Headlines:
[1] Board of Pensions Tops US$8 Billion
[2] Dignitas Humana Award Goes To Rick Ufford-Chase
[3] Belhar Confession Remains Obstacle to DRC Unification
[4] Library Retracts Decision and Allows Posting of Pro-Life Event Flyer
[5] Lewis Minister To Be Next Year's Moderator
[6] The Confessional Presbyterian
[7] Egypt Frees Christian Human Rights Activists
[8] Yi Headed to Louisiana
[1] Board of Pensions Tops US$8 Billion
With a 9.6 percent return through the first three-quarters of 2007, the investment portfolio of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Board of Pensions topped the US$8 billion mark for the first time. The gain for the year-to-date is US$738 million, vice-president for finance Mike Fallon told the board at its 27 Oct. 27 meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The board heard mostly positive news about the performance and reserve levels of most aspects of the health, death and disability, pension, and assistance plans. Cost increases were approved for only two programs that historically show unpredictable claims experience--a three percent hike for medical continuation (for participants who are no longer in active church service) coverage and a 9.2 percent increase for retired participants in the Affiliated Benefits Program (ABP) who are not yet eligible for Medicare. Both increases are effective 1 January 2008.
The Medical Continuation increase means participants enrolled in the plan prior to 1987 will pay US$8 more per month--from US$280 to US$288--and those enrolled after 1986 will pay US$490, an increase of US$14 per month.
+ Presbyterian Church (USA), 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202
[2] Dignitas Humana Award Goes To Rick Ufford-Chase
St. John’s School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota, has awarded its annual Dignitas Humana Award to Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the PC(USA), co-founder and former director of BorderLinks, and current executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.
The award is given each year to an individual who has made significant contributions to the advancement and promotion of human dignity in the United States and around the world. It will be presented to Ufford-Chase in a 17 October ceremony.
+ St. John's School of Theology--Seminary, Collegeville, Minnesota, 56321
[3] Belhar Confession Remains Obstacle to DRC Unification
A large majority of the delegates to three regional synods of the Dutch Reformed Church are in favor of unification with the other three denominations in the Dutch Reformed family in South Africa. However, the synods meeting in October also heard survey reports that fewer than half of the ministers in the DRC are prepared to accept the Belhar Confession as a condition of unity. Those percentages have fallen from 52 percent willing to accept it in 2004 to 48 percent in the 2006 survey.
There is wide regional variation. In the Capetown Synod, about 66 percent of the ministers are ready to accept the Belhar Confession, and 77 percent of the ministers want more visible unity among the four denominations in the family. On the other hand, the synods of the West Transvaal and the East Transvaal, in the center of South Africa, have frankly stated that they want to be under no obligation to accept the Belhar Confession as part of a new church order.
Nelus Niemandt, the Assessor for the DRC, suggested that views seemed to be hardening about the Belhar Confession. He said he did not think there was much objection to the content of the Belhar Confession, but rather to the political context in which it arose.
The Belhar Confession was first crafted by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church, one of the partners in the formation of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa in 1994. At the West Cape Synod, Allan Boesak addressed the delegates, telling them they were no longer guilty of heresy. Boesak, who was instrumental in getting the DRC suspended from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1982 and was Moderator of the Mission Church when it adopted the Belhar Confession, praised the West Cape Synod for its declarations on apartheid. It was his first appearance at any DRC synod since 1982.
+ Reformed Ecumenical Council, 2050 Breton Rd, SE, Suite 102, Grand Rapids, Mississippi 49546
[4] Library Retracts Decision and Allows Posting of Pro-Life Event Flyer
After Liberty Counsel intervened on behalf of a local resident, a library director agreed to allow a flyer announcing a pro-life event to be posted on the West Bend Community Memorial Library bulletin board, West Bend, Wisconsin.
Mary Weigand wanted to inform residents about an annual Life Chain event, so she took an informational flyer to her local public library. A library employee in charge of the display accepted the flyer and indicated that it would be posted with the other community announcements. Later that day Library Director Michael Tyre called Weigand to inform her that library bulletin boards were reserved for educational purposes and the library policy prohibited religious items like her flyer.
Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented, "When libraries or other government facilities create an open forum such as a community bulletin board, it is impermissible to discriminate against religious viewpoints."
+ Liberty Counsel, PO Box 540774, Orlando, FL 32954 (800) 671-1776
[5] Lewis Minister To Be Next Year's Moderator
It has just been announced that the Rev. Kenneth M Ferguson is the Moderator Designate for the 2008 General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. Mr Ferguson is the minister of Cross Free Church, Ness, Isle of Lewis.
Born at Back in the Isle of Lewis in 1946, Mr. Ferguson attended Back Junior Secondary School and Lews Castle College where he specialized in textiles. Having spent two years furthering his studies in Dewsbury Technical College Yorkshire, he returned to Lewis in 1965 and spent the next sixteen years employed as a Quality Controller in the Harris Tweed industry.
Mr. Ferguson experienced Christian conversion in 1970 during the ministry of the late Rev Murdo Macaulay at Back. After some years he felt called to preach the Gospel and took an Arts degree with the Open University, graduating in 1980 with B.A. in English and History. Ferguson did his theological training at the Free Church College and was awarded the Diploma in Theology in 1984.
The Moderator Designate’s entire ministry has been spent on the Isle of Lewis where he was ordained and inducted to the congregation of Lochs Free Church in September 1984. From September 2000 to the present time, his ministry has been centered upon Cross Free Church in Ness.
+ Free Church of Scotland, 15 North Bank Street, Edinburgh, Scotland <media@freechurch.org>
[6] The Confessional Presbyterian
Volume 3 (2007) of the new theological journal The Confessional Presbyterian is now available from the publisher. The CPJ is a journal that maintains high intellectual and theological standards in the hopes of communicating to all across Presbyterian and Reformed denominations from professors to parishioners.
The CPJ website
+ The Confessional Presbyterian, PO Box 141084, Dallas, TX 75214
[7] Egypt Frees Christian Human Rights Activists
Egyptian police this week released two Christian rights activists detained for three months. A host of journalists, lawyers, clergyman, family, and friends gathered at the Cairo home of Adel Fawzy Faltas last night to celebrate the acquittal and release on 5 November 5 of the Egyptian head of the Middle East Christian Association and an associate. Faltas, 61, and colleague Peter Ezzat, 25, had been held on unsubstantiated charges of insulting Islam and tarnishing Egypt’s reputation abroad. Faltas had conducted an online interview with a controversial convert from Islam to Christianity only days before his arrest on 8 August. Sporting a wide grin, shorts and tennis shoes as well-wishers pressed around him at his 8th floor flat, Faltas said, “I was always a free man. When you respect yourself and what you are doing, then you are free.”
+ Compass Direct News, PO Box 27250, Santa Ana CA 92799-7250
[8] Yi Headed to Louisiana
Arsenal Hill Church in Columbia, South Carolina, has concurred with the desire of the pastor, Seth Yi, to dissolve the pastoral relationship so that he can accept the call from the Calhoun Presbyterian Church in Calhoun, Louisiana. Yi served on Catawba Presbytery's Minister and His Work Committee.
+ Associate Reformed Presbyterian Center, 1 Cleveland St Ste 110, Greenville SC 29601-3646
