Vantage Summer 07

VA N TA G E

Summer 2007

C olumbia Th eolo gical

Seminary

Called by History to Proclaim God’s Presence Today

Through times of uncertainty, through world wars, civil unrest and global change, and to this day, Columbia Seminary has kept at its mission, and we are still at it.

D u r i n g m y s e v e n y e a r s a s p r e s i d e n t o f C o l u m b i a , I have come to love its story and to be inspired by the courage of faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who have proclaimed the reign of God in era after era of “wilderness.”

In 1828 in Lexington, Georgia, a Presbyterian pastor by the name of Thomas Goulding gathered five young men around his dining room table and began to prepare them to be pastors in a frontier wilderness where the future was deeply uncertain.

Two years later when Rev. Goulding was called to a church in Columbia, SC, his students followed him, and Presbyterians raised the money to support a seminary there. They knew they needed pastors to proclaim the reality of God’s presence and to call God’s people together into Christ’s ministry.

During those fragile early years, the Civil War left our country in shambles and our denomination fractured. Yet this seminary continued its mission. In 1928, with economic depression threatening to shut its doors, Presbyterians moved their seminary to Atlanta to continue to provide pastors and leaders for the needs of emerging communities.

Through times of uncertainty, through world wars, civil unrest and global change, and to this day, Columbia Seminary has kept at its mission, and we are still at it. Columbia Theological Seminary continues to prepare pastors and leaders for Christ’s ministry because, in today’s wilderness, we still face the unknown of a frontier.

Today, as always, we need pastors to proclaim the reign of Christ, to help us understand that the fullness of life comes in being part of what God is doing here, now, • to bring good news to the poor, • to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, • to set at liberty those who are oppressed, • to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

[Luke 4:18-19] History calls us to see that today’s wilderness is not the biggest challenge God has faced, and that this is not the first time the church has been in crisis. History calls us to come together in these frontier days to prepare pastors who lead us all to proclaim the reality of God’s presence and who call us all to offer our lives to that reality, knowing that we are privileged to be part of what God is doing, especially in times of deep uncertainty.

God is here—still, now, always. The Holy Spirit continues to lead us forward for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—life abundant and life eternal for all creation.

@ this point

Thanks be to God!

L a u r a M en d en h all President

The church is on the move . . .

Church without walls.

Church as going out, rather than coming in.

Church as blog.

New movements are shaking up “church business as usual” with new kinds of worship, mission, evangelism, community. Will this be the church of our children and grandchildren? What do our “brick and mortar” churches have in common with these unique communities?

Join Professors Steve Hayner, Martha Moore-Keish, and others for an introduction to these emerging movements—their practices, worship, community, mission and theology.

@

Back issues of the journal are available at www.atthispoint.net

A b o u t t h e c o ve r Benny Andrews (1930–2006) Preacher 1994 Oil and collage on canvas 48 x 28 inches Morris Museum of Art Augusta, Georgia Reproduced with permission of the museum. www.themorris.org See page 4 for information about a trip to the Morris Museum of Art.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

Three new faculty appointments The Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of three new members of the faculty.

They are the Rev. Dr. Paul Junggap Huh, assistant professor of worship and director of Korean American ministries; the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Bracken Long, assistant professor of worship and coordinator of worship resources for congregations; and the Rev. Dr. Jeffery L. Tribble, Sr., assistant professor of ministry. All three are ordained ministers: Huh and Long in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and Tribble in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E. Zion) Church. Huh begins teaching at Columbia in January 2008; Long and Tribble begin this summer.

Paul Huh is currently assistant professor in liturgy and homiletics at the United Graduate School of Theology, Yonsei University, in Seoul, Korea. He received the Bachelor of Arts in music from Wheaton College, and the Master of Music in church music from Biola University, in California. He also has a Master of Arts in cello performance from Brooklyn Conservatory of the City University of New York. He received the Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and the Doctor of Philosophy in liturgical studies from Drew University.

Huh has served Euro-American and Korean American churches in the United States, and for six years was the pastor of Bethany Presbyterian church, Bloomfield, NJ. During his time there, the congregation merged with a second-generation Korean American fellowship, forming one church. He is a member of Newark (NJ) Presbytery, for which he has served as moderator.

In addition to his teaching duties at Yonsei University, he preaches weekly for English worship services at two Korean churches in Seoul. Huh is the author of numerous articles and papers in English and in Korean, and he is the editor of the worship book Come, Let Us Worship: Korean-English Presbyterian Hymnal and Service Book (Geneva Press, 2001). He is in great demand in this country and internationally as a keynote speaker, preacher, and conference leader.

At Columbia, in addition to his teaching duties, Huh will serve as general advisor to Korean American and Korean students in the seminary’s six degree programs. He will also work with the Center for Lifelong Learning to develop programs for Korean American, Korean, and other Asian American churches.

Kim Long is currently associate for worship for the Presbyterian Church (USA) and serves as editor of Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching & the Arts. She has a Bachelor of Music in voice performance from College of Wooster, in Ohio, and a Master of Music, also in voice performance, from the University of Maryland.

She received the Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and the Doctor of Philosophy in liturgical studies from Drew University.

For eight years, Long served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Bordentown, NJ. While a doctoral student she was an adjunct member of the faculties of Columbia Theological Seminary and Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. The author of numerous publications and articles, she is in demand as a keynote speaker, presenter, and preacher at conferences throughout the United States.

In her new position, Long will continue to serve as editor of Call to Worship in collaboration with the Office of Theology and Worship of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Along with this and her teaching duties at Columbia, she will have additional responsibilities for developing and communicating resources especially for congregational worship.

Jeffery Tribble is currently on the faculty of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, where he is assistant professor of congregational leadership and director of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience. He is also associate pastor of Greater Walters A.M.E. Zion church, Chicago, IL. Tribble has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Howard University and studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a master’s degree in that field.

While employed as an engineer in the natural gas industry, he completed a ministry certificate program at Hartford (CT) Seminary. He then completed the Master of Divinity at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and the Doctor of Philosophy in religious and theological studies at Northwestern University, in cooperation with Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Following graduation from seminary, he served numerous A.M.E. Zion congregations in Chicago, as well as in Gary, IN. Tribble is the author of Transformative Pastoral Leadership in the Black Church in the Black Religion, Womanist Thought, and Social Justice Series (Palgrave-Macmillan Press, 2005), and he is the author of numerous congregational resources for the A.M.E. Zion Church. At colleges and seminaries throughout the country, he lectures and speaks frequently on the topics of congregational studies and leadership, ethnography, practical theology, evangelism, and urban church ministry.

W illi am P. B rown Awarded Henry Luce III Fellowship in Theology William P. Brown, professor of Old Testament, has been awarded a Henry Luce III Fellowship by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and The Henry Luce Foundation. He is one of seven scholars to receive the fellowship in theology for 2007-2008. Selected on the strength of his proposal to conduct creative and innovative theological research, Brown will spend a full year researching and preparing a manuscript on his proposed topic.

Brown’s topic is The Seven Ways of Creation: A Field Guide to the Ancient Cosmologies of Scripture for a Scientific Age. His objective is to engage the creation traditions of scripture with the natural sciences, with the intention of bringing new insight to their theological and ethical significance for contemporary culture. More broadly, this study will investigate how biblical theology and scientific understanding can be viewed as interrelated yet distinct areas of inquiry.

The 2007-2008 Luce Fellows are the fourteenth class of scholars to be appointed since the inception of the program in 1993, bringing the total number of recipients to 98.

The program is supported by a grant established in 1936 by the late Henry R. Luce, co-founder and editor-inchief of Time Inc. The Association of Theological Schools, located in Pittsburgh, PA, is an organization responsible for accrediting more than 250 graduate-level theological schools, among them Columbia Theological Seminary.

The 16th Century Confessions: A Comparison through the Lens of Christology Jill Tolbert ’07

t o C T S S t u d ents

VANTAGE Summer 2007

During the 16th century, Christians throughout Europe sought to codify their beliefs regarding a plethora of theological topics with the writing of several confessions. Three of these are a part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA): The Scots Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, and The Second Helvetic Confession. While these documents have similarities, their differences can be attributed to a variety of things, not the least of which is the context in which each confession was born. They were written in the 16th century amidst considerable political involvement and theological disagreement in the early years following Luther’s posting of the 95 theses in 1517. While I find it distressing that issues related to our faith have proven, over time, to be so divisive, I also find comfort in the fact that we have always wrestled with doctrine, with issues of faith, and with confessing our beliefs as a corporate body made up of distinct individuals who are, at best, forgiven sinners.

Read Jill Tolbert’s complete history paper in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

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A N ew L i fel o ng L ea r n i ng P r o g r am

Presbyterian and Reformed History & Theology columbia has just launched a program in Presbyterian and Reformed History and Theology —a seminary-wide venture led by the Center for Lifelong Learning and the John Bulow Campbell Library.

Columbia is developing its new program in cooperation with the Montreat Conference Center and the Friends of the Montreat Historical Society.

Shaping the vision for the new program in Presbyterian and Reformed history and theology is Erskine Clarke, professor of American religious history.

An alumnus and a member of the seminary faculty since 1973, Clarke is the author of the award-winning history Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic.

“There is no one better suited than Erskine to shape the vision for this new program,” says Cam Murchison, dean of the faculty and executive vice president.

“He has arranged a diverse, interesting series of events for 2007.”

Along with the new program, Columbia has begun its stewardship and development of the Montreat Collections, which includes archival, library, and museum materials from the Presbyterian Historical Society’s Montreat, NC, branch.

2007 E vents Pr es byte ri an and Ref or med Hi story an d T he o l og y Septem b er 2 7 Art as a Window into Southern Religious Culture At the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA. Lecture by Erskine Clarke, professor of American religious history. The event also includes a guided tour and lecture by a museum curator. This outstanding museum on the Riverwalk is dedicated to the art and artists of the American South. Admission to the museum and lunch are included. $50 for Atlanta-area participants (includes round-trip coach bus; seating limited to 50 participants). $25 for Augusta-area participants. Bus departs from the seminary campus at 9:00 a.m. and returns early evening. Museum experience begins with lunch at noon. Advance registration is required by September 14.

Octo be r 3 Norman Shanks Lecture Lunch and a lecture by Norman Shanks, pastor in the Church of Scotland and former leader of the Iona Community.

12:30 p.m. Register by September 26. $15 (includes lunch).

Novemb e r 1 2 Eberhard Busch Lecture Lunch and a lecture by Eberhard Busch, a professor from the University of Göttingen and an expert on the theology of Karl Barth and the Reformation. 12:30 p.m. Register by November 5. $15 (includes lunch).

Novem be r 1 1 and 1 8 Religion and Slavery: White Southerners, Good Intentions, and Difficult Choices Sunday Soup and Seminar with Professor Erskine Clarke, author of the award-winning book Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic.

A two-session study of three young white Southerners, each belonging to an affluent, slave owning family in the 1830s. All three committed themselves to Christian faith and discipleship. All three understood slavery as an oppressive system and a fundamental part of their inheritance. Seeking to live a life of Christian discipleship, each followed a different path. What complex factors influenced their decisions? What complex factors influence our decisions as we seek to live Christian lives in our own contemporary and divisive U.S. culture and church? Register by November 2. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. $75 (includes 2 soup suppers).

Events are on campus unless noted otherwise. For more information or to register online or to download a registration form, go to www.ctsnet.edu > Lifelong Learning > Courses and Events. Then click on the dates of the courses and events you wish to attend. You may also call the registrar, Pat Roper, at 404-687-4587, for more information or to register by phone.

Note: The first event for Columbia’s new program in history and theology was Religion and the South, July 23-27 at Montreat College. Slated speakers for free lectures, one each day, included Pulitzer Prize winner Dan Carter, seminary professors Erskine Clarke and Marcia Riggs, plus Sam Hill and Mary McClintock Fulkerson. This event was sponsored in cooperation with the Montreat Conference Center and Montreat College. Planning is underway for next year’s event: Religion and Appalachia.

