “We are also much affected by the death of Evan, who was one of the best reporters and allies we have had in the Presbyterian Church.” They join us in mourning his loss.

The PC(USA) has set up a memorial fund in honor of Evan’s life and the significant contribution he has made to the church. Because of Evan’s deep confidence in the work that the church is doing with the farmworkers, the funds have been designated to go to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

You can read more about Evan, a gifted and generous man, as well as make a contribution to honor his memory by visiting http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2008/08848.htm .

In peace,

Noelle

Welcoming the new administration ...
Are we entering a new era of “culture wars”?

By Gene TeSelle

We seem to be headed into a new era of "culture wars," fueled by competing moral visions, such that those who disagree are placed beyond the bounds of legitimacy.

Many people seem to agree with Stephen Carter that religion is the only thing that "gets no respect." When religious conservatives act in intemperate ways, their behavior is regarded as an understandable reaction to a relentlessly "secular" government.

Such actions are defended with the argument that religion is an "absolute commitment" — as though this makes it exempt from the rules of political behavior, and even confers the privilege of defining those rules and trying to seize the reins of government through the Moral Majority or the dictates of the Catholic bishops.

America's Roman Catholic bishops prepared to challenge the new administration. In their national meeting in Baltimore this past week, they agreed they would accept no compromise for the sake of national unity until there is legal protection for the unborn.  "This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground," said Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio. "It's a matter of absolutes."

How do we get beyond "'tis/'taint" arguments of this sort? Kent Greenawalt, law professor at Columbia, has carefully developed a reasonable approach. Religious convictions, he acknowledges, can be an important motivator in political life, including campaigns and legislative debates. But they best contribute to public discussion when they are translated into "publicly accessible reasons," that is, "secular" or at least "shared" convictions, not sectarian ones. Beyond that, they are likely to be divisive and counterproductive.

The complete essay >>

Berry Craig, a history teacher and free-lance writer in Mayfield, Kentucky, ponders the puzzling fact that many guys who drive rusty old Buick proudly sport McCain/Palin stickers on their clunkers.

I’ve never understood Buick Guys. Kentucky – not one of the wealthiest states – is full of them. While Barack Obama won in a landslide nationally, the Bluegrass State went big for McCain, as it did twice for Bush.

Meanwhile, Buick Guys in Kentucky and elsewhere continue to vote for candidates who aim to make the rich richer and keep Buick Guys driving heaps.

The Rev. Ray Bagnuolo adds his reasons for saying “No” to “No action”  He begins:  

The recent recommendation of some notable allies in the struggle for LGBT/Q folk has been to "do nothing" in considering the ratification of 08-B. For many of us, many ... the idea of leaving G-6.0106b intact in our constitution points to the misunderstanding common to most institutions. The "misunderstanding" is that the PC(USA) is dealing with the issue of ordination standards for LGBT/Q folk. We are not an issue, thank you very much. We are not dealing with an issue – we are living, breathing, Spirit-filled creations of God just like everyone else. We cannot be objectified as "an issue" in an attempt to distance this ratification from the real lives of our sisters and brothers who are LGBT/Q and how the church's constitution impacts those lives.

Died at home, apparently of natural causes

Jerry L. Van Marter of Presbyterian News Service reports:

November 10, 2008 — Evan Silverstein, a veteran reporter who served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for 10 years as senior reporter for the Presbyterian News Service, died Nov. 9 in his Louisville home, apparently of natural causes. He was 42.

Joining the Presbyterian News Service staff in the fall of 1998, Silverstein quickly established himself as an award-winning journalist, scoring several Associated Church Press awards for coverage of such PC(USA) stories as disaster relief, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, myriad judicial cases and human interest stories about interesting and inspiring Presbyterians. He was a fixture in the General Assembly Communications Center and traveled extensively overseas for the PC(USA). And though he was Jewish, Silverstein displayed a far better understanding of and appreciation for the mission and ministry of the PC(USA) than many Presbyterians.

Arch Taylor reviews Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace, by Douglas P. Fry

The recorded history of humankind is replete with stories of war and bloodshed. Consequently, most people resignedly assume that making war must be a natural characteristic of human nature, or at least of the masculine half. The phrase, “man the warrior” has become shorthand to express this generally accepted view.

Douglas P. Fry challenges that conclusion, drawing on the evidence provided by careful research into the evolutionary development of humankind.

Read the full review >>

Remarks generated by the Wheeler and Loudon articles in The Presbyterian Outlook

Dale Johnson, who was an elder commissioner to the 2008 General Assembly and a member of the Church Orders and Ministry Committee which considered the overtures dealing with ordination, responds to two recent articles in Presbyterian Outlook calling for “no action” on Amendment 08-B.

From his own involvement in the work of the committee that sent 08-B to the presbyteries, Johnson urges that the decisions of the committee – and the Assembly as a whole – be taken seriously, for they believed that their other actions to eliminate old Authoritative Interpretations and to leave ordination decisions to the discernment of presbyteries and sessions should be completed by the amendment of the existing G-6.0106b.  Further, he questions the possibility of fruitful conversation after so many years of talk without action.

