Update from General Assembly

Hello from warm and humid Minneapolis. We are in our last full day of meeting of the PC(USA) General Assembly. It has been a long week.

I have received several communications from some of you about what has happened, specifically about the Assembly approving “homosexual ministers”. I will speak about what GA has done on Sunday morning, but let me give you some brief details now.

Often the media gets the story wrong, or tells it in an incomplete way. Right now we have a standard in our Book of Order for ordained office that states for church officers:

“b. Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W 4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”

This General Assembly, just as several GA’s in the past has done, has recommended that this standard in our constitution be removed, potentially allowing for ordination of active homosexual persons.

It is important to understand that this change MUST be approved by a majority of our Presbyteries before the change is made. That is how changes to our church constitution are approved. All previous attempts to make this change have failed; the last attempt was just over a year ago. I do not believe this new recommendation will succeed either.

That is not to say that I’m happy about everything the GA has done. They did reject any attempt to redefine marriage from “one man and one woman” to “two people”. That’s showed some good sense. But to say that we now permit the ordination of active homosexuals or as a denomination approve of any homosexual behavior is not correct.

Thanks to all of you who care enough about the greater church and our witness to the world to pay attention to this. Keep praying for the work of our GA.

Israel- The House of Bread

Here is a short photo essay for those of you who love good, fresh bread. How I wish such bread could be had as easily in the USA as it is in Israel.

Not to be missed is this little bakery in the Old City, Jewish Quarter (on the far south end of Jewish Quarter Rd).

Lutherstad Wittenberg

Let me start with a few side comments. First, allow me to continue my rant on the German transportation system. Today, I went to Wittenberg. I had to first travel about three miles to the main train station. There is a metro train (S Baun) that goes directly there from the station one block from our pension. It should have been a 10 minute ride to get to my 9:17 train. It wasn’t.

I had to change trains three times to get there. Add to that the fact that trains seems to run 10-20 apart. It took me almost 45 minutes and I missed the cheap 9:17 train to Wittenberg. No problem, I buy the expensive ticket for the nice ICE train. At least I get a nice ride for 40% more. I go to the #1 rail line, the train arrives, it has my train number on the outside and inside displays. I get in and sit down. But, it doesn’t leave on time. It doesn’t leave at all. I don’t know what happened, but eventually someone walks down the train and tells me, in German, to get off as the train was now out of service.

So I now get to wait 45 minutes and ride a cheap train with my expensive ticket. I never want to hear about German efficiency ever again.

Things get better. I arrived in Wittenberg to light snow and took a taxi to the historic town center. It seems that on Sundays everything but the historical sites are closed, which was wonderful. It left me with an almost empty, quiet, peaceful little village. A delight after the big cities we’ve been in.

This was a great visit. I toured Martin Luther’s house (which is now a great museum), the church he preached in, and the grand Castle Church where is 95 Thesis were posted (well, at least the re-built church, the original was mostly destroyed in a local war several centuries ago).

It was just great to walk down the same path the Luther would have walked as he strode paper in hand, from one end of town to the other to post his ideas for debate – not knowing how that action would change both Christianity and the world forever.

Some local color. Wittenberg is in the heart of what used to be East Germany.

The Town Church where Luther preached. A beautiful sounding choir was rehersing in Latin as I toured the church. It sounded heavenly.

Below is the Castle Church, where Luther posted his discussion proposals on the door and where he is buried.

Re-creation of the doors.

Tomorrow we fly to Amsterdam mid-day, to position ourselves for our flight home on Tuesday. I’m tired, but it’s been an amazing trip for me and I have over 2000 photographs to use as teaching resources into the future. This will probably be my last post, so thanks for reading. God Bless!

It's Saturday, so we must be in Berlin

Let me say that I learned something I would have never guessed: even the French have a better metro system than the Germans. After not a single misstep in either England or France, both Shawn and I struggled with the Berlin S ban today. It is the most confusing system I have yet encountered. God only knows what will happen when I try to get to Wittenberg tomorrow.

Today was great once I got there. I got to look at loads of looted treasures from a number of places that are Biblically significant. This includes what many people think is the temple that is called the “Throne of Satan” in Revelation. Also, by completer accident, I stumbled onto some very important papyruses from Jewish soldiers in Egypt serving the Persian Empire, asking for permission from Jerusalem to replace a temple to Yahweh that had been destroyed. I had read about these letters, but had no idea where they were. Here are a few pictures.

Paris Misc

Again, too late and too tired to write much. Some pictures of Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Enjoy

Louvre

Paris is called the city of lights. It should be called the “City of Stairs”. I did more stairs today than I do in a year. Unending stairs in the metro stations. More staircases in the Louvre than a human could count. No wonder the French can eat and drink all they want and not get fat. Their city is like a giant Stairmaster.

The Louvre is amazing and also the most confusing museum I have ever been in. Poor signs or no signs. Everything in French. Crowds everywhere. If it didn’t house some of the most interesting pieces of history and art in world history, you wouldn't go near it on a bet.

But, was able to find most all of the items I was looking for. We have a couple of days to poke around Paris, then on to Berlin.