Christmas Greetings from the Office of Stated Clerk PC(USA)

Office of the General Assembly

THE REVEREND DR. J. HERBERT NELSON, II

STATED CLERK OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6)

I am writing this letter while in the Holy Land with a delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) A few days ago, President Trump set off a firestorm in this region by committing to move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of three great religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This Holy City is the gathering place of these faith traditions in spite of religious differences and governmental/political interference. Sadly, this widespread harmonious acknowledgment of religious diversity and integrated history is disrupted by the Occupation, which oppresses Palestinians. Moving the United States embassy is a concrete reflection of cultural and religious indifference.

Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, was born with the threat of death over his life. Sadly, this story is still being repeated in this present age. The prophet Isaiah reminds us during this time of the year that the Lord’s coming is couched in the theme of Jesus’ birth. His attributes are listed—“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6).

It is my prayer that we will both act and pray to eradicate the global climate of oppression and indifference towards one another. May we be willing to declare the call to a peace that surpasses all understanding. This call includes challenging leadership in high places to seek higher ground in their efforts to build loving communities across the globe.

May this Advent/Christmas season be a time of faithful reaffirmation to our call to serve the peaceable Kindom of God.
In the faith we share,

J. Herbert Nelson, II
Stated Clerk
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

PC(USA) Greetings from Stated Clerk

This article is reprinted by the following permissions: 

You may freely reuse and distribute this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes in any medium. Please include author attribution, photography credits, and a link to the original article. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeratives 4.0 International License.

Article is written by J. Herbert Nelson II Stated Clerk of the PC(USA)

it is presented here in full for the edification of the church and witness to all

Merry Christmas, meditation for Christmas Year B

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, “The Birth of Christ,” circa 1490

In his painting The Birth of Christ, Geertgen tot Sint Jans tells the story of the Nativity through faces surrounded by the play of light and dark. The artist unites the narrative of Jesus’ birth and the deep theological reflection on the Incarnation from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. Geertgen tot Sint Jans layers John’s symbolic language onto the Nativity story through his use of light in the image. The infant Christ is a heavenly body, radiating his light onto those who surround the manger, a true light of the human race whose radiance scatters the darkness. His radiance brightens the face of Mary his mother and the angels paying him homage

Check out this video and more resources at the link below for "Faith and Advent" 

Faith and Art

Let the Stable Still Astonish

Gerard Van Honth: Vanderbuilt Art in the Christian Tradition used by permission

Let the Stable Still Astonish

Let the stable still astonish;
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes, 
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain, 

And then, the child, 
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough, 
Who would have chosen this? 
Who would have said, "Yes, 
Let the God of all the heavens and earth, 
Be born here, in this place"?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts and says, "Yes
let the God of Heaven and Earth be born here–
in this place"

Leslie Leyland Fields

Art and Faith Week 2 Advent Cycle B

The voice of John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness and gathering great crowds invites us into the Second Sunday of Advent. Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s St. John the Baptist Preaching captures this moment as he presents a wooded wilderness embracing a colorful crowd.  Art and Faith, a site of Loyola Press offers an in-depth look at this painting as a meditation for the second Sunday in Advent.  This is re-posted as a spiritual encouragement.  Click below to check out their site and a number of resources for Advent and Christmas. 

Loyola Press Site

Co-Moderators of PC(USA) call for deep cultural shift on sexual harassment

Co-moderators call for “deeper cultural shift” on sexual harassment and abuse

Anderson, Edmiston urge all PC(USA) church bodies to use preaching, teaching, and policy-setting resources to achieve complete gender equity

DECEMBER 7, 2017

from the Office of the Co-Moderators

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LOUISVILLE

In an open letter (link here) to the church dated December 6, 2017, Anderson and Edmiston cited “concrete tools for addressing these issues” and “strongly encouraged” Presbyterians to “use these [tools] in your ministries.” They listed resources for setting policies, teaching, and preaching.

This “deeper cultural shift,” the Co-Moderators wrote, includes coming to terms “with all the ways we victimize and objectify people, including actions that are often less noticeable. We have to be willing to examine and confess implicit gender biases that show themselves, among other ways, in pay disparities and comments about personal appearance.”

In sum, they concluded, “We must be a church committed to gender equity in all areas of our life together.”

The full text of Denise Anderson’s and Jan Edmiston’s letter:

December 6, 2017

Dear Members and Friends of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),

We write this today as leaders of our denomination—and specifically as leaders who are women—to address the harassment and abuse stories being shared via the #MeToo and #ChurchToo hashtags. For many, this movement has been both empowering and triggering, as people find themselves reliving sexual trauma from their past. We stand with all who have been victims of assault and objectification in the Church and beyond.