Virginia Tech From: Bill Harkins Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 To: Seminary Community Subject: The victims of Virginia Tech As the narrative of Mr. Cho Seung-Hui begins to emerge, one understands that this young man was likely suffering from depression. Mental illnesses such as depression transcend ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, and other categories. Depressive disorders affect approximately 19 million American adults, or roughly 10 percent of the American population, and these statistics are limited to diagnosed and reported cases. Moreover, this case represents the limitations each of us face when a student, loved one, or friend suffering from mental illness elects not to seek help, even when it is strongly recommended....Forced treatment, especially in-patient, and the related “duty to warn” are delicate and complex matters, and ultimately we cannot force anyone to get help if they are unwilling to do so.

Each of us in our respective ministries will be faced with issues of depression and other mental illnesses, and the decisions emerging from our professional, pastoral relationships with those who suffer from it. While we do not have ultimate control over events such as unfolded in Blacksburg, we do have the ability to enter into relationship with those whom we serve, and it is in the context of relationship that we can pay attention, and address issues of isolation, anger, loneliness, and troubled behavior. Pastors are often on the “front lines” of mental health care in this country, and our relationships with those who suffer from mental illness can make a difference....

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“ Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and savage entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds . . . We need now the consolation only [God] can give.”

From a prayer by S u s a n W. V e r b r u g g e ’01, associate pastor, Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, during a service there on the evening of the shootings at Virginia Tech. Quoted on MSNBC.com.

I hope that [attacks that have occurred at other schools] and the one in Blacksburg increase our awareness of the profound effect depression and other mental illnesses have on our society. I hope that each of us, in our own way, will seek to engage in acts of healing, sustaining, reconciling, and compassion in response to the suffering and concomitant stigma of mental illness.

We are called by Christ to resist at every turn the temptation to relegate anyone to the status of “other.” This is true regardless of any of the countless ways we are tempted to alienate one another. Mental illness is often a difficult and complex challenge, and often one more opportunity to exclude our brothers and sisters from the table. I pray that each of us, as we are able, will work to reduce the isolation and stigma of mental illness, regardless of the cultural context in which it occurs.

Easter blessings, Bill Harkins Bill Harkins is assistant professor of pastoral theology and counseling.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

T h e C h u rc h ’ s P r ac t i c e

of

M e m o ry

by W a lt e r B r u e g g e m a n n The

c h u rc h , i n a s o c i e t y o f a m n e s i a , h a s a

to be a community of active, alert remembering. It can learn much about critical, faithful remembering from the practice of ancient Israel in the Old Testament: deep responsibility

1. It is crucial to remember the long inventory of miracles, God’s inscrutable gifts in which our common life and the life of the world are grounded.

The Old Testament has a rich vocabulary for miracle, a usage that attests that we are essentially receivers of God’s goodness: On the glorious splendor of our majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness.

They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. (Ps 145:5-7) As is evident in the long Psalm 105, the miracles are regularly reiterated in order to remain rooted beyond autonomy wherein the miracles are forgotten or explained away. It is easy enough to be willfully autonomous and reduce faith to a passionate, uncritical ideology.

2. It is crucial to remember the long inventory of sin, failure, and idolatry that has abiding power, and that invites and requires long-term and sustained repentance. The long Psalm 106, closely matched to the doxology of Psalm 105, is an extended specific reiteration of a history of recalcitrance and refusal to trust God’s goodness. The ground of such resistance is “that they do not remember the abundance of your steadfast love” (Ps 106:7). The two Psalms together provide the core categories for remembering God’s graciousness and our refusal. Both belong to a community identified with the rule of God who is genuinely gracious and demandingly expectant.

3. It is crucial to remember in order to obey rightly. The memory of miracles and defaults creates an environment in which the community may think seriously about its identity and its practice in a present tense context. When the church fails to remember, it readily sinks down into an impatient moralism or it floats off into a fuzzy self-indulgence. Psalm 78, yet another catalog of remembering in ancient Israel, provides instruction in the socialization of the young into the core memory of the community: … he commanded our ancestors to teach to their children; that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and rise up and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God. (Ps 78:5-8) The immediate connection between remembering and obeying is terse and complete. The words of the Psalm suggest that deep, sustained obedience (in what might be termed “character ethics”) does not derive from commandments, but from the identity-giving lore in which the reality of God is embedded in a narrative that evokes response.

4. Remembering is the only basis of hope; without thick memory there is sure to be despair. Deep in the crisis of the exile, ancient Israel was lost and without hope in the world (Lam 3:18). But just three verses later, the same poet can say: But this I remember, and therefore I have hope. (Lam 3:21) What is remembered in this instant is the substance of the three great theological terms of “steadfast love, mercy, and faithfulness.” Israel’s memory concerns the God who is an agent of abiding fidelity in its life. Such remembering permits Israel to expect more fidelity from God in time to come, because the same God known in the palpable memory of fidelity inhabits the future.

5. It is possible to remember the wrong way, to dwell on old hurts and ancient angers, so that the community is devoured by resentments and grievances that it cannot relinquish. The star example of this wrong remembering in the Old Testament is Israel’s abiding hostility toward the Amalekites…long after there were no more Amalekites. In Exodus 17:14-16, Moses commands a remembering that will last to perpetuity with a vow to “blot out.” And in Deuteronomy 25:17-19, the final admonition of Moses concerning the Amalekites is, “Do not forget.”

It takes little imagination to extrapolate from that cherished, coveted resentment to many contemporary memories of defeat and humiliation that continue to feed aggressive policy and destructive social practice. In such bad remembering, the vicious cycle is never broken, and old wounds continue to recruit the young to continue the hostility.

6. Forgetting is essential to receiving newness. In the exile, Isaiah 43:18-19 famously urges the displaced community not to remember “former things” in order that they can discern and receive God’s new miracles in the present tense.

It is possible to be so fixated on what was once God’s gift that we fail to notice or acknowledge God’s new gifts and God’s new challenges to us.

The texts I have cited, of course, all focus on ancient Israel. All of these tricky facets of remembering (and forgetting), however, are always in play whenever the church meets at the table and we “do this in remembrance.” In that treasured quintessential moment of remembering, we recall ancient miracles, we recall lingering defaults, we remember toward contemporary obedience, we remember “until he come,” and we engage in the unending work of remembering what must be remembered and forgetting what must be forgotten.

The stuff of text, tradition, and history is urgent in the church, for without such critical perspective we tend to absolutize things as they are, or as we imagine them to be. The church in U.S. society is a close replica to the crisis anticipated

by Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses could see that comfortable, selfindulgent affluence would surely evoke amnesia: You eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes…When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.... (Deut 8:10-14) When the faithful suffer from amnesia, they become vulnerable to every wind of doctrine, every easy pet project, every “convenient truth,” and every self-serving ideology. Memory provides critical ballast through which we affirm that • We are not our own; • We have nothing except what we have been given (1 Cor 4:7).

VANTAGE Summer 2007

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W here B onhoeffer F ound H ope W a lt e r B . T e n n y s o n ’93 Contentious

t i m e s m ay w e l l

be the leading cause of d e s pa i r i n t h e c h u rc h .

At a moment when Christians might step forward into the world’s violence and ecological crisis with reconciliation and vision, we, in fact, embody the very evils of sectarianism and toxicity we deplore in the world. Yet in the midst of the rocky ground of denominational politics, the parching demands of time and money and the choking weeds of post-denominational culture, God the sower faithfully spreads seeds of good news.

The memory of one such occasion in my congregation, Broadway Presbyterian in Manhattan, is a story that not only gives me inspiration to preach (though I often don’t feel up to it) but might inspire weary Christians to persevere on important issues (though we often don’t seem to be very effective). On a Sunday in June of 1939, not long before he would return from New York to Germany following Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Dietrich Bonhoeffer—who had earlier that day listened to the renowned Harry Emerson Fosdick preach at Riverside Church—attended the evening service at Broadway.

Journaling Accessing Our History for Hope Now

Bonhoeffer’s day had begun in despair. Even the towering Gothic cathedral built with Rockefeller money and the elegant words of one of America’s greatest homileticians had left him flat. His diary records: “Service in Riverside Church. Quite unbearable. The whole thing was a respectable, self-indulgent, selfsatisfied religious celebration. Such sermons make for libertinism, egotism, and indifference.” The biographer Eberhard Bethge saw in such comments the basis for Bonhoeffer’s later suggestion of a “religionless” Christianity.

But the despair of the morning was not the last word recorded that day. We don’t know what faith or memory inspired him to go to church at Broadway Presbyterian that night, but his words provide a rare insight into the piety that inspires modern saints to be bold and courageous: “Now the day has had a good ending, I went to church again. The sermon was astonishing on “our likeness with Christ”. . . A completely biblical sermon—the sections on “we are blameless like Christ,” “we are tempted like Christ” were particularly good . . .

I was glad about this sermon.”

Cognitive dissonance arises when we consider the theological labels attached to the two preachers and

Why

write

Read Tom Roddy’s complete article in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

hope in the faithfulness of the sower and the unexpected patches of fertile soil into which the seed falls.

We despair about the survival of the church in a post-Christian world that no longer seems to supply enough foot soldiers for the established denominations and their offshoots both to wage continuous war. We long to know that Jeremiah’s promise “to give you a future with hope” applies to our ministries and institutions.

Bonhoeffer, though, warned of confusing peacefulness in the church with the prospering of the gospel: “precisely here [in America], where the struggle for the right creed is not the factor which governs everything, the unity of the church is more distant than where creed alone unites and divides the church.”

Ernesto Cardenal has said that “the world is not like a picture painted by an artist centuries ago which now hangs untouchable in a museum. It is more like a work of art in constant process of creation, still in a studio.”

Remembering how one of the great public theologians of our time drew from the materials at hand to paint an alternative picture of how Europe and the world should look might offer inspiration to those of us standing before our own canvas, dabbing at our palette for a dash of hope.

Hearing Voices: Listening for Virtues in Letters of Susanna Wesley and the History of Early Methodist Women

i s i t s o d i f f i c u lt t o

about our history and the history of the people of God whose history we have shared? Do we think someone else will do it . . . that we T o m R o dd y ’61 (D. M i n .’84) don’t have time . . . that we’re not qualified? Do we think our story is dull and uninteresting? Or is the past too painful? Are we afraid if we recall too much of the past we will be trapped in it?

Or are we afraid of offending people by naming names? All of the above? I have picked up the pen so many times and stopped—not for lack of information.

Several years ago my wife and I attended a journaling workshop developed by the Jungian psychiatrist Ira Progoff. He held that our memories are like a giant iceberg with much of it below the surface. Some of that information is too painful to readily recall.

[We learned that] through structured journaling, such as the Progoff journal, one begins to build a personal history that is not just dates and events— born, moved, studied, moved, studied, married, moved, died—but a story with color, smells, emotion, and images where God’s goodness and saving help are remembered. . . . Directed journal-keeping helps us get through the mine fields that are embedded in our stories so we can see the goodness of God and have images of God’s faithfulness to go with us in the present and carry us through the future. Stories, history, images are waiting to come up from the well. Dull black and white memories are waiting for color. Silent flicks are waiting for music, for a voice.

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churches that day. Riverside and Harry Emerson Fosdick embodied theological Liberalism. The church was founded after Fosdick was forced from New York City Presbytery over his refusal to affirm what one faction of pastors considered “essentials” of belief (sound familiar?). Broadway was the home of the “five fundamentals” developed by a previous pastor, Walter Buchanan, to ensure that candidates for ordination adhered to biblical standards.The preacher Bonhoeffer praised that night was John McComb, a friend of the fundamentalist J. Gresham Machen (of Greek School fame) until the two parted ways over Machen’s insistence that theological conservatives were duty-bound to leave the Presbyterian denomination.

Bonhoeffer’s inspiration tingles ears in our time because of its bracing reminder that inspiration and prophetic action are not as dependent as we often imagine on the alliances, coalitions, and ideologies to which we cling. The faith that led this Christian martyr to return to Europe and work actively against the Nazi regime found sustenance even in the contentious first decades of the “fundamentalistmodernist” controversies. As we grasp in our time for the kind of mettle needed to face the anxiety of terror, the reflexive reliance on military might and the erosion of a public ethos of care for the most vulnerable, we might find

t o C T S S t u d ents K i t t y C o o p e r H o lt z c l aw ( D . M i n . ’ 0 7 ) S u s a n n a W e s l e y was known as “The Mother of Methodism” because she intentionally nurtured her children in the ways of virtue that would equip them for the responsibilities of leading the Methodist movement.

