Here are some links for keeping 'up-to-date' on the latest news of interest impacting our world locally and globally:

World Magazine

Christian Post

The Aquila Report

The Presbyterian Layman

"Breaking News" from Sermon Audio

Also, read commentary and access other news of interest related to our ministry below...

 

---)-------------

The ARP News Update
A Service of the Board of The ARP
Link here for the latest: http://arpc.wordpress.com/

---)-------------

 

---)------------- ---)------------- ---)-------------


How best to pray for Iran

By Elizabeth Kendal
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 010
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) – In 1989 the father of the Iranian Revolution, Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, died without a successor. His rightful and designated successor, Grand Ayatollah Hussain Ali Montazeri, had been sidelined in 1988 for protesting corruption and human rights abuses. At that time Khamenei was President, Mousavi was Prime Minister and Rafsanjani was speaker of the Parliament.

They were secure because they had not protested the purges and massacres! Possibly because Rafsanjani thought Khamenei could be easily controlled, Rafsanjani convinced the Assembly of Experts to appoint Khamenei as Supreme Leader, even though he was not qualified for the role. However, after Rafsanjani became president the two men started to clash. Rafsanjani's power base was the business class, so he supported business, the elite and economic growth. Khamenei's power base was “the masses,” so he supported the clerics, the poor and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Khamenei and the IRGC brought Ahmadinejad to power in 2005 specifically because he would serve their interests. With Ahmadinejad in power, the IRGC has been able to extend its control over much of the Iranian economy and pursue its own, and Khamenei's, regional ambitions.

So, at the heart of the present troubles is a power struggle between the Khamenei-IRGC-Ahmadinejad camp versus the Rafsanjani-Mousavi camp. Both camps are in the conservative block and all those involved are Islamists – none of them are counter-revolutionaries. The Ahmadinejad camp is ideologically driven and committed to exporting Revolution, spending billions of petro-dollars through the IRGC on foreign adventures in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon and beyond to establish regional hegemony. The Mousavi camp on the other hand, though equally Islamist, wants less belligerence and good international relations so it can focus on domestic issues and the economy. The largely young, urban intellectuals who have been protesting in the streets of Tehran are simply embarrassed by and frustrated with the present regime and are desperate for change. One analyst described Mousavi as merely a “balloon” that had been “inflated” by those determined to express their anger against Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Independent analysts both inside and outside Iran believe that election fraud has taken place. However, this does not mean that Ahmadinejad would not have won the election anyway. He is enormously popular and is virtually worshipped by masses of rural poor who greatly appreciate his generous handouts. It is widely believed Khamenei and the IRGC wanted not only to guarantee Ahmadinejad's election but to provide him with a powerful mandate. The ruling regime had every intention of retaining power. As opposition started to mount even before the election, a senior official from the IRGC, Yadollah Javani, warned that the Revolutionary Guards would crush any attempt at a “Velvet Revolution.”
Khamenei and Ahmadinejad control the guns and have the support of a clear majority of the 86-member Assembly of Experts (AoE). When Rafsanjani (who heads the AoE) recently approached the AoE – possibly in an attempt to de-legitimise Khamenei – his daughter and four other relatives were arrested. The Khamenei-Ahmadinejad-IRGC camp will retain power for the time being. Meanwhile, discontent, desperation and disillusionment are mounting.

 

---)-------------

Presbyterian history springs from a common source! But there are many tributaries that divide from that stream. One expression of the Presbyterian faith has continued to enter rough waters! Our prayer is for those in the PCUSA who wish stand with traditional expressions of faith and values will continue to coordinate their efforts with like minded congregations. For those who no longer wish to swim against the tide -- may we recommend America's longest preserved Presbyterian denomination, The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

---)-------------

Looking for a miracle
A transformed denomination seeks to transform its college and seminary | Joel Belz

Thursday, June 11, 2009; may not go down as an especially noteworthy date in the overall history of Christian higher education. But then again, before it's all over, maybe it should.

On that morning a couple of weeks ago, 300 churchmen representing one of the oldest and smallest denominations in America decided that enough was enough—and that it was time to end the doctrinal drift they sensed at the church's two educational institutions.

Erskine College and Erskine Theological Seminary, you must understand, are no bastions of free-thinking liberalism. Located in Due West, S.C. (population 1,208), both schools have since their founding in the 1830s competently filled their role as solid and respectable citizens of the educational world. A radical philosopher like Peter Singer from Princeton or a wild-eyed Ward Churchill of University of Colorado fame would hardly be at home here.

But neither does Erskine's leadership seem inclined to call the school anything like "evangelical." On the Erskine website, under "Quick Facts," you'll read about academic standing—but not about Christian commitment. Even under the heading of "Curriculum," there's no reference to Erskine's Christian mission. That tension has long been a thorn in the flesh of many in Erskine's parent denomination, the 30,000-member Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP).

It's true, of course, that such a prickly relationship between a denomination and its colleges and seminaries is hardly a new thing or a newsworthy matter. But this may be different. There is, for example, no mountain of evidence that the two ARP schools have lurched noticeably leftward in recent years. What's happened instead is that the sponsoring denomination has itself moved decidedly to the right—and now wants to take firm steps to bring its college and seminary with it. That's a rarity in the ecclesiastical and educational history of America.

The big complaint is that in classroom after classroom, an Erskine education is not demonstrably different from that offered in a typical private secular college—or even a state university. "There's no integration of faith and learning going on by too many professors," ARP pastor Bill Marsh told me. Out of 250 congregations (mostly in the Southeast), he's pastor of one of the ARP's biggest, in Greensboro, N.C. "The challenge is huge," he said. "If half the faculty don't get it, and the other half are hostile to it, we're well on the road to becoming another Furman or another Davidson. We'll have a Christian heritage, but not much more than a chapel and a chaplain to show for our effort."

Although the ARP directly elects Erskine's board at its annual synod meeting, the church is saying now that it's tired of waiting for the board to make things better. Instead, the synod authorized a high-powered commission to investigate the state of things at both Erskine schools, and to report back its findings—and its recommendations—a year from now.

"Now we have momentum," said John Basie, a 1996 Erskine graduate, one of the younger members of the Erskine board, and a lively Erskine critic. "The problem starts with the board—but I hope the board will see this less as a threat and more as an opportunity. Erskine has the potential to be the premier Christian liberal arts college in the South."

But the reformers have their work cut out for them—-especially with faculty and students. Faculty issues include sticky wickets like tenure obligations and accrediting agencies that look askance at any pressure by church bodies on academic institutions. Student issues go to the core of tradition and college culture—and the school's ability to recruit students interested in serious academics in an evangelical context, when that hasn't been Erskine's profile for a number of years.

Of Erskine's 600 students, 144 signed a passionate petition to the ARP synod this spring to wade in and steer the college back toward its biblical roots. One of those 144 told me he thinks evangelicals comprise about a third of the student body, while liberals make up a much smaller group—and the remaining students are uninterested in the whole discussion.

That, one veteran of the ARP told me, isn't all that different from the denomination at large just 30 years ago. "Then the ARP rediscovered a high view of Scripture," he said. "We rediscovered a high view of the gospel. A miracle happened with the church at large. Is there anything about academic institutions that makes them impervious to miracles?"

If you have a question or comment for Joel Belz, send it to jbelz@worldmag.com.

 

---)-------------

Link to Outreach North America (ARP)