Leaders urge president-elect Obama to make executive order banning torture one of his first official acts

On Wednesday, November 12, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) held a "National Day of Witness for a Presidential Executive Order to Ban Torture". Participants in the day's events seek to persuade President-elect Barack Obama to sign an Executive Order banning torture as one of his first official actions in office and to urge Members of Congress to establish a Select Committee to investigate the use of torture since 9/11.

“Our LGBT friends certainly deserve a little better.”

This essay has come to us from the Rev. Chris Joiner, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tenn. He prepared it, he writes, “in response to a series of conversations moving around the presbytery on the question of ‘voting not to vote.’ ”

I have great respect for Barbara Wheeler and for the work she did on the PUP Task Force. Indeed, the work that she did, and led them in doing, is still I think the best chance we have as a denomination for moving forward together.

It is because of the work of that task force, and because of the many statements she makes in this recent article, that I cannot agree with her on the upcoming vote.   More >>

Barbara Wheeler's call for "no action" >>

An extensive network of religious leaders, including David Gushee, a Baptist teacher of ethics at Mercer University, will begin a lobbying campaign to get President-elect Barack Obama to issue an executive order banning torture as one of his first acts Wednesday.

The Bush administration’s approval of interrogation techniques such as water boarding inspired the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which organized a national conference on torture in Atlanta Sept. 11 and is pushing it as an issue among evangelicals.

Wednesday, Nov. 12, the campaign, which says it has the support of 240 religious groups from various faiths, will begin visiting congressmen in Washington to push for the ban and for a congressional investigation into the use of torture by Americans on fighters and others captured in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror.

For the rest of the brief report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution >>

Seeing gay and lesbian relationships through a new lens

Stacy Johnson’s second address to Covenant Network conference

Building on his first presentation on covenant, William Stacy Johnson spoke again on Saturday morning on the topic, “‘You Will By My People’ – But When and Where? Marriage As Living Example.”

When conservatives discuss sexual morality, he said, they often focus on rules – as in, “Are you obeying the rules,” said theologian William Stacy Johnson. And liberals often start by asking, “Is this relationship sincere?”

But Johnson suggests that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has nothing to gain by continuing the same debates over homosexuality that have polarized the denomination for decades. A better question, he suggested, would be to ask: “What does my relationship with another demonstrate about the gospel?” Johnson is arguing, in other words, for a change in approach.

“I think it is time for us to quit fighting over gay sexuality using the old rules, the old paradigms, the old lenses” Instead, he said, Presbyterians should stop debating gay ordination as a political issue, and see the people behind the issue – often committed couples, some of them raising children. 

The full report from Presbyterian Outlook >>

Kim Bobo, the Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, has sent a memo to supporters expressing hopes raised by the recent election.

She writes:

Nonetheless, the challenges facing our new president and his team are enormous. Employment figures that came out last week show that employers cut 240,000 jobs in October. More than ten million Americans are looking for jobs and can't find them, giving us an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent, the highest in 14 years. Working families are scared knowing they have few reserves and supports in times of economic crisis.

But given the working families platform outlined by the president-elect and Interfaith Worker Justice's mission to involve the religious community in these critical issues, the election offers opportunities for Interfaith Worker Justice to move forward an agenda that can help workers now and put in place structures that can support workers in coming decades.

Boundaries are a big deal these days -- be they national, racial, religious, economic, or whatever.  But Trina Zelle, former Co-Moderator of the Witherspoon Society, recently preached a sermon for the Presbytery of Grand Canyon in which she explored Jesus' radical teaching about family as including everyone.  That means, she says, that "welcoming the stranger," while it's a good thing, must always be following by accepting that "stranger" as fully a part of our family.

Legality of Same-Sex Marriage Ban Challenged    

Ashley Surdin reports in The Washington Post: "The future of same-sex marriage in the Golden State will rest, once again, in the hands of its highest court. But this time, its fate will hinge on a different question: Can a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage go before voters? Or must it go before the legislature first?"   The full story >>

For items from
earlier in November
all of October
all of September
August, 2008
July, 2008
June, 2008
May, 2008
April, 2008
March, 2008
February, 2008
January, 2008

Check earlier months through the general archive page.

For an index of all our reports on the Witherspoon Conference

The 2006 General Assembly
 
Some of our more important recent reports are still listed below.

The Covenant Network of Presbyterians gathered over 300 people in Minneapolis on November 6 - 8, 2008, to reflect on the theme of “Covenant: God is faithful still.” Much of the three-day conference  focused on the opportunity and challenge presented by the action of the 218^th General Assembly last June. That Assembly, responding to an overture from the Presbytery of Boston, proposed an amendment of the church’s Book of Order, section G-6.0106b, which requires “fidelity and chastity” of any Presbyterian seeking to be ordained as a minister or elder in the church.

The Covenant Network was founded in 1997 to work for the full inclusion (and ordination) of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). But as the Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen acknowledged in one plenary discussion of strategy for supporting the proposed Amendment 08-B, the leaders of the group are not entirely agreed on how to respond to this opportunity for change.  