As her children left home, her letters articulated reminders of how to live holy lives. Her discourses on virtue held them accountable to their moral instruction and served as reference tools of Christian living.

Her letters also reveal that when she found herself in a state of moral ambiguity, she sought guidance from those she trusted. Only in recent decades has the work of early Methodist women been proclaimed. We can learn from them because these leaders needed strong virtues to stand against the resistance within and outside the movement. Despite their struggles, they continued to demonstrate fortitude and courage as they lived and taught how to become more fully human —and more like Jesus. If we listen to these women, even now, they will lead us in the ways of Christ.

Read Kitty Cooper Holtzclaw’s complete D.Min. project in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

Shaped

by the

C ro s s

University Presbyterian Church San Antonio, Texas E l i z a b e t h M c G r e g o r S i m m o n s ’79

“ C h r i s t i a n c o m m u n i t i e s c a n n o l o n g e r a s s u m e that congregants know their story; it must be imaginatively told, retold, and enacted, so that tradition becomes a living thing.” (Diana Butler Bass, The Practicing Congregation: Imagining A New Old Church) When new members at University Presbyterian Church are introduced during worship, they are presented with loaves of bread which have been joyfully home-baked by members of the congregation and a charge: that as they savor the bread, bread which represents Christ’s body, at their dinner tables at home, they might ponder and anticipate how their participation in this local and particular expression of Christ’s body might change University Presbyterian Church and thereby intentionally strengthen our ministry to the world and practice of faith.

When UPC members depart, we bid them farewell by presenting them with a cross which has been joyfully hand-carved by a woodworking member of the congregation, telling the story of the cross, and commissioning them for future ministry.

The story goes this way: One Sunday morning in 1950, a group of people gathered to worship. Trinity University was moving to a new site in San Antonio, Texas, and it had been determined that there needed to be a “northern” Presbyterian presence associated with this “northern” Presbyterian institution of higher learning. Northrup Hall, the first building on the campus, was nearing completion and had been designated as the location for the first worship service of University Presbyterian Church.

When the pastor and worshippers arrived that morning, they were met by the construction superintendent who said, “Northrup Hall isn’t yet ready. You can’t come in the building this morning!” What was this brand-new church, eagerly anticipating its first worship service, to do?

Their response: They set up chairs outdoors. Two students scavenged the construction site, located two pieces of scrap lumber, nailed them together, propped them up against the side of the building, and on that Sunday and every Sunday since, the jagged-edge, scrap lumber cross, was and has been the focal point of worship at University Presbyterian and served to significantly shape our ministry.

There would come a time, when the congregation was making plans to design and erect its sanctuary, that a benefactor would offer the Session a significant sum of money to construct an imposing edifice and place within it an elegant cross. The Session voted to decline the gift, saying, “This cross, placed within a simple and plain sanctuary, is who we are.”

And so it is.

After I have told the story of the cross and presented the hand-carved replica to our departing members, it is my privilege as the pastor of this amazing community of God’s people to say: “This cross isn’t beautiful in the way that the crosses that you see in some church buildings are, but it is beautiful to us. Its beauty resides in the way that the jagged edges of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection intersect with the jagged, hurting edges of our world. It is where we, the church in this place, and where you, as you leave on your journey of discipleship to another place of ministry, are called to be.”

N i g h t T r a i n to G e o rg i a and Points South P a u l S. M i x o n ( D .M i n .’ 6 1 ) O n e o f m y f av o r i t e s o n g s from the ’70s is the Gladys Knight and The Pips rendition of “Midnight Train to Georgia.” That song takes me back to my boyhood in Osyka, Mississippi, where in the wee hours of many nights I would be awakened by the lonesome whistle of a freight train rambling up the tracks of the Illinois Central Railroad from New Orleans to Chicago. We lived two blocks from the track, 100 miles north of New Orleans.

Let me tell you about the ride I had on an Amtrak train on the sad night of September 12, 2001. I was traveling from Richmond, Virginia, to Jacksonville, Florida.

My story begins on Sunday, September 9, at the Cranbury (New Jersey) Presbyterian Church. My wife, Minora, and I attended the installation service of our daughter, Paulette, as associate pastor. At the reception, we visited with our nephew, Greg Young, who lives nearby and works on Wall Street in New York City, only a few blocks from the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

On Monday, September 10, Minora flew back home, and I boarded a train in Philadelphia for a ride to Richmond—then a drive in a rental car—to visit Greg’s parents, my sister Madge and brother-in-law Richard Young in Harrisonburg.

Early Tuesday morning, September 11, Madge and Richard’s daughter, Sally, called from Louisville to tell them, “Turn on the TV!” The south tower of the trade center was hit at 9:03, the Pentagon at 9:43, and the north tower of the trade center at 10:03. A few minutes after that, flight 93, out of Newark crashed near Pittsburgh. Madge, Dick, and I sat there watching and praying. Greg, in the meantime, had left his office on Wall Street, walking and running with thousands of others, to Penn Station. His wife, Annette, called to report that Greg had called her and was on his way home.

My thoughts began to turn to my family and how I would get home. Eventually, without the option of flying back or taking a bus, I got a seat on an Amtrak train departing on September 12. I arrived early at the station in time to watch the evening news. It was terrible! I watched the scenes of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and that Pennsylvania field, along with the horrific scenes of suffering. One person being interviewed asked, “Where was God when all this happened?” This question would haunt me for about the first eight hours of my ride on that train....

As we neared Savannah, I began to think of Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to preach good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted.”

I said to myself, “That’s where God was when the Towers fell! He was working alongside the heroic medics, firemen, and police, binding up broken hearts as they bound up broken bodies. He was with the sad rabbis, priests, and pastors later in the day as they delivered messages of death to the survivors....God was not sitting by idle in Heaven, indifferent to America’s suffering....God is still healing the brokenhearted!”

To make you and me grow spiritually and to help make the world a better place, God gives to each of us both the duty and the privilege to ride with Him, assisting Him as He binds up the brokenhearted.

Paul Mixon is retired after 45 years in ministry. For seven years, he served as an active-duty Air Force chaplain, and for 20 years as an Air Force Reserve chaplain.

Read his complete article in Vantage Online. Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

Weekend Immersion Experience September 13–16, 2007

Come explore the origins of the Christian spiritual tradition in this first course in the certificate program. Occasional students are most welcome!

More information on p. 19.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

7

The first truckload of “history” arrives from Montreat. The Montreat Collections now occupy most of the third floor of the seminary’s John Bulow Campbell Library.To make room for the materials, shelf space was doubled by the construction of compact, movable shelving, and books in the general stacks completely reorganized. Archives, papers, artifacts, and rare books are protected in areas with temperature and humidity controls.

The top priority of Columbia’s library staff and faculty is making the materials available for the church, the seminary, and other researchers. A second archivist will soon join the library staff to facilitate processing.

Y o u , H i s t o ry , a n d t h e M o n t r e at C o l l e c t i o n s T h r o u g h p a rt n e r s h i p s with the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), church sessions, presbyteries and synods, Columbia has received archival, library, and museum materials from the Presbyterian Historical Society’s Montreat, NC, branch.

The extraordinary collections include materials of U.S. Presbyterian history and the worldwide Reformed tradition, consisting of personal papers, local church histories, church records, library volumes, and artifacts.

Already nearly 400 congregations have elected to have their church records transferred from Montreat to Columbia because of the seminary’s commitment to continued management of the materials with professional staffing and because of the easily accessible regional location. In entrusting congregational records to Columbia, these churches are ensuring that a large portion of the Montreat Collections remain intact for research, teaching, and preservation.

You and your congregation are invited to become a part of building and supporting this remarkable resource for the church.

Transferring documents and materials from Montreat Your Session must authorize the transfer in a letter sent by your stated clerk to Margery Sly, Deputy Director and Assistant Stated Clerk Department of History, Office of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church (USA) 425 Lombard St. Philadelphia, PA 19147-1516 Donating archival materials Your congregation’s stated clerk should obtain a Deposit Agreement for Records from Columbia Theological Seminary, authorizing the seminary’s receipt of records. Complete this document and send it to Columbia. For more information, please contact Linda Davis, archivist, at 404-687-4615, or davisl@ctsnet.edu.

R e s t o r i n g H i s t o ry f o r t h e P r e s b y t e ry o f Mississippi I n A p r i l 2 0 0 5 , when Patty McKinley of Gulfport, MS, became historian for the Presbytery of Mississippi, she received a big box of church histories and scrapbooks.

Then, in September, Hurricane Katrina dumped five feet of water into Patty’s home. She eventually retrieved the box from the residual sand and mud and set it out in the sun to dry. “But I didn’t have the time, heart, or patience to fool with it,” she told a visitor from South Carolina.

That visitor happened to be Debbie Annis, a member and the church historian of St. Giles Presbyterian Church, in Greenville, SC. She was with other members of the congregation who had come to help with cleanup efforts in the devastated area. In an orientation tour, they came by the McKinleys’ home with their guide, Sally-Lodge Teel ’78, who lives in Gulfport and is stated supply at Ruth Memorial Presbyterian church, Poplarville, MS. As the group surveyed the damage, Patty lamented that she would probably have to throw

away the presbytery’s historical documents, but Debbie offered to take the soggy, smelly, moldy materials back home to South Carolina for restoration.

“I dried things on our porch and hung them up in our house with clothes pins,” she says. Next Debbie photocopied materials that were intact and retyped legible portions of others that were beyond copying. Many photographs had, amazingly, rescued themselves.

Debbie explains: “They were stuck between wet pages, creating a mirror image of a photograph on the back of the page on top of it. I cut out the recognizable portions of the transfer images and included them in the reconstructed materials.”

After nearly a year, Debbie was able to assemble two binders of materials, which she shipped back to Patty McKinley, along with all the original materials sealed in plastic bags. “Only the old notebooks had to be thrown away,” she said.

Financial contributions The Montreat collection represents an extraordinary addition to our library holdings and provides unparalleled opportunities for immersing students in Reformed and Presbyterian history. Expected capital improvements to the library and staffing needs will require the seminary to raise $2 million to support the collection and the new program in Presbyterian and Reformed history and theology.

Information: Richard DuBose, vice president of institutional advancement, 404-687-4568, or duboser@ctsnet.edu.

8

VANTAGE Summer 2007

C h u rc h

of

A l l N at i o n s

Minneapolis, Minnesota J i n S . K i m (D. M i n .’05) T h r e e a n d a h a l f y e a r s a g o , a group of second-generation KoreanAmericans of a historically Korean immigrant church in Minneapolis was blessed by our “mother church” to launch a multicultural community called Church of All Nations. We were chartered with great fanfare – execs from presbytery, synod, General Assembly, front page of local newspaper, congratulations from politicians, and even featured in two PCUSA videos. No one knew if 100 mostly young Korean-Americans could actually become a Church of All Nations; many thought the name was a bit premature, if not presumptuous.

Today, our adult membership is over 160, but our attendance is consistently

Theological Seminary in New Brighton, one of the most liberal seminaries in the country. We also draw equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, and we address politics, racism, the economy, war and peace head on.

Our central mission is to do the ministry of reconciliation, and it is happening in all kinds of wonderful ways here. One little story: In January of 2006, we moved from our “mother church” to a declining white PCUSA congregation (Grace Church) who had plenty of space. We rented for a few months, but then Grace Church asked if they might merge with us. At the end of July they had a congregational dissolution, after being founded in 1884, and all of their members became members of Church of All Nations, handing us the keys and the title to the building. Incidentally, 1884 is the year that PCUSA missionaries first arrived on the shores of my home country, Korea. So we came full circle, historically speaking. Not one Grace member left after the merger —to the contrary, some long-time Grace members returned little by little after seeing vitality and hope in their beloved building.

