Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith

The Pastor-Teacher’s Task

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Yesterday, I made a case for reclaiming teaching ministry in the PCUSA. Our focus is on current church members who need equipping, and on not-yet-disciples who need basic information about the faith. But what do people need to know? What sort of learning experience, from our vantage point, should we be providing? Members of the congregation may have some idea of what they want to learn, but their input is only one data point when deciding what to teach. There is a body of information from which to choose, passed on from generation to generation, and now in our hands. […]

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Reclaiming the Ministry of Teaching in the PCUSA

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The generation of Americans growing up in the 1950s and 1960s (and their parents) might remember the weekly television program of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen called Life Is Worth Living. The winsome bishop taught Catholic values and addressed moral issues of his day to an audience of ten million viewers at the peak of his popularity. During this era, the Reverend Billy Graham also had risen to prominence as an international evangelist. For fifty years, his message was conveyed through a weekly radio program called Hour of Decision and reinforced by televised crusades and newspaper columns. These teachers of the

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Who Taught These People?

8 Comments / Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Teaching / By /

One of the heartbreaks of the current climate and conversation in the PCUSA is the discovery that decision-makers cannot tell the difference between truth and error in doctrine. There have been many times at GA when observers have looked at each other incredulously and asked, “Who taught these people?” As an educator and equipper of those preparing to teach for Christian formation, I find it particularly alarming that inadequate, inaccurate, or just plan errant statements of theology and Bible are made during important deliberations. And what do we make of the GAPJC’s reticence to rule on the substance of biblical

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Did Jesus Die for the Sins of Humanity, Or Not?

32 Comments / Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Theological Reflection / By /

On Saturday, a teaching elder sought transfer into the Presbytery of Coastal Carolina. During his COM interview, he had declared that he did not believe that Jesus died for our sins. Upon questioning in presbytery, he revealed his belief that God could have (should have?) found some better way to save the world than by arranging the murder of his Son. He refused three times to answer the question, “Do you believe that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins?” Though I am sure this is not the first time a theologically questionable statement or silence has occurred in

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