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InSights Opinions
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Written by Harold Porter
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Monday, 01 January 2001 00:00 |
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In his well-intended article, "Reconsidering 'Definitive Guidance,'" A. J. McKelway essentially argues for the ordination of homosexual persons because they are really the victims of an "involuntary condition." But, he adds, as long as they do not impose their "life style publicly" on the church. That is, if they don't flaunt it, ask for the church's approval or cause injury or public scandal.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Jerry Andrews
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Monday, 01 January 2001 00:00 |
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A. J. McKelway's article offers to make distinctions that, it is agreed, are often so helpful when considering issues before the church, but one distinction, essential to the conversation, remained unspoken -- a distinction the church has rightly made.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Laird Stuart
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Monday, 01 January 2001 00:00 |
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A. J. McKelway has done all of us a great service. He has gone back to the l978 documents regarding the ordination of gay and lesbian people. He believes the original issue was missed and he leads us to a new possibility for our present debate.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Guest Commentary
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Monday, 01 January 2001 00:00 |
A. J. McKelway, a retired Davidson College professor of religion, wrote a guest viewpoint, "Reconsidering 'Definitive Guidance,'" which was published in the Nov. 6, 2000, issue of The Outlook.
In that article, McKelway wrote that the church cannot approve of homosexuality, but should return to the position of ordaining into the ministry "homosexuals who do not insist upon that approval."
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Leslie Scanlon
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
MONTREAT, N.C. -- With a few protests about having to make "forced choices" and not understanding why they were doing what they were doing, members of the General Assembly Council did Friday morning what their leaders have insisted they do: rank programs according to how much impact they have on two top priorities, evangelism and discipleship.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Margaret Campbell Trautman
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
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This year, presbyteries throughout the denomination will be considering a proposal [Amendment D] to require that churches pay certified Christian educators the minimum salary they set for pastors. It is important that before they vote, they understand what a certified Christian educator is.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by A.J. McKelway
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
The church has been debating the issue of homosexuality for more than a quarter of a century to the neglect of more important issues and the creation of divisions within our fellowship which border on the catastrophic. So far, only two alternatives have been offered: that the church embrace homosexuality as simply another form of God's will for sexual life, or that the church condemn homosexuality as an egregious form of sin and deny office to homosexuals.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by David Steele
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
Yesterday Joan and I joined Hospice of the Valley. It was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever faced. By doing so I affirm that my cancerous condition is terminal and that in all likelihood I will die within six months. I also agree that in the light of my poor reaction to radiation the likelihood of significant help from chemotherapy is dubious. So I have opted for community and care and quality of life.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Harriet O. Wacker
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
The candlelight service is over, the darkened church is locked and we set out into the cold, starry darkness of a Texas Christmas Eve.
The long ride home holds its own surprises as the headlights shine on the eyes of foraging late-night creatures.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Leslie Scanlon
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
PITTSBURGH -- Dr. Kenneth Culver, a physician and Presbyterian elder who helped conduct one of the first clinical trials on human beings involving gene therapy, sees genetics, in the not-so-distant future, as "changing every aspect of our lives."
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InSights Opinions
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Written by William M. Paul
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
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American Christians can celebrate three Christmases. The most obvious is secular Christmas. In Pittsburgh secular Christmas has been officially dubbed "Sparkle Season." Sparkle Christmas begins soon after Halloween. Unless you become a hermit or find another way to escape the world, this Christmas is impossible to avoid.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by James C. Goodloe IV
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
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Charles L. Moffatt, Presbyterian minister, taught me to fear no truth, for all truth is from God. The other side of that is not to be afraid to challenge any claim to truth, for not all claims to truth are from God. That is to say, the church does not have to swallow whole every new teaching that comes down the pike.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Eugenia Gamble
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
Lately it seems that we have had a resurgence in the use of the word "relevant." Everywhere I turn, someone is lauding something for being "relevant" or, more often, deriding something for not being "relevant."
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Marj Carpenter
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
There's a tune from South Ireland we used to sing around the piano that includes the question, "How is poor old Ireland and how does she stand?" Well, I've just been back to Ireland on my third Irish Institute in the past 10 years. And Ireland is old, but it is no longer poor.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Leslie Scanlon
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
MONTREAT, N.C. -- Some General Assembly Council members raised questions Saturday about the theology behind ranking the work of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) according to its impact on evangelism and discipleship -- with former General Assembly moderator Douglas Oldenburg saying, "I don't ever want us to become just a consumer church," where only programs with the strongest constituencies prevail.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by J. Paul Frelick
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
Back in September, the General Assembly Council (GAC) at Montreat graded Assembly programs based on their impact according to two established priorities -- evangelism and discipleship.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Charles Ainley Hammond
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Friday, 01 December 2000 00:00 |
With much rhetorical wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, the Presbyterian publications are full of letters and articles lamenting the process and the result by which the General Assembly Council finally got around, 17 years after reunion, to doing some of what we promised to do at the end of the first year.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Carnegie Samual Calian
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Thursday, 30 November 2000 00:00 |
Presbyterians pride themselves on being realistic Christians. This is due to the Reformed emphasis that human nature is not perfect nor are human achievements self-sufficient. From a Reformed perspective, all cultural and scientific "advancements" are subject to theological scrutiny. What is sought is a reforming attitude toward the totality of life.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by John "Pete" Hendrick
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Thursday, 30 November 2000 00:00 |
For decades Reformation Sunday has been on the annual calendar of many mainline Protestant churches in the United States. Held on a Sunday near Oct. 31, it commemorates Martin Luther's protest against the Roman Catholic Church. Often its observance has been a way in which Protestants distinguished themselves from Roman Catholics.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by William Stacy Johnson
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Thursday, 30 November 2000 00:00 |
Grace and gratitude lie at the heart of Christian faith. Yet their meaning is far from selfÐevident. This has become clear to me, year after year, in teaching seminary and divinity students, for whom the most basic aspects of the gospel are sometimes as difficult as a foreign language. The difficulties in understanding grace extend, however, beyond the classroom, as should be clear to anyone who has focused carefully and critically upon the divisive debates that have strewn their wreckage over the life of the church in recent times. So then, what is the meaning and substance of grace?
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Charles Partee
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Wednesday, 01 November 2000 00:00 |
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Marrying, as I did, a gorgeous redhead (there being no other kind) includes automatic induction into the League of Timid Men. This explains why I did not object when my lady wife announced that she was going to learn to ski so she could join our grown children on the snowy mountains. Actually, I was delighted to hear this decision since she had been contemplating learning to hang glide.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by James H. Smylie
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Tuesday, 31 October 2000 00:00 |
The PC(USA) General Assembly has declared July 2000-June 2001 the "Year of the Child." By a happy providence, this All Hallows Eve, Oct. 31, is also the 50th anniversary of the United Nation's International Children's Emergency Fund's "Trick-or-Treat" program.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by James A. Simpson
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Tuesday, 31 October 2000 00:00 |
Present at this year's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was Roy Sanderson, our oldest surviving General Assembly moderator. When I asked this sprightly 93-year-old what he was doing these days, he told me he was taking a computer class at a college in East Lothian. I was full of admiration.
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InSights Opinions
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Written by Andrew Stehlik
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Sunday, 01 October 2000 00:00 |
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Editors' note: Andrew Stehlik of the Czech Republic recently served a year as a mission-partner-in-residence with the PC(USA) Worldwide Ministries Division in Louisville. He wrote about his impressions of the PC(USA) in the Czech Working Group newsletter for July 2000. The working group, created by the General Assembly Council in 1995, works closely with the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren to improve and expand the relationships between the two churches.
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