These days, we break attendance and offering records on a regular basis. Far more importantly, people are filled with joy, hope, and genuine love for each other across all kinds of lines, crossing barriers erected by both church and society, history and culture. This is the most exciting church I have ever been a part of, and one thing I know for sure is that what is happening here is far beyond my leadership capacity. So I have no choice but to conclude that this is the work of the Holy Spirit (in fact, the church grew during my recent six-month sabbatical).

In May we launched our building renovation campaign on the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the current building. For decades now, Grace Church members have prayed that their sanctuary would be full again, and that the building would be restored to its original condition. Who knew that God would answer the prayers of this typical, small white church through a young, multicultural church? Who knew that a new church would own a beautiful, sizable building overlooking a gorgeous lake debt-free within three years of its existence?

We live in the time between the “already” and “not yet.” Our church also sees itself between Pentecost in Acts 2 and the coming kingdom in Revelation 7, when all nations, tribes, and tongues will glorify God together in one voice.

We feel called to be a church that embodies the major spiritual roots of the early church – to be simultaneously Rational, Sacramental and Pentecostal. We are also convinced that only intentional movement away from rigid denominationalism toward visible unity will lead the global church to recover its identity as one— holy, catholic, and apostolic. We are a high-risk, low-anxiety church where anything is possible, including the possibility of failure. The only poverty we fear is the poverty of imagination. We feel so blessed with God’s abundance and grace.

With humans, this is impossible. Thanks be to God who makes all things possible!

“ ...people are filled with joy, hope, and genuine love for each other across all kinds of lines, crossing barriers erected by both church and society, history and culture.”

Paul Hoang ’07 (third from right), served a year-long internship at Church of All Nations in 2005-2006.

over 200 (we have a stringent, rigorous membership requirement).

We are now 40 percent Asian, 36 percent white, 22 percent black, and 2 percent other, and we are one of a handful of congregations in the U.S. with no ethnic majority. Inside each of these categories are many cultural groups (Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong, Filipino, African American, Liberian, Kenyan, South African, Norwegian, German, Scottish, etc). But we actually have even more denominational diversity than ethnic diversity, and draw as many Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans as we do Pentecostals, Baptists, and Evangelical Free. Our highly visible commitment to ecumenical unity may be one reason why out of the 25 new members we recently incorporated, the majority had no Presbyterian background. We have people from very conservative Northwestern College in St. Paul (where Billy Graham once served as president), to United

A n t i d i s e s ta b l i s h m e n ta r i a n i s m

Church-State Issues in China today, viewed from a Western and U.S. perspective by W a lt e r J a c o b B a e r (D.Min. student) Originally applied to English churchstate relations in the seventeenth through the ninetieth centuries, the t o C T S S t u d ents term antidisestablishmentarianism came into widespread use in the 19th century to describe those opposed to the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland and later in Wales. This historic conflict in the English context lies behind much of the church-state understanding in the United States. An examination of these historic issues in the West will usefully inform an understanding of the Chinese situation and especially American perceptions of it. Placing the current “established” churches in China, namely the Protestant Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), in the context of historic “established” or state-related or state-controlled churches in the West, will help to dissipate some of the typically American antipathy to such an arrangement.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

In China, issues of church, culture, and state are complex —much more so than many Americans (with our First Amendment fixation) are willing to understand. Through many centuries and many permutations, the church has not merely survived but has thrived in the context of meddling state officials....

A key to the growth and prosperity of the church in China appears to be its indigenization and independence from outside control and interference. It is flourishing in the way it has developed since the departure of foreign control in 1949. The American messianic-imperialist agenda in this area is very much to be avoided, as are tendencies to impose our experience on them. It is my hope that Western Christians could be supportive of and non-prejudicial toward the Chinese church in whatever way it is led by the Holy Spirit in this current period of its existence.

Read Walter Baer’s complete history paper in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

9

Redefining Mission, Making History

Excerpts from “The Future of Christian Mission in an Era of World Christianity,” chapter in Chalice Introduction to Theology, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, ed. (St. Louis: Chalice Press, forthcoming).

by C a rlo s F. C ardoza-Orlandi , associate professor of world Christianity

By the turn of the 21st century, Christianity had entered a new era.

It is now, truly, a world religion with new, prevailing theologies and practices of mission that affirm the old: hospitality for the stranger, invitation to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, discovery of abundant life in the gospel, and passionate sharing of the good news of the Reign of God. Yet mission in an era of world Christianity requires those of us in the West to be alert to the challenges, promises, and opportunities of a new demographic shift with all its historical and theological implications.

In this new era of world Christianity, those of us who belong to more privileged Christian communities must shift to a new paradigm. “Our” mission emphasis has been on conversion of the un-churched, social justice activities, reconciliation, and partnerships. Now we must find a new way of being missionary: not only transmitting to, but also receiving from as we re-discover the gospel.

This 19th century Protestant Christian missionary map explicitly assigns grades of “religious truth” to various regions.

n

Protestant Christian

n D eficient Christian (Roman Catholic and Orthodox)

n M ohammedean (a pejorative term used in late 19th and 20th century Protestant missionary literature and geography)

n

Heathen Map engraved in London, 1843. Collection of Columbia Theological Seminary.

Current statistics suggest the Missionary Movement’s success, and today the new Christian population grows in those regions termed “deficient” a century ago.

n

Africa

n

Asia

n

Latin America

n

Europe

n

North America

World Christian Encyclopedia

10

Today, the ecclesial and missiological vitality of the Christian religion is in the Third World. In fact, projected growth for the year 2050 locates the majority of the Christian population in the Southern continents.

Different from the current patterns of decline in Europe, Christianity in the United States will be sustained, but will also be significantly changed.This will not occur because of new converts among the Euro-American population, but because of the immigrant communities and new immigrant converts among those immigrant congregations.

In the United States, the effect of Latino, Korean and Korean American, and African Christians will be profound.

© Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi. 2007. All rights reserved.

The vitality of the faith in the West is significantly located among the immigrant Christian communities.Through transnational networks and cross-cultural diffusion in Western contexts, these communities continue to be fueled by churches in the Southern continents.

This demographic shift might be imagined and interpreted as a “faxing” of Euro-American types of Christianity into the Southern continents. But this is much more than transmission of faith. Instead, it is a reception of faith in ever-changing contexts, where, for the first time, the Christian faith does not follow the trail of economic prosperity and political strength.

Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi

In an age of world Christianity, the agency of mission is not a one-way street, defined by our old assumptions of “missionaries” and “missionized,” or even of a two-way street, defined by the assumptions of partnerships. Mission has taken on a web configuration, its activity dislocated from congregations, denominations, para-church

n

Christianity established, but without increasing numbers

n

S ignificant growth and expansion in immigrant community

n

Moderate growth of Christianity in Islamic contexts

organizations and independent short-mission trips to be relocated in God’s activity in Jesus and through the Holy Spirit in the world. Hence, mission is not the activity of a congregation or church organization. Mission is the redeeming, liberating, and reconciling activity of God in the world.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

In an era of world Christianity, hospitality for the stranger is offered by another stranger; the invitation to embrace the gospel is offered in a mysterious encounter with God; there is no specific missionary or evangelist, but rather the Christian community is the witness—with singing and praising, and passionate sharing of the good news of the gospel offered by those whose lives are uncertain, fragile, socially insignificant.

We see emerging a refreshing language about God in daily life experience, which is translated by the people to the congregations’ common practices and celebrations of congregations.

Replacing the Euro-American male as the agent/theologian of Christianity, new co-agent/theologians have appeared in the drama of faith and mission: women, the poor, youth, immigrants.

B a n t u P r ay e r C h r i s t a s A n c e s t o r / M e d i at o r My father, my Ancestor, you in the region below, you with God and the earth, it is with you I speak.

As for me, I see nothing anywhere.

Then, receive this feather [this hen], and bear it to the Being whom you know, take it to him, and may peace alone come upon me.

Francois Kabasele, “Christ as Chief ” in Faces of Jesus in Africa (Orbis, 1991); prayers from the Luba Mass of the diocese of Mbuji-Mayi, Zaire. Didia dia Mfumu (The Lord’s Supper). During the service, a live chicken is sacrificed in oblation to Christ, the Ancestor.

11

R o b e rt L. M o n t g o m e ry ’ 5 3 When

my wife,

P o l ly , a n d I T a i wa n i n 1 9 5 6 , we were assigned to the East Coast because of the historic movement among the aboriginal people that had brought thousands to Christ and into the Taiwan Presbyterian Church. arrived in

An Historic Change for t h e T a i wa n A b o r i g i n a l s T h at C h a n g e d M y L i f e

“ ...it is clear that God works in and through human beings and circumstances to prepare people to receive the Good News.”

Bethesda

Presbyterian C h u rc h Camden, South Carolina

12

Of the ten language groups (five large and five small), my work was primarily with the Amis group. They had approximately 100 villages, and they had built a church for every village.

There was not a single aboriginal ordained minister among them. It was wonderful to work among people who were so eager to hear what God had done for the world in Christ.

The Bible, hymns, and educational materials were made available in the aboriginal languages and a training school for ministers, Yu-Shan Theological Institute, was established by the Presbyterian Church. My major work was to hold conferences for church leaders, develop educational

materials, teach at Yu- Shan, and take communion to small churches without ministers. Encouraged by the Taiwan Church, each aboriginal group began to organize their own presbytery and by 1963 the Amis had accomplished this. In 1965, the Centennial Celebration of the Taiwan Presbyterian Church took place, remembering that in 1865 Presbyterian missionaries from England had arrived in southern Taiwan. Three years later, Canadian Presbyterian missionaries arrived in the north. There were special services around the Island, but on the East Coast, there was a great celebration in the large Fataan (Guang Fu) Amis Church. Numerous foreign visitors attended, and the Amis, in addition to their worship, did their celebratory dancing.

One of my great pleasures in the Amis church was seeing how they took to the Presbyterian system and to see church elders, sometimes barefoot, speaking up at meetings.

So much for the “stuffed shirt” image that Presbyterians have acquired in America! Tribal people and peasant farmers can be good Presbyterians.

All this made me wonder why these people were so responsive to the Christian message when this was not the rule in much of Asia. I had been

a history major in college and had further training in the humanities in seminary, but lacked any training in the social sciences to help me analyze what was happening. As a result, I went back to graduate school at Emory University and obtained a Ph.D. in social scientific studies of religion.

Subsequently, my life followed a somewhat winding path in various kinds of rewarding work, but after retirement I returned to my original question about the aboriginal people.

Four books have been the result.

Why anyone or any group comes to Christ is based on the work of God’s Spirit, but it is clear that God works in and through human beings and circumstances to prepare people to receive the Good News. If this is the case, then we can learn something from those who study the human side of religion.

I am thankful to have been able to observe the historic movement to Christ among the Taiwan aboriginals.

To know them was highly inspiring, and they also led me down a road of intellectual exploration that has been very rewarding.

Kyle Goodman ’04 W h e n I g r a d u at e d f r o m C o l u m b i a S e m i n a ry , I a cc e p t e d a c a l l to be the associate pastor to the Bethesda Presbyterian Church in Camden, South Carolina. When I first interviewed for the position, I was told that Bethesda was an historic church in an historic town. What an understatement! Living in Camden and working at Bethesda these past three years has been like living in the midst of American history.

Camden is the oldest inland town in South Carolina. The sign along the highway says so. Driving into town, you come across Revolutionary War battlefields and historic monuments. The old neighborhood is packed with antebellum homes.

But the two crown jewels of historic Camden are the old courthouse and the Bethesda Presbyterian Church. Both buildings were designed by Federal architect Robert Mills, who is best known for the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. In the front yard, a much smaller obelisk marks the final resting place of Baron de Kalb. Lafayette himself stood on the steps of Bethesda 175 years ago and delivered another eulogy for his friend as he was reburied in the church’s front yard.

Those steps still stand today. The sanctuary was built in 1822. It looks much the same as it did when it was first built. The top of the pulpit stands ten feet from the ground. The doors on the box pews still latch and swing out.

