Church and CultureGen Z talks about romance as an unbearable rulebook crushing them. Kosari hears the same paralysis in our churches, where marriage has become an idol no one can quite picture. She turns to Isaiah 52, where the Lord woos his Jerusalem out of captivity, for a different vision.
Church and CultureThe PCUSA constitution added two new categories this year and a new examination requirement that's already baffling presbyteries. Andrews offers pastoral guidance for sessions and committees on what's actually changed, what hasn't, and how to act faithfully without either overreach or quiet capitulation.
Church and CultureTwo PCUSA amendments are heading to presbyteries for ratification, and Andrews lays out exactly what they say, what they don't say, and what's at stake. Drawing on his father's prayer that he be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove, he urges presbyters to be both.
Church and CultureThe Westminster Confession is unambiguous: God alone is Lord of the conscience. Goodloe shows how the Olympia Presbytery's overture to the 2024 General Assembly threatens that bedrock principle, and why every Presbyterian, whatever their view on the underlying issues, has reason to defend it.
Church and CultureNixon walks through what actually happened with POL-01 (the Olympia Overture) at the 2024 General Assembly, why the split-vote outcome is more ambiguous than either side claims, and what congregations and sessions need to think about as the amendments now move to the presbyteries.
Church and CultureTheology Matters joins a public pledge for Presbyterian officers facing an overture that would compel them to affirm what they do not believe. Reading like an open letter, the piece calls clergy and elders alike to stand on the historic doctrines of creation and redemption rather than yield.
TheologyA century ago Harry Emerson Fosdick stood in a New York Presbyterian pulpit and preached against ordination standards he considered illiberal. Burnett returns to that famous sermon for its centennial, asking what it set in motion, what it cost, and what it still tells us about American Christianity.
Confessing the FaithBurgess responds to the 225th General Assembly's call for a new PCUSA confession of faith with a different proposal: confess our present inability to make a common confession, and clarify what we would confess if we could. A serious work-around for a denomination at an impasse.
Confessing the FaithThe PCUSA's Book of Order has long carried six 'Great Ends of the Church' that mark out what every Presbyterian congregation is for. Small reads them slowly, asks whether contemporary church life still recognizes itself in them, and offers a defense of orthodoxy that is anything but defensive.
Confessing the FaithThe PCUSA's own panel survey on theological reflection turns up some good news and considerable confusion. Bush walks through the data carefully, including how the survey's own categories made a coherent answer harder than it had to be, and what the responses tell us about where Presbyterians actually stand.
Church and CultureAndrews preaches 2 Corinthians 5 to the 222nd General Assembly: from now on we regard no one from a human point of view. The vertical reconciliation God has accomplished in Christ creates and shapes every horizontal one. A sermon for a denomination tempted to invert the order.
Confessing the FaithAfter two decades of asserting that theology matters, Burnett asks the harder question: has it actually mattered? He surveys the major debates in the PCUSA over sexuality, the sanctity of life, and Book of Order revisions, and asks how often theology has actually shaped the outcomes.
Theology Matters is sent free in print to anyone who requests it, sustained primarily by readers like you. Tax-deductible.
Give a Gift