18 July 2007

[ 1 ] French Camp Transfers to ARP Synod
[ 2 ] Kishwaukee Departs PC(USA) for Evangelical Presbyterians
[ 3 ] Glasite Meeting House Seeking New Congregation
[ 4 ] Adolph Eichmann’s Demonic Spirit Lives On
[ 5 ] Carolina Church Obtains Restraining Order
[ 6 ] Malawi Declares Fiday a Holiday for Muslims
[ 7 ] Homosexuality Dominates DRC[SA] Synod
[ 8 ] Daniel Don-un Lee
[ 9 ] Tennessee Gets More Light in Nashville


[ 1 ] French Camp Transfers to ARP Synod

Mississippi Valley Presbytery officially welcomed French Camp Presbyterian Church into the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church at a service on 8 July. The Mississippi church which was formerly in the Presbyterian Church (USA) is closely identified with French Camp Academy. About 450 persons were present for the service at the historic church.

FCPC was established on 4 August 1849 as the Olney Presbyterian Church, at a location about three miles north of the present community. Rev. Sam Patterson, president of French Camp Academy from 1950 – 1967, was a founding father of Reformed Theological Seminary. Through Patterson’s leadership, the congregation served as an early sponsor of the Bible Institute which became RTS.

+ French Camp Presbyterian Church, 323 School Street, French Camp, Mississippi 39745 (662) 547-6670 For more information see French Camp


[ 2 ] Kishwaukee Departs PC(USA) for Evangelical Presbyterians

The Kishwaukee Community Presbyterian Church of Stillman Valley voted 24 June to withdraw from Blackhawk Presbytery and enter the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The 163-year-old congregation will take 400 members with it into the more conservative body. On John Calvin’s birthday, 10 July, the presbytery received the request and authorized a team to work out the details.

+ Kishwaukee Community Presbyterian Church, 8195 Kishwaukee Rd., (815)965-1940 For more information see Kishwaukee Community

+ Blackhawk Presbytery. PO Box 157, Oregon IL 61061 (815) 732-3258


[ 3] Glasite Meeting House Seeking New Congregation

Scotland’s Glasite movement contributed to Alexander Campbell’s development of the Restoration Movement in America, spawning a spectrum ranging from the United Church of Christ through the Churches of Christ (Non Instrumental) to the Latter Day Saints. John Glass departed the Church of Scotland to establish his own ministry in Dundee in 1725.

The Edinburgh meeting house is one of the most impressive of some 30 erected across Scotland. According to reports in The Scotsman, the chapel, designed by renowned Edinburgh architect Alexander Black, was the city base for the Glasite sect and remained in use for around 150 years until the late 1980s. At that time the local body declined to the point it could no longer maintain the building and it was conveyed to an historical trust.

“With a spectacular glazed dome in the roof, the room remains almost exactly as it would have looked in Victorian times - with original wooden box pews, blind arched walls and a large pulpit, designed by David Bryce in 1873,” noted Jane Bradley of The Scotsman.

More recently the building has been occupied by the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing). When a six-month repair process became necessary, the congregation moved to more satisfactory facilities and consequently the building is seeking an appropriate new occupant.

Glasite congregations opposed the established church and never developed a ministry in the full Presbyterian style. Glas died in 1773 aged 78 and was buried in Dundee. Son-in-law Robert Sandeman developed the movement in England and America. While Glas dissented from the Westminster standard on the spiritual nature of the church and the function of the civil magistrate, Sandeman added a distinctive doctrine as to the nature of faith which is recorded stated on his tombstone: "That the bare death of Jesus Christ without a thought or deed on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners spotless before God."

+ Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland, Glasite Meeting House, 33 Barony Street, Edinburgh EH3 6NX For more information consult AHHS


[4 ] Adolph Eichmann’s Demonic Spirit Lives On

On the 18 July 2007 broadcast of Faith and Action Live, F&A President Rob Schenck reported on the recent prayer vigil by hundreds of young people in Wichita, Kansas at the facilities of abortionist Dr. George Tiller who is known as “Tiller the Killer” for his specialty of aborting late term babies.

Schenck described Tiller’s so-called women’s health clinic as “America’s Auschwitz,” describing how the clinic's crematory chimney emits black smoke into the surrounding air containing the ashes of aborted babies.

Schenck additionally described how Tiller is now skirting the recent US Supreme Court decision outlawing partial birth abortion by injecting fetal poisons like Digoxin into the late-term unborn child who is then delivered dead a few days after the poison has had time to kill the baby.

+ Faith and Action in the Nations Capital, 109 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002 For more information see www.faithandaction.org


[ 5 ] Carolina Church Obtains Restraining Order

A congregation in western North Carolina has been granted a temporary restraining order that prevents the presbytery or the Presbyterian Church (USA) from seizing control of the congregation's property and assets. The order, signed 2 July by Judicial District 29A Superior Court Judge James Baker, will remain in effect pending a hearing to determine if First Presbyterian Church in Marion ownes its property. The Presbytery of Western North Carolina and the PCUSA are also making claims.