The stark white walls, columns, brick and the iron work… all come together to create a magnificent space for worship. And they are constant reminders of Bethesda church’s 200-year history.

When I first came to Bethesda, I thought these were just interesting facts to share. I thought they were incidental to the task of ministry here. I have since come to understand that in order to do ministry at Bethesda, you have to know a little history.

History as Resource. Bethesda’s history is a blessing for the church. People come to visit Camden just to see the church building. We have a number of Sunday morning visitors who come to experience worship in our space. Our members value the historicity of Bethesda, and part of their dedication to the church is their commitment to preserving its history. We have a number of historians in the church, and they delight in telling the stories of Old Bethesda.

In that way, the memory of church stretches back for generations.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

First Presbyterian C h u rc h

Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About: Clergy Marriage and the English Reformation

Mayfield, Kentucky

E m i ly M a rt i n ’ 0 8

t o C T S S t u d ents

J o n F a r a o n e ’88 O u r c h u r c h wa s b o r n i n 1832 during the period of the Second Great Awakening. It comes out of the Cumberland Presbyterian background and was the first church established in Mayfield in the heart of the Jackson Purchase territory.

After the Civil War, in 1868, First church built the first brick structure in Mayfield. The building was renovated in 1898. In 1915, just before Mayfield experienced a golden period of economic growth, the congregation built a new sanctuary to accommodate its growth. Enrollment for Sunday School grew to more than 350 members.

In 1959 the church went through another building program and built an education center. Then in the 70s and 80s, the church almost closed as it struggled with membership loss and leadership issues.

I have been blessed to serve First Church since 1997 and today, as we celebrate the 175th birthday of the church, we have just completed the building of a new Ministries Center. We are taking a step of faith to expand the ministry of our church.

The debate regarding the issue of homosexuality, particularly the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians and the blessing of same-sex unions, has been arguably the debate in the Presbyterian Church (USA) for quite some time.

A popular attitude now is to throw one’s hands up in disgust at “extremists” (on both sides of the debate) that are splitting the church and to bemoan the obsession our culture has with sex, which is keeping the church from focusing on much more important things like education and evangelism. Those who are fed up with and critical of the preoccupations of the Presbyterian General Assemblies of the past decade might be surprised to learn that sex was as much a topic of religious debate in England in the 1520s-1560s as it is in America today. The debate on clergy marriage in 16th century England wasn’t just about sex but about much bigger issues about what it meant to be Christian, what it meant to be Protestant, and what it meant to be an English Protestant.

Read Emily Martin’s complete history paper in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

F i r s t P r e s b y t e r i a n C h u rc h Miles City, Montana S h e rw o o d M c K ay ’ 7 4 History as Challenge. I never would have thought it, but history is hard and complicated work. Maintenance tasks for a 185-year-old building are overwhelming. So are the expenses. On Sundays, we have two full services.

Any other church of our means would consider expanding its sanctuary, but ours must remain untouched. Any new construction must be matched to our old buildings in painstaking detail. Even to install handrails for aging members requires approval from the Historic Registers. And as beautiful as the sanctuary fixtures are, a ten-foot pulpit and box pews certainly limit innovation in worship. History can also be stifling to a church’s growth.

History as Witness. Talking about faith, the author of the book of Hebrews says “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; it is the conviction of things not seen.” But then the author turns to history, from Cain and Abel to the Judges and everyone in between, and then finally to Jesus. He gives example after example of faithful action and the constant provision and grace of God along the way.

The senior minister here, Chip Summers, has a similar saying. He says, “God has not brought us this far only to abandon us now.”

The members of Bethesda believe this. When the going gets tough, someone will inevitably speak up and say, “The church stood through Sherman’s march and the Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886. The church stood through two world wars and through the Depression. It stood when Hurricane Hugo tore down every tree in town. It will stand the test of time.”

As the next chapter begins for Bethesda Presbyterian Church, it is primed and ready for God’s future. It is ready because it remembers its history.

“ ...to do ministry at Bethesda, you have to know a little history.”

VANTAGE Summer 2007

I’ m p a s t o r o f F i r s t P r e s b y t e r i a n C h u r c h , M i l e s C i t y , M o n ta n a .

I went West after graduation, serving as an intern in A Christian Ministry in Yellowstone Park, where I met my wife, Rhonda. I’ve spent most of my time in ministry in the West.

The church in Miles City was established about the time the town was, in 1880, when General Nelson Miles was charged by the federal government with rounding up “renegade Indians” and herding them onto reservations. The following account is recorded in the church’s official history, written by Ray Grant: After Little Big Horn, the military orders to General Nelson A. Miles were to bring the scattered Indian tribes together again and persuade them to return to the peaceful reservations. At one time the general had more than 2,000 Indian prisoners confined on what is now the west side of Miles City.

Two of the most noted prisoners among them were Spotted Eagle and Rain-inthe-Face. With their tattered followers, they had come close to the fort to camp in the valley of Sunday Creek, north of today’s airport. There they discussed whether they should surrender or attack the fort. They chose to surrender.

Spotted Eagle was an intelligent man, and he immediately asked that he be allowed to attend the Presbyterian Church. His request was granted, and on February 6, 1881, the great Sioux Nation chief, with a few of his people, came to hear the sermon delivered by Reverend W. L. Austin, the first minister of the church in Miles City. Although under military escort, the proud chieftain would not leave the church until he had spoken with the minister.

Spotted Eagle demonstrated great interest in all that took place at the church.

His acquaintance with the minister deepened until he asked the Rev. Austin if he would learn the Sioux language and come and speak more to his people of Jacob and Joseph and the Hebrew children…. While humor is not a dominant characteristic of the Indian brave, the Reverend Mr. Austin took a chance one day after church worship and asked Spotted Eagle what he liked best about the service.

In true laconic style, the chief replied, “The benediction.”

13

A C o n f i r m at i o n

of

Faith

A Brief History of Atlanta’s Northwest Presbyterian Church C h i lt o n T h o r i n g t o n ’56 From its inception 47 years ago, the development of Northwest Presbyterian Church has been a venture in faith.

A petition requesting approval to organize Northwest Presbyterian Church was signed by 86 interested people and presented to the Presbytery of Atlanta on June 19, 1956. Under the able guidance of Dr. Bonneau Dickson, the Secretary of Church Extension, the group of faithful continued to meet for Sunday School and worship services in the Tuxedo Elementary School, a block south of the church’s present location. On September 23, the charter was granted, and two months later a call was extended to me, the young pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Selma, Alabama.

Landmark This!

Lake View Presbyterian Church, Chicago from an article by L y n n B e ck e r submitted by D av i d M u r a d ’96

After meeting a year and a half in the school and minister’s home, we located and agreed on a suitable site. Now numbering 139, the congregation took a giant leap of faith and purchased an 18-acre tract from the Sharp Wall family. Vacant for five or six years, the family’s house needed considerable modification for office and classroom use. The old red gymnasium had several inches of debris on its floor and vines grew through the walls and windows.

We were told that the old tenant house was occupied by “a fine Christian couple who would be excellent caretakers for the property.”

Well, that’s not exactly the way things turned out. The day before we took possession in March 1962, I took three of our building committee for an aerial survey of the property, looking at potential building sites. Flying as low as was legal, I circled the property several times and noticed a truck in the driveway and smoke rising from the chimney of the tenant house.

When

Later that day we drove to the property at 4300 Northside Drive and went to meet our new caretakers, but the truck was gone and to our surprise we found about a dozen empty 50pound sugar bags. The doors were open, so we walked in and found the house empty, except for pieces of copper tubing and other debris.

Later we were shocked when the water company delivered a $200 water bill.

We didn’t have to be “super sleuths” to figure out why. The occupants of the tenant house had seen the plane circling overhead with a radio receiver dome under its belly and “lookin just like them revenuers.”

Weekends were great times, as young and old worked together in beautifying the property around the Georgian-style home where the Sharp Wall family had lived.

Remodeling provided sufficient space for classrooms, the church office, and pastor’s study. The gymnasium was given a fresh coat of paint and its floor cleared of many years of accumulated debris. Between the two

entrance doors, there was a big stone fireplace where we gathered on cold mornings for an adult class and family fellowship.

Three platforms with rollers on one side of each were built and carpeted. One of the elders made furniture to go with the pulpit and lectern given by Trinity Presbyterian Church. We built an “old rugged cross” which we could lower from the rafters with a winch. In a matter of minutes we could transform the gym, with its basketball court, to a place of worship. As we thought about the wholeness desired in Christian life, providing opportunities for recreation and worship made sense.

The church continued to grow throughout those early years partly because the members were such good stewards of God’s gifts. They made good use of the talents God gave them.

Chilton “Chick” Thorington is honorably retired after more than 40 years of ministry. He and his wife, Billie, live in Woodstock, GA.

L a k e V i e w P r e s b y t e r i a n C h u r c h wa s b u i lt , i n 1 8 8 7 - 8 8 , i t wa s n ’ t “It was a woodland area,” says James Hall of Holabird & Root, the restoration architect on the project.

The church, at Broadway and Addison, is made of wood and, if it had been just a few blocks south, Chicago’s strict post-fire building code probably would have nixed the design.

Lake View Presbyterian is one of only a handful of buildings that remain from the fabled partnership of Daniel Burnham and his chief designer, John Wellborn Root. In the 30s the original wood shingles were covered with cheap white shingle siding that obscured the beauty of Root’s original design....

The colors of the original were rich—Root wrote of “the right of color to be recognized as an independent art”—though determining exactly what they’d been required some detective work. A consultant analyzed 60 old paint samples under a microscope and came up with a palette of five basic colors, from a brick red on the main body of the church and roof to a jute brown on the arches, windows, and doors. The restoration is a revelation....And decades before Mies van der Rohe proclaimed it, Root knew that God is in the details.... t h e r e c e n t ly r e n o vat e d

even in the city.

David Murad is director of social services at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, and a parish associate at Lake View Presbyterian.

This article was published in the Chicago Reader in 2005 and is reprinted with permission. For more on this story, go to http://www.chicagoreader.com/pdf/051216/051216_architecture.pdf

Design/Re-Design for Worship Space Process and Possibilities

October 15–16 with liturgical designer Terry Byrd Eason More information on p. 19.

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VANTAGE Summer 2007

L o o k i n g B a ck w i t h T h a n k s g i v i n g . . . a n d F o rwa r d with Hope J o h n T. M c C r e a ’49 A p p r o a c h i n g m y 85 t h b i rt h d ay i n e x c e l l e n t h e a lt h and with an agenda of projects to be completed (Deus Volenti!), I find myself drawn to the past, to my history, as well as to my future. Two journeys have been planned, one just completed and one pending.

The first was to South Florida for the first week in May. Two church anniversaries in that vicinity came on the same weekend: Shenandoah Presbyterian Church, in Miami, Florida, and Memorial Presbyterian Church, in Lake Worth.

The second is a trip this summer to Atlanta, where my ministry began.

Shenandoah Presbyterian Church On May 1, 1927, Daniel Iverson (about the Class of 1913) was founding pastor of Shenandoah Presbyterian Church in Miami. I was there then, age four, with my family. We lived a block from the church’s first building, an old rustic dance hall.

Daniel’s youngest son, Bill Iverson ’52, recently called together many old-timers to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the church and Daniel Iverson’s ministry. With the congregation no longer there, several hundred of us gathered for worship in the sanctuary, now occupied by a Hispanic congregation dedicated to carrying on the same message and mission.

More than a hundred have gone out from Shenandoah into the ministry or mission service, including Ned Iverson ’42 and at least ten who were Columbia students at the same time in the early 1950s. Those present for the celebration included Phil Esty ’53 and Pierre Dubose, Jr. ’54, whose father, Pierre, Sr. (c. ’17), had been pastor of the only other PCUS church in Miami 80 years ago.

My brother, Ruling Elder Sloan McCrea, age 94 and a charter member, was present on the front row. He served also as a trustee of Columbia Seminary for 12 years.

In 1926, while briefly at First church, Orlando, Dan Iverson had written “Spirit of the Living God, Fall A-Fresh on Me.”

