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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

November 29, 2021

In 1995, the PC(USA) Mission Responsibility Through Investment office wrote letters to insurers and re-insurers, asking after their exposure to climate change risk, and whether they would limit investment in fossil fuels. After a quarter of a century--and one name change, from MRTI to the Office of Faith-Based Investing and Corporate Engagement--the Church continues a strategy of outreach to corporations responsible for the rapid warming of Earth's atmosphere, and to those whose business models stand the...

September 9, 2019

From the Papal encyclical Laudato Si, to the work of Fossil Free PC(USA) at the last General Assembly, to climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg sailing to New York, the costs and consequences of the global...

August 22, 2019
Theodore Roosevelt circa 1908. From a painting by Joseph De Camp. Image in Theodore Roosevelt and His Time (vol. 2) by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1920.

--This is the third and final summer post by Richard W. Reifsnyder looking at the ways Presbyterianism influenced the life and politics of Theodore Roosevelt, who died 100 years ago. Read Rich's first two posts on TR here.

During Theodore Roosevelt’s tenures as Governor of New York,...

May 1, 2018

Quick, what climate change prophet said this and when?

Finding alternatives to fossil fuels gives us the opportunity to realize new forms of community and to express solidarity with the poor and with the rest of creation. Our response to God's call is easily diverted by claims for national supremacy, institutional rigidities, and selfish individualism. We must, therefore, heed the Holy Spirit's working within us, reordering our priorities, bringing us to repentance, and empowering us for participation in the new era.

That was the General Assembly of the United...

April 11, 2014
Cover art from The Beauty of God's Green Earth, sermons by John Allan MacLean.

Like many citizens of the world, American Presbyterians have changed their approach to environmental conservation through the years. In the nineteenth century the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination encouraged a localized, private form of ecological witness, often through church publications. Today, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regularly issues panel recommendations and press releases advocating a coordinated, planet-wide defense of what God created...

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