The Rev. Dr. Luke Powery, Dean at the Chapel at Duke University and an associate professor at the Duke Divinity School, used the account of the Valley of Dry Bones found in Ezekiel 37:1-14 last week to remind preachers that sermons about resurrection must first encounter death in a real way.
In the first paragraph of his new book “What Kind of Christianity: A History of Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in the Presbyterian Church,” Dr. William Yoo includes this question first raised by the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon: “Where was the Church and the Christian believers when Black women and Black men, Black boys and Black girls, were being raped, sexually abused, lynched, assassinated, castrated and physically oppressed? What kind of Christianity allowed white Christians to deny basic human rights and simple dignity to Blacks, these same rights which have been given to others without question?”
The Presbyterian Mission Agency Board spent the first day of its three-day meeting Wednesday on orientation, worship and a tour of the beautiful and peaceful grounds of Stony Point Center in the Hudson River Valley.
On Wednesday, the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Wagner offered up the Rx that pastors preaching and leading congregations might well need the most during this time of trauma: practical advice from someone who’s been there, and who’s clearly researched and thought deeply about what trauma can do to individuals and faith communities.
Presbyterians who agree to serve God and their congregations as ruling elders or deacons sometimes find they had little idea what they’ve gotten themselves into.
One week after Westminster John Knox Press published her first book, Dr. Sarah Bereza elected to start her online book tour Wednesday as the guest of the Presbyterian Foundation’s the Rev. Dr. Lee Hinson-Hasty, host of the twice-monthly online conversation Leading Theologically. Watch their engaging half-hour talk by clicking here or here.
The Rev. Dr. John Burgess has never lived in Ukraine. But over the years he and his family have enjoyed three extended stays in Russia, the final time in Belgorod, a small town near Russia’s border with Ukraine.