Lake Osborne Presbyterian Church Lake Osborne Church was celebrating their 50th anniversary. In the summer of 1956 Ryan Wood ’25, pastor of Memorial church, West Palm Beach, had asked me to come to Lake Worth to begin a new congregation as a mission of the Memorial church. We were organized on May 5, 1957, with Dan Iverson preaching the sermon, and Elder Sloan McCrea charging the new pastor.

Russ Toms ’51 followed me there five years later. The current pastor, following Toms in 1971, is Lynn Downing ’66. Deacon James Halstead ’68 was one of many who entered Christian service from Lake Osborne. A “granddaughter” of that congregation is Elizabeth Parker ’04, now serving a church in Nebraska.

For our 50th, we worshipped and celebrated, as we sang our anniversary theme, “Our God Our Help in Ages Past, Our Hope for Years to Come.”

Atlanta Returning from military service following WWII, I entered Columbia in the fall of 1946. We lived in the only dormitory at the time, until small “pre-fab” apartments could be constructed for the many veterans and their families.

During the summer between my middle and senior year, I served Salem Church near Lithonia. Actually, three students rotated among three country churches in the area. During my senior year, I served Glen Haven Church on Covington Highway, Decatur.

Upon graduation in May 1949, I accepted a call to serve the Glen Haven and Salem churches together. I was ordained at Glen Haven, June 5, 1949, and remained there for several years. Later, two young men went from the small Salem parish to Columbia Seminary: Herb Bailey ’58 and John Park ’80.

Now, nearly 60 years after my time, neither congregation remains. But I shall arrange a “reunion” with those wonderful folks—themselves also young adults at the time—and we shall recall with joy and thanksgiving the blessed fellowship we shared back then. Together we shall talk of the present, and we shall look to the future in shared hope and thanksgiving!

And then—I shall “drop in” to pay one more visit to Columbia Seminary and marvel at the changes of the past 60 years!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow! And praise Him for a future where hope is a certainty!

John McRae lives in Winter Park, FL.

My Family History and the American Missionary Society T e r r i a n n L aw r e n c e ’ 0 7

t o C T S S t u d ents

My maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Grady, raised 16 children in Dudley, North Carolina, in the time following the Civil War. Born into slavery, he was very young when the Emancipation Proclamation freed all African Americans from their bondage. Into this historic moment stepped the American Missionary Association (AMA) to educate and provide assistance to freedmen. In 1867, the AMA founded a school in Dudley. My maternal grandfather, John T. Grady, would have started his schooling there around 1915-1917 and would have attended church services at the chapel on the school grounds. He migrated to New York, where he was a member of the Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church, one of many African American congregations founded in the North by people from the south who had been influenced, educated by, and supported by the efforts of AMA preachers. Today I am a member of Atlanta’s historic First Congregational Church. Founded in 1867, it is the second church founded in the South by the AMA. The church contained the only library for African Americans in Atlanta, and when other fountains in downtown Atlanta were closed to African Americans, the fountain in front of the church was open to all. When I joined the church, I had no idea that it was founded by the AMA or that our histories would be so interconnected. I find it comforting that my spiritual roots have come full circle from my baptism in a church my great-grandfather helped found to serving in an historic church in Atlanta, Georgia.

Read Terriann Lawrence’s complete history paper in Vantage Online.

Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

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VANTAGE Summer 2007

For the Record Alumni/ae 1930s Bonneau Dickson ’33 had surgery on May 31st to repair a broken hip suffered in a fall. He is undergoing several weeks of physical therapy. If you would like to send Bonneau a card, his address is Presbyterian Village, #311, 2000 East-West Connector, Austell, GA 30106.

1950s Chilton Thorington ’56 was introduced at the halftime basketball “old players” event at King College in Bristol, TN.

B e rt C a r m i c h a e l ’ 67

by Richard DuBose

S i x y e a r s a g o B e rt C a r m i c h a e l d e c i d e d t o b e c o m e Columbia Theological Seminary’s director of alumni/ae and church relations. He did it out of a sense of call, no doubt, because he believed in the importance of the seminary’s mission, and especially because he felt Columbia could support pastors. He badly wanted to help with that. He also came, I remember, because of the seminary’s importance in his own life, because of the relationships he had developed here, with mentors, fellow students, and friends.

Bert C a r m ic h ael Whether one can “go home again” is a question, famously asked and “ I will continue to be grateful for answered by Thomas Wolfe, often good memories of these six years debated, mostly in the abstract. and to be thankful for your varied For those who try to do it, there is ministries. Please remember what the inherent anxiety: what if it doesn’t I’ve said so many times about the work out, for whatever reason, and alumni/ae office—Barbara Poe does poisons my view of the place forever? all the work. My job was to smile, Going home to a place that nurtured shake hands, eat good food, say good you, that you love, is risky. things about CTS, and enjoy every Six years hence, Bert’s contribution minute of it.” to Columbia has been immensely important in ways too numerous to count. Some things can be measured: alumni/ ae who annually give to the seminary numbered 475 in 2002 and by last year had jumped to 767. But more than numbers, Bert has been Columbia’s frequent presence at presbytery meetings, in the offices and homes of our alumni/ae, the organizing force for reunions, luncheons—and connections. He has been the ordained pastor on our advancement staff, an essential voice in our planning, discussions, arguments, and celebrations.

Last summer Bert concluded that he’d like more flexibility in his life than the job allows, a little more time with Kaye and fewer nights on the road. He agreed to stay on because he understood the search for his successor—someone heeding the call to come home, someone willing to take the risk—could be complicated. It is fitting that Randy Calvo, our new director, credits Bert’s visits to him over the past six years as providing Randy the basis for his own sense of call here. Addressing this year’s graduates on May 19, Randy said, “For Bert, alumni/ae work was a ministry of hospitality, of bringing the seminary’s presence to my office. It’s a ministry I feel called to continue.”

For Columbia, Bert’s coming home has been a blessing. Thank you, Bert.

ext issue: Coming in the n 2007 C o ll o q u iu m n Photos Alumni/ae Reunio 16

1960s Clayton “Bud” Little ’60 recently published the book Fabrics of Freedom/Ordinary Heroes, a work of fiction based on the life of his ancestor, Robert Liddle, who served in the Revolutionary War and was a deacon in the Presbyterian church of Lamington, NJ…..Dan McCall ’60 retired in 1997 after 22 years at Reid Memorial church in Augusta, GA, and has since served interim ministries in Atlanta and Charlotte. He is minister of pastoral care at Fairview church, North Augusta, SC. He and his wife, Linda, have four children and eight grandchildren….. Charles Lanier ’64 retired as a U.S. Army chaplain and is parish associate at First church, Wheaton, IL….. Martha Blount ’64 has a new granddaughter. She and her husband, Dick, teach young adults and make mission trips to Honduras and Kenya….. Hassell Bullock ’64 is in his 34th year of teaching at Wheaton (IL) College and serves as stated supply at Warren Park church, Cicero, IL….. Sanders Read ’65 was honorably retired February 28, 2006, from Shiloh church, Raeford, NC. He has served several churches in South Carolina and with the Board of World Missions….. David Long ’65 retired from Richmond Hill (GA) church….. Jim Richardson ’65 retired from Fort Hill church, Clemson, SC…..

Bob ’65 and Dottie ’63 Smith spent a year as mission volunteers at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Bob did marketing and Dottie worked in several areas including fundraising and gardens….. David Antonson ’66 retired after 22 years as pastor of Northmont United church, Pittsburgh, PA. He had 41 years of ministry altogether…..

Joe Harvard ’66 was recognized with the annual Samuel DuBois Cook Award for his work to improve race relations in the greater Durham, NC, area….. Lewis Trotter ’66 was installed last November as the 23rd Moderator of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy….. Art Jones ’68 was approved as a certified professional chaplain and works full-time with Hospice of Chattanooga (TN). He retired from New Hope church….. Jeff Aiken ’69 retired June 30 as senior pastor of First church, Allentown, PA. He continues as chair of the Board of Trustees of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network, and the Board of Pensions.

1970s Charles Clubb ’70 retired as pastor of Burkeville (VA) church…..David Turner ’75 is pastor of Barnwell and Boiling Springs churches, Barnwell, SC. He is Chaplain Lieutenant Colonel Air Force Reserve and individual mobilization augmentee to the wing chaplain, 45th Space Wing, Patrick AFB, FL….. Frank Colladay ’78 serves as Moderator of Northeast Georgia Presbytery for 2007, and started his 23rd year serving Dahlonega (GA) church on January 1….. Royce Browder ’79 is General

Randolph Calvo, Jr. ’81 New Director of Alumni/ae and Church Relations Randy Calvo began on May 7 as director of alumni/ae and church relations. Calvo received his M.Div. from the seminary in 1981. A graduate of Clemson University, he worked in the banking and insurance industries before entering seminary. He then became pastor of the McDonough (GA) Presbyterian Church, where he served for 16 years. For the past ten years, he had served as pastor and head of staff of Northwest Presbyterian Church, in Atlanta.

A member of the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, Calvo serves on the Permanent Judicial Council. He has also chaired the Bills and Overture Committee and represented the presbytery as a commissioner to the 1999 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

He and his wife, Dyann, a reading specialist teacher, live in Athens, GA. They have two children and two grandchildren.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

For the Record Presbyter for Upper Ohio Valley Presbytery. Joanna Adams ’79 was a featured speaker July 1 on “Day 1,” a nationally broadcast radio program (also available as a podcast). Her sermon was “The Predicament of Freedom.” She is pastor of Morningside church, Atlanta.

1980s David Speering ’83 has accepted a call as pastor at Troy (NC) church…..

Dedie Kelso ’84 is the new senior pastor of Trinity church, Charlotte, NC…..

James Platt ’84 serves as stated supply of the historic 254-year-old Fishing Creek church, Chester, SC. He also works as a mental health counselor in Union, SC…..

David Weitnauer ’86 has a new position as president of the R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation in Atlanta….. Alan Harvey ’86 received his D.Min. degree this spring from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His doctoral project was Invisible Communion Tokens: Help for Presbyterian Congregations to Come Prepared to the Lord’s Table. His project advisors were president/professor emeritus C. Benton Kline, Jr., and John P. Burgess, son of former CTS staff member Betsey Burgess. Alan is associate pastor of First church, Winter Haven, FL, where Steve Negley ’85 is head of staff…..

Ed Cooley ’88 recently completed 12 years of ministry at First church, Pampa, TX, and is stated supply at First church, Canadian, TX….. Walter Dinkins ’88 is the senior religious leader for the Joint United States Military Mission in Africa. He works with all major humanitarian outreach agencies in Africa.….. Jon Faraone ’88 received the D.Min. degree this spring from McCormick Seminary….. Joy Smith ’88 has a call to the Providence Community church, a new church development in Jacksonville Beach, FL ….. Thomas Mueller ’89 retired from First church, Hinesville, GA. 1990s Totok Wiryasaputra ’90 has finished three manuscripts for counseling books. The work will be published soon by ICAHS Press….. Mike Fitze ’91 has moved to a new church development, the Palmetto church, Mt. Pleasant, SC….. Keith Riddle ’91 serves as a “minister in other service” via the Presbytery of Tropical Florida, and lives in Charleston, SC, where he works in the development of grief support programs. He was elected to the national leadership team of the Presbyterian AIDS Network…..

Belinda Curry ’93 has completed 10 years of service with the General Assembly Council (Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy), St. Andrew Presbytery…..

In May, Jones Doughton ’93 received his D.Min. degree from Beeson School of Divinity of Samford University, Birmingham, AL….. Martha Ebel ’93 retired from First church, Aiken, SC, and volunteers as a hospital chaplain….. Jeff ’93 and Kerri ’93 Peterson-Davis are keynote speakers for two weeks of the Montreat Youth Conferences this summer. They serve as co-pastors of Pioneer Memorial church, Solon, OH….. Todd Speed ’93 (DMin ’07) has a new call as pastor of Decatur (GA) church….. Walt Tennyson ’93 has a new call as chaplain of Rhodes College, Memphis, TN. He will also direct the college’s Bonner Scholars program which has been endowed to fund 60 students each year who will integrate their classroom work with community involvement and a process of vocational discernment…..