Dr. Barbara G. Wheeler, who is president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, served on the Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, and is a member of the Board of the Covenant Network, recently published an article in The Presbyterian Outlook, expressing her support for the amendment of G-6.0106b that was sent to the presbyteries by the 218^th General Assembly. But she urges that for this year, the presbyteries should simply take no action on the amendment.  More >>

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship joining many others to close School of the Americas     [11-9-08]

This note comes to us from Marilyn White, on behalf of the PPF:

Dear Friends,

In 15 days, from November 21-23, 2008, torture survivors, community organizers, and social justice activists from across the Americas will converge at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to start building the world that we hope for and to move U.S. foreign policy into a new direction.

Change is coming and we are going to close the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC)!

Regional events in the lead-up to the November vigil are taking place on November 9 at the gates of the U.S. Southern Command in Florida, from November 15-16 at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, on November 20 at Drummond in Alabama and on November 20 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Join us for the lead-up events and from Nov. 21-23 at the gates of Ft. Benning!

by Doug King, your WebWeaver
[11-5-08]

Last night, just after CNN projected Barack Obama as the winner of the election, the apartment next to ours erupted in whoops and shouts and general delight as the African American family there celebrated. It was good to hear. And to see people like Colin Powell and Jesse Jackson weep with joy, even as millions of the rest of us have too, tells me something really big has happened.

No big surprise there, I know. But then the question is – as Obama reminded the joyous crowd last night – what do we do now? The American people, with the brilliant help of one of our own sons, have opened the door into a new future. Hopes that many of us have held for decades now begin to look like possibilities.

Early in his election-night speech, Obama expressed thanks to his campaign staff, then added:   “... above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you.”

He went on to describe how he sees his (and the nation’s) tasks:

“I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there.”

For the full text of the speech >>

Those who yearn for justice and for peace must now shift gears from the easy satisfaction of resenting injustice and war. We need to put our nice ideas into proposals and programs and practices that will move us from yearnings to actions.

Obama offered one step toward that process of transforming our society, when he did what he has done since his campaign began: using “we” language instead of “I” language. Some may see that as nothing but a nice rhetorical device, and it may amount to nothing more unless millions of Americans begin to make it a reality. And certainly our faith, and the way of life taught by Jesus, should help us to do just that.

This means we must stand against the prevailing ethic of a market economy. We can do this by confronting the challenges of the economic crisis by helping one another, rather than competing as isolated battlers, each of us against everyone else.

We can do this by finding ways to work through our differences, rather than striving to defeat those with whom we disagree. (Not easy for us Presbyterians, I know.) This does not mean giving in to those who demand control of a situation, of a church, of a nation. But it means seeking ways to talk, to find common ground, to nurture new ways of living together. And if those efforts fail, it means standing firm in defense of those whose rights, and very lives, are being debased by those who seek control.

So here is a challenge for our Presbyterian Church: to find new ways to care for one another, to respect one another, and to embody that care and respect as we structure our lives in church and community and nation.

If you have thoughts on the election of Barack Obama,
or on the ideas expressed here
and by Obama himself,
please send a note,
to be shared here.

Also ...

Be afraid! Be very afraid!!

According to Robert Gagnon, Obama will wage war on Christianity!!!

Robert Gagnon, Associate Professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, has just issued (as of November 3) an essay warning us all of “Obama’s Coming War on Historic Christianity over Homosexual Practice and Abortion.”  More >>

Early in 2008 a paper was published by the PC(USA)’s Office of Theology and Worship, arguing that the key to restoring the Presbyterian Church to its old glory lies in giving the reins of control back to “the Presbyterian Establishment,” which means the tall-steeple pastors and mature, successful elders (mostly male, white, straight, and otherwise decent and orderly).  The author, Dr. William “Beau” Weston, professor of sociology at Presbyterian-related Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, speaks out of his own discipline of sociology and his years of participation in and study of the Presbyterian Church.

We encourage you to download the paper, which is at http://www.pcusa.org/re-formingministry/papers/rebuilding.pdf .

The paper has attracted a good deal of interest and has aroused discussion, some of it quite critical.  We offer some comments of our own, and welcome comments from others as well. 

The first essay here is by Doug King, Communications Coordinator for the Witherspoon Society.  The second comes from the Rev. Ann Hayman, who is a minister member of Pacific Presbytery.

If you have thoughts to contribute,
just send a note,
to be shared here! 

Click here for comments received.

10 resources for discernment, from MLP
[10-30-08]

Toby Rogers, the newly appointed Associate Director of More Light Presbyterians, is providing all of us with another very helpful resource as our presbyteries begin to consider the proposed amendment of our Book of Order, number 08-B, which would replace the text of G-6.0106b (which has divided our church for years) with language that more accurately reflects our Presbyterian polity and traditions.

Washington Report to Presbyterians
September-October Issue

[10-24-08]

There’s very good stuff in this issue, from the Presbyterian Washington Office: 

Just wander through earlier headlines and links:

And go to the Archive index page for items from 1999 through the latest month.

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