Rev. Mr. Jim Wilken, pastor of the church, referred all questions to the congregation's attorney, Stephen Little. Barbara (Bobbi) White, general presbyter of the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, said, "We were shocked and saddened. Without any discussion or notice, we were served with the TRO and complaint and a couple inches of paper" supporting those legal documents.

"We did invite the pastor and session to come before the presbytery's committee on ministry or the presbytery council," she said, "just to help us understand their thinking behind this action and to try to bring reconciliation and to listen to their concerns. They refused to come on the advice of their legal counsel."

+ First Presbyterian Church, 79 Academy St., Marion, North Carolina 28752 (828) 652-5717


[6] Malawi Declares Friday a Holiday for Muslims

Malawi has become the first country in southern Africa to grant Muslims a holiday on Fridays, their day of worship. However, the move has been snubbed by the Muslim Association of Malawi, which has criticised President Bingu wa Mutharika for declaring the day a holiday without consulting Muslims.

"As Muslims, we don't need a full holiday on Fridays," the association's secretary general, Imran Shareef, told the local media after Mutharika's declaration. "We only need two hours for our prayers, and then we can revert to our toil. We would have liked it if the president declared the traditional Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Quarban and the day for the birth of Muhammad as holidays."

Speaking at celebrations marking the country's independence on 6 July, Mutharika declared Friday afternoons a holiday for all Muslims working in the civil service, in order to allow them to attend prayers held at mosques. But Muslims have said the president's gesture has raised more questions than answers, and that these could have been cleared up if the president had consulted the Muslim community. An estimated 12.8 percent of Malawi’s 13.6 million people are Muslim.

+ Ecumenical News International, PO Box 2100, CH - 1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland

[ 7 ] Homosexuality Dominates DRC[SA] Synod

The General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church (South Africa) faced major issues in church unification, land reform, baptism (and re-baptism), crime and violence, pastoral education. However, the issue that received the most attention in their four-day meeting, 4-7 June, was the report about homosexual members and ministers.

In 2004, the last full General Synod created a high-level task force asking it to reevaluate the church’s policy on homosexual members. That synod also apologized to its gay members and their families who were wounded by the church’s judgments and exclusion. Still, this task force did not come with a clear resolution, but a sharply divided report.

Besides the report, this synod also had a case to deal with. One of its ministers, Laurie Gaum, appealed his suspension to synod. The church had removed Gaum from office on grounds of homosexual conduct. In addition, 500 individuals, most of them members, circulated an open letter, urging synod to receive its gay members as full members. There were five publications in different media, some from committee members themselves, and three of these were given to all synod delegates.

In an executive session, the synod also restored the ministerial credentials of Laurie Gaum, mainly on procedural grounds. In the course of the various judgments and appeals, the charges had been altered. The synod further declared that since Gaum had been cleared of this charge, he could not be retried for the same incident. The synod’s decision also avoided what might have been a lengthy legal battle in civil courts, which Gaum was prepared to wage. Gaum now faces a decision whether to remain a minister, since he has so far declined to pledge celibacy in homosexual relationships.

+ REC Secretariat, 2050 Breton Rd, SE, Suite 102, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546. (616) 949-2910

[8] Daniel Don-un Lee

Rev. Mr. Daniel Dong-un Lee, a Presbyterian Church (USA) missionary to Japan for nine years, died 3 July. Rev. Lee with his wife, Young Sook Lee, served as Mission Co-worker of PC(USA) with the United Church of Christ in Japan for nine years. The first totally blind person to serve as a PC(USA) missionary, Lee lost his eyesight during the Korean War, where he served as an Army officer.

+ Presbyterian Church (USA) 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202
(888) 728-7228


[ 9 ] Tennessee Gets More Light in Nashville

The National Board of Directors of More Light Presbyterians announced that the Session of Woodland Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee has recently voted to affiliate, as a More Light Presbyterian Church.

Woodland Presbyterian Church joins its sister congregation across town, Second Presbyterian Church, Nashville, as the second More Light Presbyterian Church in Nashville. Woodland also has had a significant presence at both the Nashville Pride Festival and the Nashville CARES AIDS Walk in past years.

Woodland offers space for Community IMPACT!, a non-profit organization working with inner-city high school students and the Linden Corner School, a Waldorf educational program for young children. In July of 2003, Woodland began a five-year commitment to share its building with The Village Church, an Afro-centric Presbyterian congregation organized in 1998 at the Martha O'Bryan Center.

+ Woodland Presbyterian Church, 211 N 11th St., Nashville, Tennessee 37206
(615) 227-2025 - For more information see Woodland