Tim Slemmons ’95 led an event for New Brunswick Presbytery, during which he presented “Year D—A Supplement to the Revised Common Lectionary.” Tim is also designing Year E….. Beverly (Brigman) Thompson ’96 (DMin ’00) and her husband, George, led “Alligators in the Swamp-Power, Leadership and Ministry,” a seminar for the Alban Institute….. Tom Groome ’98 is pastor of First church, Tupelo, MS….. Julie Walkup Bird ’99 has a new son, Nathan Henry, born in December 2006. Julie lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she is a pastor and her husband, Adrian, is working on a Ph.D.….. Mickey Shealy ’99 has a new call as pastor at First church, Dalton, GA. He will be installed August 5….. Steven Voris (DMin ’99) has a new book, Devotions and Prayers for Police Officers. He is a U.S. Navy chaplain deployed in Iraq.

2000s Jeanette Pinkston ’00 has moved to the Nashville, TN, area to work with the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship…..Clayton ’03 and Kate ’03 Rascoe have new calls to Mo Ranch, Hunt, TX. Clayton is program director for conferences; Kate is chaplain for summer staff and camps…..James Wells ’03 has a new call as pastor of First church, Jacksonville, AL…..Kevin Day ’04 begins this fall teaching history and coaching cross country and track at Episcopal High School, Jacksonville, FL…..Nancy Oehler ’04 has been elected to the Board of Advisors of the Omaha Presbyterian Seminary Foundation…..Robert Thomson ’05 is acquisitions and cataloging assistant in the technical services department of the seminary library…..Clay ’05 and Tricia ’06 Thomas and their children, Mason and Fields, participated in the Christian Peace Witness event in Washington, DC, on March 16…..Craig Topple ’06 was ordained February 12, at Decatur (GA) church. He is pastor of Westminster church, Santa Fe, NM….. Chris Henry ’07 was featured on the Day1 radio program on July 8…..Jill Patterson Tolbert ’07 did supply preaching before graduation this spring at Hemphill Memorial church, Stockbridge, GA, and Ebenezer church, Hogansville, GA. She led the Presbyterian Women’s Circle Bible study at Decatur (GA) church, and preached at First church, Jonesboro, GA.

VANTAGE Summer 2007

In Memoriam

Walter Bennett ’43 February 9, 2007 Richard Scoggins ’44 December 13, 2006 Leroy Secrest ’50 October 19, 2006 James A. Mitchell ’52 January 19, 2007 Tom Stallworth ’58 May 14, 2007 Robert Emerson Jackson ’60 April 21, 2007 Charles C.Talley ’63 November 19, 2006 Michael Whelchel ’64 February 3, 2007 Fred Fife ’72 May 5, 2007 Jamie Gripton (DMin ’98) December 1, 2005

Faculty and Staff

Elizabeth Johnson, J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament, published “A Modest Proposal in Context,” in The Impartial God: Essays in Honor of Jouette M. Bassler (Phoenix Press); “Central Church and Theological Education,” On Our Way Rejoicing: Central Presbyterian Church Atlanta, 150 Years; published various essays for the Lectionary Commentary Series (Westminster John Knox); was elected to the editorial board for Lectionary Commentary Series; led a pastors’ retreat (lectionary group) in middle Tennessee; co-led (with Chuck Campbell) a study group for pastors in Alabama; attended the board meeting of Villa International; led a pastors’ study group for St. Andrew Presbytery; served as a leader for the Greater Atlanta Presbytery’s Youth Ministry Leadership Initiative….. William P. Brown, professor of Old Testament, published “The Moral Cosmologies of Creation” in Character Ethics and the Old Testament: Moral Dimensions of Scripture, edited by M. Daniel Carroll R. and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (Westminster John Knox, 2007); served as resource theologian for a group of pastors in the Center for Theological Inquiry’s program on the topics of holiness and public theology; facilitated a Wabash-sponsored event for pre-tenure faculty; was a keynote speaker for the Youth Ministry Leadership Initiative event “Because the Bible Tells Me So”…..Cam Murchison, dean of faculty, executive vice president, and professor of ministry, published “A Reformed Understanding of Usury for the 21st Century,” written for the Advisory Council on Social Witness Policy and approved by the 217th General Assembly; served as a consultant to the curriculum review/revision process at Princeton Theological Seminary; led the officers’ retreat and preached at Mount Pleasant (SC) Church; led a workshop on “Nurturing Faculty Scholarship” for the Association of Theological Schools’ chief academic officers meeting,Vancouver, BC….. Jody D. Sauls, human resources administrator, earned certification as a professional in human resources (PHR) on January 30…..John A. Clark, communications specialist, created and taught a Sunday School class at Church of the Redeemer, Atlanta, on “What it Means to Be a Covenantal Community”…..

John C. Knapp (MATS ’95), adjunct professor of Christian ethics, lectured at Samford University and Emory University….. Jerry Gladson, adjunct professor of Old Testament language, literature and exegesis, has been invited to write a Critical Introduction to the Five Scrolls (Megilloth) for Edwin Mellen Press….. Kathy Dawson, assistant professor of Christian education, during sabbatical research, visited Presbyterian churches and listened to stories of early childhood programs and churches that house them; led the “Equipping the Saints” event for the presbytery of South Alabama for teachers of adult classes; moderated a conversation on the future of resource centers for the Synod of the South Atlantic; co-hosted (with Rodger Nishioka) the Columbia lunch at the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE)…..Laura Mendenhall, president, preached at National church, Washington, DC; Spanish Fort church, Mobile, AL; Madison Square church, San Antonio, TX; First church, Dallas, TX; First church of Atlanta; Independent church, Birmingham, AL; preached at a conference at the Duke Center for End of Life Issues, Raleigh, NC, jointly sponsored with the Theology and Worship Unit of the PCUSA; participated in a seminar with Presbyterian seminary presidents and INTRUST, worked with the Reforming Ministry Lilly project, chaired the “Seminaries and the Church” Lilly project, chaired the Committee on Theological Education…..Mark Douglas, associate professor of Christian ethics, edited the latest edition of the seminary’s online journal, “@ This Point: Theological Investigations in Church and Culture,” and writes a weekly column for The Sunday Paper, a weekly newspaper in the greater Atlanta area; gave the Leith Lectures at Auburn (AL) Presbyterian Church; gave presentations at Agnes Scott College and at the Duke Center for End of Life Issues; taught and led worship at Atlanta-area churches, including Fayette church, Peachtree Christian Church, and Rock Spring church; participated in a project on Jewish-Christian relations at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Richmond, VA…..Sarah Erickson ’03, associate director for Lifelong Learning, wrote two units of lessons titled “Preparing for Holiness” and “Worshipping the Holy One” for the Winter 2008 issue of the We Believe curriculum for older youth; served as lead teacher for the confirmation teaching team at North Decatur church, co-led with associate pastor Eric Dillenbeck ’03 two retreats for the confirmands, and participated in worship when they affirmed their baptismal vows…..Steve Hayner, Peachtree 17

For the Record Associate Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth, published “The Shaping of Things to Come?” in the spring issue of @ this point, the faculty’s online journal; led an evangelism seminar and preached at Westminster church, Snellville, GA; attended board meetings for World Vision US, World Vision International, and International Justice Mission; taught Sunday school classes at Peachtree church, Atlanta, GA…..

Walter Brueggemann, professor emeritus, lectured at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Dallas, TX; received the Award Citation from the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion at the University of California at Davis; taught the Columbia Winter Weekend Seminar; lectured at the Rankin Faith and Fellowship Series, Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, Houston, TX; taught “Spirituality of the Psalms” for Columbia’s Certificate in Spiritual Formation Program; lectured and preached during the Horizons of Faith Lectures at First United Methodist Church, Omaha, NE; lectured at the Jewish Christian Institute in Baltimore, MD; gave the keynote speech at a seminar at Church of the Savior, Roswell, GA; was the Shea Lecturer at The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN; published The Theology of the Book of Jeremiah (Cambridge University Press); Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church (Westminster John Knox, 2007); “Alien Witness: How God’s People Challenge Empire,” The Christian Century (March 6, 2007); “Can We Hope? Can Hope Be Divided?” in Contesting Texts: Jews and Christians in Conversation about the Bible (Fortress Press, 2007); “To Whom Does the Land Belong?” in Journal for Preachers XXX (Easter 2007); “Life-Giving Speech Amid an Empire of Silence” in Michigan Law Review (April 2007); and “A Response to Rickie Moore’s ‘The Prophet As Mentor,’” in Journal of Pentecostal Theology (April 2007)….. Rodger Nishioka, associate professor of Christian education, was the keynote speaker at the Youth Specialties’ National Youthworkers Convention in Cincinnati, OH; gave the keynote speech at the Presbyterian College winter retreat in Montreat, NC; gave the keynote lecture at the Peace River Presbytery leader event in Sarasota, FL; preached at First church, Arcadia, FL; preached at Palms church, Jacksonville, FL; preached at the New Castle Presbytery meeting, Ocean City, MD; preached at Trinity church in Wilmington, DE; preached at the installation of Chuck Goodman at Mt. Pleasant church; was keynote speaker at the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities Presidents’ gathering in Orlando, FL; lectured at the Youth and Family Institute at Trinity Lutheran College, Issaquah, WA; preached at First church,Vero Beach, FL.

Students

Cathy Schreiber ’08 served January through May as the children’s Sunday school teacher and worship leader at Morningside church, Atlanta…..Claude Tatro ’08 was lead facilitator for DeKalb and Gwinnett counties for the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials’ Leadership Training Program. Training took place at Church of the New Covenant (PCUSA), Doraville, GA…..Rob Jackson ’08 completed a supervised ministry internship at Decatur (GA) church, September 2006-May 2007…..

Kathy Wolf ’08, a Fund for Theological Education ministry fellow, is creating a resource for women in seminary and in the ordination process to increase awareness of issues they may face and to help them succeed in their first call. She is also youth director at Fairview church, Lawrenceville, GA….. Mary Cox ’09 and Diane Duane (MATS ’09) recently led Vidalia (GA) church’s women’s retreat….. Nancy Meehan Yao ’09 taught an adult class spiritual autobiography, “Your Story and the Scripture Story,” at Conyers (GA) church….. Adam Copeland ’09, Buz Wilcoxon ’08,

Daren Hofman ’07, Larry Gamble ’08, Gareth Beyers (ThM ’07), John Lattimore ’08, Collin Adams ’08, Maggie Leonard ’09, and Adam Walker Cleaveland (special student) represented Columbia in the Interseminary Ultimate Frisbee Tournament at Union-PSCE, in Richmond,VA. Columbia’s team took second place, losing to Princeton by only one point.

Transitions Welcome!

Mary Lynn Darden joined the seminary staff in April as administrative assistant to the president and the vice president of business and finance. Previously she served as administrative assistant for St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Tucker, GA. Jeff Vaughan joined the staff in May as the educational technologist. He has 17 years information technology experience in the banking industry, where he developed and implemented technology solutions for customer service automation.

Congratulations!

Robert Thomson ’05 has been promoted to acquisitions and cataloging assistant in the technical services department of the John Bulow Campbell Library. His appointment reflects the expansion of his role, which previously focused on acquisitions.

Godspeed!

Shannon Ball ’05, who has served as interim chaplain during the 2006-2007 academic year, completed her service to the seminary this summer.

Gail Brown, coordinator of the Certificate in Christian Spirituality program, resigned in May. Gail’s husband, William P. Brown, is professor of Old Testament at Columbia.

Dorothy Lockhart resigned in May to work with her husband, a professional photographer. She was the seminary’s receptionist and administrative assistant in Advancement Services.

Gideon Robi, copy cataloger in the seminary library, resigned in May to become full-time executive director of The Kenya Project for Education and Spiritual Growth, which provides opportunities for Christians to minister to the children of Kenya by supporting resources and facilities for their education, health, and spiritual development. For more information about this ministry, please visit www.thekenyaproject.org.

