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The Presbyterian Church USA (PC USA) has accused Caterpillar, HP and Motorola of supporting the Israeli government in a "non-peaceful way." As a result of those claim, the Church has now indicated that it will divest of the companies' stock. The Church has been trying to convince Caterpillar to cease its indirect engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years, a PC USA representative wrote in a statement.Caterpillar, a producer of mining equipment, has “profited from sales of its products to Israeli military and civilian authorities, including its D-9 bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homes and construct settlements and...

In 2004, the Presbyterian Church (USA) touted solidarity with Palestinians by endorsing a “phased, selective divestment” from firms doing business with Israel. Church elites had underestimated the negative public response, both from American Jews and from more temperate Presbyterians. After a campaign to revoke divestment, including a feisty luncheon appearance by former CIA Director James Woolsey, the denomination’s 2006 General Assembly revoked divestment. But the church’s anti-Israel boll weevils won’t accept “no” for an answer. A PCUSA so-called Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) committee is now recommending a new, more selective anti-Israel divestment targeting Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar, and Motorola. Next year’s...

Top leader of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Moderator Cynthia Bolbach, addressed the first national gathering of More Light Presbyterians since the denomination began allowing the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ...Meeting at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, September 2-4, Moderator Bolbach encouraged the listeners to be the church by working together. Using the biblical story of the friends who cut a hole in the roof of a house to get a friend to Jesus to be healed of paralysis, the Moderator urged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies to be as...

Three months after allowing the ordination of openly gay clergy, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) seems headed for a split as nearly 2,000 conservative Presbyterians are gathering in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday with creation of a “new Reformed body” as an agenda. Making preparations for the conference is the Rev. Paul Detterman, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal, an independent organization based in Louisville, Ky., where the denomination’s headquarters are. Detterman, administrative consultant for the new Fellowship of Presbyterians, the organizer, recently wrote in a communication to fellow conservatives that initially only a few hundred people were interested in new...

Pastors from mainline denominations and other religious leaders knelt on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda Thursday, praying and singing until police arrested them for the protest. Their message to a Congress attempting to raise the debt ceiling? Raise taxes instead of cutting programs. “Today, we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to say to Congress, ‘Raise revenue, protect the vulnerable and those living in poverty,” said the Rev. Michael Livingston, the former president of the National Council of the Churches of Christ (USA), in a statement. Joining him were representatives from the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist...

The country's largest Presbyterian denomination is starting to feel the impact of lifting its explicit ban on gay ordination earlier this year. Locally, three congregations have initiated formal talks with the regional governing body, or presbytery, about whether to remain within the 2-million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The Presbytery of Donegal includes 58 congregations in York, Lancaster and Chester counties (14 of them in York County). In May, the PCUSA approved an amendment to its constitution, giving local congregations the option to ordain partnered lay elders and deacons and allowing presbyteries to ordain or install pastors who are in same-sex relationships....

After same-sex marriage becomes legal here on July 24, gay priests with partners in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island will head to the altar. They have to. Their bishop set a nine-month deadline for them to marry or stop living together. Next door, meanwhile, the Episcopal bishop of New York says he also expects gay clergy in committed relationships to wed "in due course." Still, this longtime supporter of gay rights says churches in his diocese are off limits for gay weddings until he receives clearer liturgical guidance from the national denomination. As more states legalize same-sex marriage, religious...

A new policy that opens the door to ordination of openly gay deacons, elders, and ministers in the Presbyterian Church ( USA ) took effect July 10, with prayer vigils and liturgical celebrations to mark the historic occasion held across the nation from Pittsburgh to Nashville to Denver and beyond.Closer to home, the landmark change means that Andersonville resident Jeannine Oakes' dream of becoming an ordained minister of word and sacrament—in a church she dearly loves—may very well come true after all. "I am still in the early stages of the process, with a lot of requirements to go," Oakes...

A gay elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) says the recent rule change that removes any doubt over the legitimacy of her position makes the church more accepting, though intolerance still exists in many areas. Beth Van Sickle was ordained in her Ohio congregation in the 1980s and faced challenges to her post. But yesterday , the church’s constitution was changed to allow unmarried, noncelibate clergy. Van Sickle says it makes the church appear more accepting to young people, who may be questioning the conflict between their religion and their sexuality. “People will come to the church because they recognize...

When Jeannine Oakes answered God's call to become a pastor, it was a moment of both clarity and confusion. Though her heart belonged to the Presbyterian Church, she also hoped one day to give her heart to a woman with whom she would share her life. The Presbyterian Church's ban on openly gay clergy did not allow for both. Eventually, she asked the leadership at Fourth Presbyterian Church to endorse her mission and enrolled at McCormick Theological Seminary to complete the necessary coursework."I need to be fully who I am, and the church needs to accept that," said Oakes, 32....

