As the recent United Methodist Church’s decision to tighten its ban on allowing LGBTQ clergy and performing same-sex marriage demonstrates, being LGBTQ and Christian can difficult and unwelcoming. But there is hope, and there are affirming faith communities who embrace Christians of all kinds.
As it meets for the 243rd time March 11-12 in Richmond, Va., Synod of the Mid-Atlantic acknowledges it’s meting “at a precarious time,” according to Warren J. Lesane, Jr., the synod’s Executive and Stated Clerk.
Two years ago, the current and former Stated Clerks of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) journeyed to Utqiagvik (Barrow, Alaska) — the nation’s northernmost city — to apologize to Native Americans, Alaska natives and native Hawaiians for damage inflicted by the church in previous decades.
Leaders from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Racial & Intercultural Justice ministry and Office of Public Witness participated in a Monday morning announcement by The Poor People’s Campaign that it will be embarking on a National Emergency Poverty and Truth Bus Tour in the coming months.
We’ve become accustomed to the same cycle every time a shooting makes national headlines: the shock and horror, the offers of thoughts and prayers, the demands for legislative action, and the media uproar. As Christians, how do we meaningfully engage those with whom we disagree in the debate on gun violence?
Columbia Theological Seminary President Leanne Van Dyk and Assistant Professor of New Testament Raj Nadella were still a few hours away from the end of the Migration and Border Crossings Conference, but it was not too soon to start thinking ahead.
Now that they’re both about three years into their work leading, respectively, the Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C., and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations in New York City, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins and Ryan Smith say they’ve found ways to work around a White House that often doesn’t welcome their input.
The Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations has a delegation participating in the U.N. Commission on Social Development, which runs through Feb. 21.
Across the United States, one of the major struggles for people with criminal convictions is finding work. For many employers, having a criminal record ends the conversation with a prospective employee.
