The PC(USA) Way?

(from Stacey Midge)

I was saddened this week to see that a new Presbyterian denomination has been formed, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.  The ECO will allow PC(USA) congregations to be associated with them but remain members of the PC(USA), to seek joint association with both denominations, or to leave the PC(USA) and become full members of the ECO.  I wasn't saddened out of any sense of inherent good or bad in either denomination, but rather because of the break in relationships and the grief my Presbyterian friends are feeling over their fractured community.  

I'm also paying special attention to this shift because we in the RCA share many of the same tensions over biblical interpretation, especially where it relates to the church's treatment of LGBT persons.  I often wonder if we are headed down a similar path, although as a smaller (and sometimes more familial-feeling) denomination, some of our dynamics are different.  Unity is a high value for me, but it seems like many of my brothers and sisters are close to the point where they will not in good conscience be able to remain in the RCA unless we come to a firm and final decision to declare homosexuality a sin, and same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT persons to be unacceptable.  I understand their perspective, although I don't share it.  I have close friends who hold that perspective, and personally, I'd rather struggle with them and remain in communion than split.  But the PC(USA) news and some of the talk I hear around the RCA makes me wonder if split is inevitable.

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Boko Haram and the elimination of Christians in Northern Nigeria

(from Thomas Johnson)

Last September I sent my wife and our assistant to nearby Katsina, Nigeria on a shopping errand.  Katsina is just across the Nigeria-Niger border and is less than an hour away.  My assistant was going to see if replacement tires for our vehicle might be cheaper there, while my wife wanted to discover if they had cheese and few other hard-to-find items as Katsina is a bigger town than Maradi, Niger (where we shop).  As an American, I needed a difficult-to-obtain visa to cross the border, whereas these two Nigeriens could enter Nigeria with only their ID, so I didn’t go.

When they returned from their trip, we learned that good tires could be found in Katsina, but my wife informed me that the food selection was much more limited than what was available in Maradi.  She said that when she asked for cheese and some other “Western” items, the store owners replied that they used to stock them but no one bought them anymore. To me, this was an indication that Westerners and southern Nigerian Christians had largely left the area, since their tastes vary from the majority’s food preferences.  

Once upon a time, you had a healthy foreign expatriate community in northern Nigeria serving as teachers and technical advisors to various development, health and agricultural projects with even a few missionaries there. Southern Nigerians who worked for the national government or who ran businesses were also once common in Nigeria’s north and these groups brought a Christian presence to the region that has been fiercely Islamic for the past 200 years.

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The War of the Wills

(From Angie Mabry-Nauta)

The battle lines were drawn at the Mabry Nauta family dinner table. Our youngest daughter, Zoe, who had for most of her short life been our good eater, refused to eat her dinner. "I don't like this!" she whined. Eric and I had long agreed that our children must learn to eat a variety of foods, namely those that have nutritional value. This would be, however, the first time to apply our strategy. A look of edification shared between parents, a simultaneous deep breath...and we have lift off!

Eric and Me: Zoe, we understand that you don't want to eat your dinner. We won't force you to eat it, but you will eat it. It's important for your body to have different types of foods so you can be healthy and grow strong. If you don't eat this tonight, it will be served to you for breakfast. If you don't finish it at breakfast, it will be your after school snack. If some of this is still on your plate come dinner tomorrow night, you'll be given it first. We're happy to feed you additional food after you have eaten this.

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African Christian TV-- Coming your way?

(from Thomas Johnson)

One cultural experience I have every time I go to my Nigerien wife’s family home, such as when we celebrate Christmas there, is to watch African Christian television on free-to-air satellite (Do you remember those big 5+ ft diameter parabolas that existed before DishTV?). Perhaps one home in 20 has such a system as they cost around $300 (not including the television) and permit a viewer to access dozens of satellites orbiting over the Middle East, Southern Europe and Africa.

There’s one particular satellite positioned over Africa that carries 50 (YES 5-0!) separate full-time Christian stations.  These programs originate from African countries such as Congo, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia, as well as from Brazil, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S.A.  In some cases, the whole station is owned and operated by an African mega-church (such as you can find in Lagos or Kinshasa). While the majority of the shows are in English, you can also find French and Portuguese programs, with some subtitling shows in a second language to broaden further their potential audience.  These stations have names such as “Love World”, “Emmanuel”, “Chosen”, “Dove”, “3 Angels”, “Hosanna” and “Olive”, among other faith-inspired monikers. 