While it goes without saying that healthy boundary training, child protection training and criminal background checks are the responsibility of every congregation and council, we are called in this unique time to seek a deeper cultural shift. We are called to stand up against a world that allows predators to flourish and victims to be shamed into silence. The Church is called to be what the world is not: safe, life-giving, and willing to hold people accountable.

Our denomination—through the ministry of the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns and the work of the General Assembly—suggests concrete tools for addressing these issues. We strongly encourage you to use these resources in your ministry:

Resources for setting church policies:

The PC(USA) Child/Youth/Vulnerable Adult Protection Policy and Its Procedures (pdf) from the 222nd General Assembly [(2016)]

Resources for teaching:

I Believe You—a film exploring the stories of survivors of domestic abuse how faith groups might address their needs.

Resources for preaching:

We Will Speak Out sermon guide

Culturally, we must come to terms with the all ways we victimize and objectify people, including actions that are often less noticeable. We have to be willing to examine and confess implicit gender biases that show themselves, among other ways, in pay disparities and comments about personal appearance. While the stories being shared in the media are representative of perhaps the most egregious forms of sexual violence, gender bias must be disrupted everywhere it presents itself. We must be a church committed to gender equity in all areas of our life together.

We humbly ask that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continue to be a Church in prayer, asking God to bring healing to the victimized, redemption and correction to the victimizer, and a cultural shift to our denomination so that we might have the abundant life promised to us by Jesus Christ.

In Christ’s name,

 

The Rev. T. Denise Anderson &  The Rev. Jan Edmiston
Co-Moderators of the 222nd General Assembly (2016)

PC(USA) news links

Stated Clerk of PC(USA) issues statement on US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital

Stated Clerk issues statement on Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel

DECEMBER 6, 2017

Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II 

From the Office of the Stated Clerk

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LOUISVILLE

General Stated Clerk J. Herbert Nelson, II issued a statement today from the Holy Land – where he is traveling with a delegation of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders, criticizing President Trump’s decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and  to instruct the U.S. State Department to begin planning to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Nelson’s statement is similar to one issued by the National Council of Churches, which had been in contact with him earlier. In its statement , the NCC praised the witness of the PC(USA) delegation and asked for prayers for its safety.

The full text of Nelson’s statement:

Statement by the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II
General Assembly stated clerk, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 

Moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be a grievous mistake. For Christians concerned with peace and justice, Jerusalem must be a city shared by three faiths and two peoples. As long as Israel occupies East Jerusalem and restricts Palestinian human rights, to designate Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is to endorse the violation of international law. We pray for “the peace of Jerusalem” as Christmas approaches, but peace is not achieved by unilateral claims or annexation. There is a profound moral stewardship of the holy sites in Jerusalem that requires the shared decision-making of Christian and Muslim Palestinians as well as Jewish Israelis. Behind the many General Assembly statements affirming Jerusalem to be a shared city is the conviction that Jesus still calls us to be peacemakers.

Claiming Jerusalem as the capital for one people not only damages hope for peace between Israeli and Palestinians, but deepens religious tensions among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Each of our religious traditions has a long memory. Back in 1947, the original UN plan for two states called for Jerusalem to be an international city, so that religious coexistence there could be a model for tolerance around the world. The nations of the world have respected that good vision by keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv until a just peace can be achieved. For the U.S. government to act alone in the interests of one side is to end any claim that we can be an “honest broker” in a peace process to end the occupation of Palestine. It is for these reasons that we go on record as a church to express our deep disagreement with this action by our government. In this year of painful anniversaries for the Palestinians, it would be another betrayal to abandon the equal claims of both the Palestinians and the Israelis to Jerusalem, a city of historical and spiritual significance shared by Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

• UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) designates Jerusalem as a whole and its environs as “a corpus separatum under [a special] international regime,” to be administered by the UN.
• UN General Assembly Resolution 194 affirmed the free access for worship and right of return or compensation for refugees.
• the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 476 stating that “measures which have altered the geographic, demographic and historical character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem are null and void” and “constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

PC(USA) news link

Art and Faith First Sunday of Advent Year B

Art and Faith is a ministry of Loyal Press, the above video is an Advent meditation based on the art work of William Holman hunt, "The Light of the World" 1851.  Below is the link to their site.

Loyola Press Site