Megan Swett, Advancement Service’s director of prospect research and information systems, resigned in March to accept a position as director of information management with the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta.

Westminster Meets Ole Dixie

James Henley Thornwell’s Justification for Slavery as Seen in “The Relation of the Church to Slavery”

by B u z W i l c o x o n ’ 0 8

t o C T S S t u d ents

Of all the ministers and theologians in the antebellum South, none was as influential on both his contemporaries and the future of his denomination than James Henley Thornwell. Near the end of his life he was regarded by many as “the Augustine, the Calvin, the Melancthon—all in one—of the Presbyterian Church.” Thornwell’s primary vocation in life was that of an educator, serving as a professor, chaplain, and president of South Carolina College and as the chair of theology for Columbia Theological Seminary.

He served in a few brief pastorates during his career, was elected moderator of the 1847 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and was the most powerful figure in shaping the polity, theology, and mission of the newly formed Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America. His service to the church led him to defend the unique situation of the Presbyterian church in the southern states, a situation that was fundamentally characterized by the issue of slavery.

Read Buz Wilcoxon’s entire paper inVantage Online. Go to www.ctsnet.edu > News and Events > Vantage.

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VANTAGE Summer 2007

Vantage (USPS 124-160) Vol. 98, No. 4, Summer 2007 Published quarterly by Columbia Theological Seminary Periodicals postage paid at Decatur, GA Circulation: 13,000 The Office of Institutional Advancement Editor: Genie Addleton Assistant Editors: John Clark, Karen Fleming ’08, Sandra Taylor Design: Lucy Ke C o n t r i b u to r s Walter Baer (DMin student) Walter Brueggemann Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi Scott Chester Kim Clayton ’84 Richard DuBose Sarah Erickson ’03 Jon Faraone ’88 Kyle Goodman ’04 Bill Harkins Kitty Holtzclaw (DMin ’07) Ron Kerr Jin S. Kim (DMin ’05) Terriann Lawrence ’07 Glen and Miriam Lawrence Leupold Cheryl Mack ’05 Nelda Mays Emily Martin ’08 John McCrea ’49 Sherwood McKay ’74 Patricia McKinley Laura Mendenhall Paul Mixon ’61 Robert Montgomery ’50 Linda Morningstar (MATS ’98) Jami Moss David Murad ’96 Laura Pasch Barbara Poe Tom Roddy ’61 (DMin ’84) Jody Sauls Liz McGregor Simmons ’79 John Summey Sandra Taylor Walter Tennyson ’93 Chilton Thorington ’56 Jill Tolbert ’08 Susan Thomas ’04 (ThM ’08) Derek Wadlington ’06 Buz Wilcoxon ’08 Postmaster: Send address changes to Vantage Columbia Theological Seminary P.O. Box 520 Decatur, GA 30031-0520

P lease r ec y cle After you read this issue of Vantage, pass it along to a friend or colleague, or take it to your neighborhood recycling center.

c o r r ect i o n For more information about the wildlife sanctuary of Dorchester Presbyterian Church, Summerville, SC, go to http://www. dorchesterpresbyterian.org/html/ wildlife_sanctuary.html.

In the last issue of Vantage, we left the VANTAGE 2007 “l” off the end Summer of the URL.

Lifelong Learning Events For more information about opportunities listed below, to register online, or to download a registration form, go to www.ctsnet.edu > Lifelong Learning > Courses and Events. Then click on the dates of the courses and events you wish to attend.You may also call the registrar, Pat Roper, at 404-687-4587, for more information or to register by phone.

Unless otherwise noted, events take place on the seminary campus, in Decatur, GA. Some events listed below require registration through the Presbyterian Board of Pensions.

August 3–4 Above & Beyond: Hearing the Call of Jonah & Ruth.

(Presbyterian Women’s Bible Study Training). Taught by Linda Morningstar. Register by July 20. $70 (includes Saturday lunch). Offered on two additional dates. See below.

August 20–24 Above & Beyond: Hearing the Call of Jonah & Ruth.

At Roswell (GA) Presbyterian Church. Taught by Rebecca Parker. Register by August 6. $90 ($85 for members of Roswell Presbyterian Church).

August 20–24 S3 Annual Orientation Retreat. Annual orientation and retreat for cohort groups. Leaders: Dent Davis, Sarah Erickson, and other seminary faculty.

August 24–25 Above & Beyond: Hearing the Call of Jonah & Ruth.

Taught by Linda Morningstar. Register by August 10. $70 (includes Saturday lunch).

August 24–25 Theology and Polity: How Presbyterians Talk About God. For those in or interested in youth ministry. Leaders: Martha Moore-Keish, Sarah Erickson, and Neema CyrusFranklin. Offered in conjunction with the Youth Ministry Leadership Initiative (YMLI) certificate program; non-certificate participants welcome. $150 (includes two meals; campus housing available).

September 13–16 Immersion Experience: An Invitation to a Deeper Spiritual Life (Weekend). A feast for the soul and an exploration of the origins of the Christian spiritual tradition.

Introductory course for the Certificate in Spiritual Formation.

Occasional student welcome. Leader: John Kloepfer. $300.

September 23–28 Spirituality: Engagement or Escape? An exploration of approaches to the understanding and practice of spirituality in the contemporary context. A course in the Certificate in Spiritual Formation. Occasional students welcome. CEU credit available. Leader: Norman Shanks. $350.

September 17–19 Growing into Tomorrow…Today: Pre-retirement Planning Seminar. Presented by the Presbyterian Board of Pensions for Plan members and spouses (age 50 and older).

Led by Board of Pensions education specialists and retired clergy. No cost, but advance enrollment required. Seating limited to the first 30 registrants. To register securely online, go to www.pensions.org > Programs > Education > Financial and Retirement Planning Seminars.

For housing, register online or contact the registrar at roperp@ctsnet.edu or 404-687-4587.

September 20 Render Unto Caesar: Clergy tax and Terms of Call Seminar. Presented by the PCUSA Board of Pensions. Led by facilitators from the Board of Pensions with specialized training and experience in financial matters for servants of the church. No cost, but advanced registration required. Seating limited to the first 30 registrants. See registration and contact information above.

September 27 Art as a Window into Southern Religious Culture.

At the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA. Lecture by Erskine Clarke. $50 (includes coach bus, lunch, and museum entrance fee). $25 for Augusta-area participants. Register by September 14.

See details on p. 4.

October 3 Norman Shanks. Lunchtime lecture with the former leader of the Iona Community, in Scotland.A pastor in the Church of Scotland, Shanks will be on campus as a scholar-in-residence. Advance payment required; due September 26. $12 (includes lunch).

October 5–7 YMLI Beginning Retreat. The Youth Ministry Leadership Initiative (YMLI) is a certificate program partnership between the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta and the seminary. Designed for lay leaders and pastors committed to developing strong church youth programs. This weekend allows participants to ask important questions about their particular call to youth ministry and youth ministry as a whole. Leaders: Rodger Nishioka, Neema Cyrus-Franklin. $150 (includes two lunches; campus housing available).

October 15–16 Design/Re-Design for Worship Space: Process and Possibilities. Led by liturgical designer Terry Byrd Eason. $125; or $100 per person for two or more from the same congregation registering at the same time (includes Tuesday lunch; lodging and other meals extra).

October 29–November 2 Guthrie Scholars. A learning opportunity offered twice a year. Guthrie Scholars come to campus to pursue their choice of a topic that engages a pressing issue of the church from a Reformed perspective. The seminary covers all costs, except travel. Space limited to six participants. Apply by August 20.

More information. including application instructions at http://www.ctsnet.edu/lifelong/continuing_education/ guthrie_scholars.asp.

November 1, 8, 15 Telling the Stories of Our Lives. Re-visit times in your own life and learn to recognize the holy places where God continues to dwell. A three-session lunchtime course. Register

by October 24. Leader: Paul A. “Skip” Johnson, adjunct assistant professor of pastoral theology and care. $75 (includes three lunches; pre-payment required); $50 (program only).

November 11 & 18 Religion and Slavery: White Southerners, Good Intentions, and Difficult Choices. During two Sunday evenings explore issues faced by three young white southerners in the 1830s. Register by November 2. Presenter: Erskine Clarke, professor of American religious history and author of the award-winning history Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic. $75 (includes 2 suppers). See details on p. 4.

November 12 Eberhard Busch. Lunchtime lecture with this professor from the University of Göettingen, Germany. Busch is an expert in the theology of Karl Barth and the Reformation—in particular, the role of the church in advocating for social change. Advance payment required; due November 5. $12 (includes lunch).

December 7–8 Know Where to Turn When Youth Turn to You. Practical pastoral care with youth and families. Offered in conjunction with the Youth Ministry Leadership Initiative (YMLI) certificate program; non-certificate participants welcome. Facilitators: Neema CyrusFranklin, Sarah Erickson. $150 (includes 2 meals).

Save the Da t

Strengt

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Rural M hening inistry

Con ference

May 6– On the se 8, 2008 minary c ampus

19

Walking the line If you support the Columbia Annual Fund, you may have received a letter

Adam Copeland ’09, with his father, Brant Copeland (left) and grandfather, H. Richard Copeland.

We walk in a long line of women and men who helped build up Christ’s church.

recently about Adam Copeland and his call to ministry. But there is a little more to his story that I’d like to share with you.

It’s not hard to figure out from the photo at left that Adam is the classic “cradle Presbyterian.” When he was baptized in 1983, Adam’s father and grandfather—both Presbyterian ministers—were there. The same year, four-month-old Adam was at the General Assembly that reunited the Northern and Southern Churches—bringing his great-uncle and grandfather back into the same denomination. He grew up in his father’s church, First Presbyterian of Tallahassee, and was married there in 2006 during Sunday morning worship. This summer, Adam and his wife, Megan, will travel to Scotland, his mother’s native country, where they will serve the congregation of St. Columba Church, in Ayr. And when he finishes his Master of Divinity degree at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2009, Adam plans to follow in the footsteps of the last two generations of his family and serve a congregation as a pastor.

We may be tempted to read this story as an assurance that our pastors have the “right” pedigree. We might even find confirmation of this interpretation in Matthew, where Jesus’ family connections are so important that his genealogy kicks off the entire New Testament.

But how does this reading square with the rest of the New Testament, where Jesus urges us to pay attention to those whose “pedigrees” are far from perfect? To me, these family histories remind us of our dependence—on our families, our churches, and on God. Unable to stand alone, we first appear in history in the arms of others. And, as we are reminded at baptism, God’s love is also there, holding up each of us even before we recognize it.

This history is at the core of the Christian faith, symbolized by Jesus’ arrival as a helpless infant, told by the believers who cared for each other through hardship and persecution. We walk in a long line of women and men who helped build up Christ’s church.

We are called to build for the future as well. Your gift to the Columbia Annual Fund will support seminarians like Adam as they take their place in line for the next generation. With your help, we will sustain each other in support of our common goal: helping others recognize the presence of God’s love.

Sincerely,

VA N TA G E

Jami M oss W is e Director of Annual Giving

Summer 2007

P.O. Box 520 Decatur, GA 30031 404-378-8821 www.ctsnet.edu

Contents Three new faculty appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Bill Brown awarded Luce Fellowship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 New History and Theology program . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Bill Harkins on Virginia Tech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 H i s t o ry M at t e r s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5–15 Walter Brueggemann • Walter Tennyson • Tom Roddy • Elizabeth McGregor Simmons • Paul S. Mixon • You, history, and the Montreat Collections • Restoring history after Katrina • Jin S. Kim • Robert L. Montgomery • Kyle Goodman • Jon Faraone • Sherwood McKay • Chilton Thorington • David Murad • John T. McCrea Christianity’s new world geography . . . . . . . . . . 10–11 For the record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A tribute to Bert Carmichael. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Lifelong Learning events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 ...and H i s t o ry M at t e r s to Students Jill Tolbert• Kitty Cooper Holtzclaw • Walter Baer • Emily Martin • Terriann Lawrence • Buz Wilcoxon

Periodicals Postage Paid at Decatur, GA Publication No. 124160