Presbyterians who support gay rights are prepping sanctuaries this Sunday (July 10) to celebrate the passage of a new church policy that allows gay pastors to serve openly for the first time in the denomination's history. As the new policy for the Presbyterian Church (USA) becomes official that day, several left-leaning churches "will mark the moment with prayer and rejoicing" in their Sunday services, according to a press release from More Light Presbyterians, which advocates for gay rights in the church. "The Presbyterian Church enters a new era of equality on Sunday," said Michael Adee, the group's executive director. "It...

Brett Webb-Mitchell, a Presbyterian minister who is also gay, took to Salon today to share his experience preaching in Hnederson, North Carolina. It has not been easy:The bigotry, disgust and underlying fear of those of us who are different than the rest -- whoever "the rest" may be -- was breathtaking in its viciousness. And the place where so much of this prejudice found light was in the pages of "Home in Henderson." People from the town and county had free rein to insult and mock me. "Homo of Henderson" they dubbed me, but often they weren't nearly as eloquent:...

As an out Presbyterian preacher, I'd experienced prejudice before. But nothing like what I faced in North CarolinaI was reading "Home in Henderson" -- the unofficial city website for a small town in North Carolina where I had recently moved to preach -- when I came across the blog entry. It was posted under the pseudonym "Church Reporter." "A friend that attends the First Presbyterian Church told me to do a Google search on their new minister Brett Webb-Mitchell," the entry began. "Having done so, I have only three comments to make on the pastor selection: 1. Who is responsible...

Rev. Eric Elnes, pastor of Countryside Community Church, said the proclamation was created because, “we were just fed up with the popular notion that the Christian point of view is anti-gay.” Elnes, who leads an Omaha church of 1,500 members at 87th Street and Pacific Street, said more than 100 ordained Christian ministers have signed the proclamation, including leaders from Lutheran, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. The ministers will join together on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge to publicly unveil the proclamation and show full acceptance of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and...

The former Director of Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Rev Dr Arlo D Duba, a conservative evangelical, has changed his mind on the matter of gay Christians. “I am a life-long conservative Presbyterian,” he said. “I never got very excited

Same-sex marriage continues to be held up on the hitch of the rights of churches and institutions who want the freedom to refrain from performing such ceremonies. We talked with a local minister and got his take on the issue of protecting churches from facing descrimination lawsuits. Reverand J. Barrett Lee, of the First Presbyterian Church in Boonville says he'd be willing to perform same sex marriages.

A former pastor in Chester held a demonstration outside the Presbytery of Philadelphia office Monday afternoon, alleging the Presbytery discriminated against him on racial bounds. Standing beside an empty coffin and a sign reading “Bury Discrimination,” the Rev. Richard Dalton met with reporters and spoke briefly to two curious drivers who passed along the quiet, Germantown road. A former interim pastor at Thomas M. Thomas Presbyterian Church from 2007 to 2009, Dalton has filed a retribution claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging the Presbytery of Philadelphia blocked his hire at a North Philadelphia church because he previously...

Gay Presbyterians throughout the suburbs now have the opportunity to rise from the pews and into the ranks of the ordained. After decades of debate, Blackhawk Presbytery — which oversees many of the congregations in the Fox Valley and northwestern Illinois — recently became one of 21 presbyteries so far to reverse course on gay ordination. But even with a movement toward acceptance of homosexuality in popular culture, the Rev. John Rickard of Blackhawk Presbytery said he was surprised, but not necessarily dismayed, by the outcome of the vote among his congregations. “Do I think it's going to destroy our...

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has expressed concern at the Church of Scotland's handling of the issue of homosexual clergy. Last month the Scottish Church voted to allow its ministers who were ordained before May 20, 2009 and who are now openly gay to be appointed by congregations. The Church has also created a commission to consider the justification of the future ordination of gay ministers. This report is not due for two years, but earlier this year the Irish Presbyterian Church wrote to the Scottish Church outlining its views on the sanctity of traditional marriage and its objection to...

Now that pro-gay liberals in the Presbyterian Church (USA) have succeeded in their 30-year efforts to allow the ordination of gays, a small but influential group of conservative churches have decided to give up the fight to change the Book of Order back to the way it was since 1997 when the original ban was approved. Rev. Janet Edwards, a Presbyterian minister in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, also serves as Co-Moderator for More Light Presbyterians, which has been pushing for “full inclusion” of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in PC(USA) for years. In her Huffington Post article, she noted that: Our...