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Who Chooses? God or Majority Vote?

(from Thomas Johnson on the Church Herald blog)

A supporting Michigan church sends their monthly newsletter to me in Niger.  In it, I’ve learned that they select their elders by drawing lots from a pre-qualified list of candidates.  Apparently, this does not confirm to the RCA Book of Church Order, but it is a very biblical method for choosing church leaders. (See Acts 1:15-26) I especially like the text from Acts 1:24 “And they made prayers and said, Lord, having knowledge of the hearts of all men, make clear which of these two has been marked out by you” with verse 26 making clear that “chance” determined the “winner”. The more I’m in church leadership circles, the more appealing this approach becomes.

I’ve encouraged our Nigerien church partners on the mission field to explore using this technique when they have to make some sort of decision between good candidates. Specifically, I’ve discovered that awarding scholarships to worthy individuals to study at a Bible School or a seminary tends to become particularly rancorous and disagreeable affairs for the selection committee.  Rather than focusing on the merits of the candidates, the discussions too often degenerate into who has the most political or family leverage to employ in favor of their preferred candidate.   In fact, almost no one wants to serve on the church scholarship committee for this very reason.  To do so, one risks being placed between a rock and hard place which can jeopardize important relationships.  Drawing lots could greatly simplify this task and would neatly conform to Nigeriens’ view of an all-Knowing God.

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Shall We Be Saved?

(from Paul Janssen on the Church Herald blog)

Preparing to preach this week, I made my triennial journey to Isaiah 64, that chapter that begins "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down!"  Here's what leaped out to me from the passage:  "Behold, thou wast angry, and we sinned."

Wait.

Isn't that backwards?

Don't we sin, and then God gets angry with us? 

And why did this jump out at me?

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Let The Children Come

(from Angie Mabry-Nauta on the Church Herald blog)

It was an unusual circumstance that blossomed into beauty and practical theology.  Five-year-old Zoe usually loves F.R.O.G. time (Fully Rely On God - the children’s worship program at my church).  For some reason on this day, one of the volunteers brought her back to Eric, my husband, and me.  “She says she wants to sit with Mommy.”  I was slightly concerned, but I got over it rapidly when I realized that she was just fine and what was coming next in the service.  It was the first Sunday of the month.

Zoe squirmed into my lap and stretched her neck to see better as our co-pastors placed themselves behind the Communion table.  She was curious and drawn in.  “What are Pastor Elizabeth and Pastor Mike doing, Mama?” she quasi-whispered.  Eric overheard her.  We beamed at her and then at each other.  This was the sort of moment of which a pastoral parent dreams -- the perfect combination of practical theology, my child’s desire to learn and a real-time teaching opportunity complete with a live-action visual aid.  There I began a play-by-play commentary of what happens in Communion, pre-school style.

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Are You Kidding Me?! What's Good for the Gander Is Good for the Goose

(from Angie Mabry-Nauta on the Church Herald blog)

As a life-long feminist, I'm a sucker for any article or book whose headline or title highlights a comparison between females and males. I read such works with anticipation, interest and a suspicious eye for sexism. (Can't help it, it runs through my veins.) So, it's natural that a November 7, 2011 NPR article entitled "Why HPV Vaccination of Boys May Be Easier" would prick my curiosity...and boil my blood.

The premise of the article, of course, is public health. The average person who knows something about HPV, the article suggests, typically links the virus cervical cancer, and therefore females only. (Hence the reason for advertising the HPV vaccine as for young females when it was publicly released in the US in 2006.) The truth is that HPV is a disease that is transmitted sexually and via skin-to-skin contact; and it affects both males and females and causes other types of ailments and cancer as well. As an agent of public health, the HPV vaccine is available to both females and males. However, as the title clearly states, males might just be "easier" to vaccinate, and the reason is not because females in general are squeamish about needles.

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How We Got to the "Conscience Clauses"

(from Tom Stark on the Church Herald Guest Blog)

I hope it will be helpful to understand some of the background to where we are today in the RCA.

1. A report from a five-member special committee in 1957, which began as six short articles in the Church Herald, was adopted by the 1958 General Synod, recommending that all offices be open to women in 1962, noting that "in case the offices are open to women... each congregation and each consistory continues the responsibility of deciding whether the Spirit of God is calling anyone to an office.... No deliverance of General Synod on the question of women's eligibility to office will change the Reformed principle of church polity that the power of ordaining and installing rest in consistory and classis."  The 1958 booklet was often cited by later synods. 

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