Please, don't remind me of the PCUSA's lunatic Assembly. Oy.
The Trinity report was so embarrassing . . . .
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Perhaps this item on the reception of a prominent Presbyterian at the Southern Baptist convention will be more to your liking? LOL
Christian Century shows disdain
over Rice's address to Baptists
By John H. Adams
The Layman Online
Thursday, July 6, 2006
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Presbyterian who has been shunned by her own mainline denomination, received rousing ovations when she addressed the recent annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Christian Century, a mainline Protestant publication whose senior editor John Buchanan is a Presbyterian minister, wrote disdainfully of her address to the Baptists. Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, was the co-founder of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, the organization that promotes ordaining men and women in violation of the "fidelity/chastity" requirement in the Book of Order.
"The historical irony of her appearance before Southern Baptists was augmented by the fact that she was cheered by members of a denomination founded in defense of slaveholders and still opposed to women in leadership roles in the church," the liberal magazine wrote in an article that did not have a byline.
"However, the longtime Bush administration foreign-policy official enjoys broad admiration from the SBC – one of the few denominations whose leaders publicly supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq," the article added. "The day before Rice spoke, the denomination's resolutions committee quashed a South Carolina delegate's proposed resolution denouncing the SBC's 'support for the unjust war in Iraq.'"
Those putdowns were added by Christian Century editors, who acknowledged that most of the story was taken from reports by the Associated Press and Religious News Service.
They followed some of Rice's remarks about her career in education and politics as a black woman. "After all, when our Founding Fathers said 'we the people,' they didn't mean me," she said. "My ancestors in Mr. Jefferson's Constitution were only three-fifths of a man."
But times have changed, added Rice, whose predecessors at the State Department were an African-American man and a white woman. "If I serve to the end of my term as secretary, it will be 12 years since a white man was secretary of state," she quipped, to loud applause.
There was an historical irony to The Christian Century's assertion that the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention was an expression of Baptist support for slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Presbyterians were deeply divided over the issue of states' rights and the mainline church divided into Southern and Northern denominations. They remained separated until the Presbyterian Church (USA) was formed through their reunion in 1983.
Rice defended the American role on the world stage. "If America does not rally support for people everywhere who desire to worship in peace and freedom, then I ask you, who will?" she asked. "America's message cannot be clearer: government simply has no right to stand between the individual and the Almighty."
Some of her message had tones familiar to Presbyterians. She noted that many people in the world are denied dignity because of poverty, the lack of political and religious freedom and human trafficking and other forms of subjugation. She declared that it is in the U.S.'s best interest to ameliorate those situations because oppression, poverty and suffering produce instability.
"Let us resolve to deal with the world as it is but never to accept that we are powerless to make it better than it is – not perfect, but better," she went on to say. "America will lead the cause of freedom in our world not because we think ourselves perfect. To the contrary, we cherish democracy and champion its ideals because we know we are not perfect."
Rice, one of the most prominent Presbyterians in the world, has never addressed a General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) or been considered as a candidate for a Women of Faith Award. The recipients of those honors have gone principally to Presbyterian activists in liberal social or theological camps, including "lesbian-evangelist" Janie Spahr, who gained national attention by conducting weddings for homosexual couples.
One of the most detailed accounts of Rice's address was published by the Associated Baptist Press.
Reformed theology discussion draws large crowd
One of the other "Presbyterian" highlights of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptists was a discussion of Calvinism by two nationally prominent Baptists. Although attendance was not required, it attracted more than 2,500 people, including hundreds who could not find seats.
The crowd was so large that the Greensboro, N.C., fire marshal required that Baptists who wished to hear the discussion be turned away.
It was a friendly but pointed discussion between Paige Patterson and Albert Mohler. Patterson is president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Mohler, a self-described Calvinist, is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
While they displayed mutual admiration for each other, they expressed dissimilar views about election, free will, grace and sovereignty.
Mohler is one of the leaders of what Baptists have described as a neo-Calvinist movement in the 16-million-member denomination. Patterson, who was one of the leaders of the conservative takeover of the denomination's leadership and seminaries in the 1970s. The Southern Baptist Convention's newsroom posted an account of their debate.
Baptists raise record amount for missions
Congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention raised a record $137.9 million for international missions in 2005, according to the convention's International Mission Board.
Known as the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the collection supports the work of 5,100 international missionaries.
The members of one congregation, Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., gave $656,951.44 to the Lottie Moon Offering. The members of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Boone, N.C., made the highest per-capita gift: $243.74 per member.
The Lottie Moon Offering is $40 million higher than the entire 2007 mission budget of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
As a denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention sponsors one international missionary per 3,135 members. The PCUSA's ratio is one missionary per 9,600 members.