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Featured Events & Reflections
We are celebrating a wonderful year full of adventures with Princeton Presbyterians! Take a look at stories from students and board members in our 2023 Fall Newsletter. We count on your financial support as we continue to grow and thrive as the Beloved Community with students. If you’d like to make a donation, click here. Thank you for partnering with us in this ministry!
Arrive in Paris by 3PM, check-in at Hotel: Ibis Paris Gare De Lyon Ledru Rollin 12th
Group dinner
June 4—travel by train from Paris to Mâcon-Loché TGV, bus to Taizé
Stay with the Taizé Community and gather as a group at tea time daily
Midweek trip to Cluny by bus for lunch
June 11—travel by bus to Mâcon-Loché, train from Mâcon-Loché TGV to Paris
Arrive in Paris by 3PM, check-in at Hotel: Ibis Paris Gare De Lyon Ledru Rollin 12th
Group dinner
check-out by Noon
Estimated cost is $1000 plus airfare per person. We are committed to making this trip affordable for students. Please fill out the google form application with a clear estimate of what you are able to contribute to the cost. Full scholarships are available for undergraduates as needed, and partial scholarships will be given to graduate students as needed. Further communication and financial questions beyond space allowed on the registration form are always welcome. Please direct them either to Len or Andrew. We ask $250 be paid by March 3, 2023 as a deposit for the trip. Checks may be made payable to the Westminster Foundation or given via link provided in the application form.
Participants are expected to read “A Community Called Taizé” by Jason Santos prior to to travel and attend a group dinner in the Spring of 2023 and, for returning students, in the Fall of 2023. Student interested in the trip can contact Andrew.
Learn more about the Taizé Community here.
Friends, we have had an exciting fall semester with Princeton Presbyterians, and we’re glad to share about it with you! We count on your financial support and prayers as we take up new initiatives like a Winter Retreat in Asbury Park, NJ, and a summer pilgrimage to the Taizé Community in France. You can make a donation online by clicking here.
There is so much to celebrate as we look back on the spring semester! From worship to service, feasting and resting together, we are deeply grateful for the resilience of the Princeton Presbyterians community. Find photo highlights from 2022 below.
It was with heartfelt emotion that we blessed and sent our three Seminarian Student Chaplains and four graduating students from Princeton University’s Great Class of 2022. Help us celebrate these leaders in campus ministry and invest in the next season of Princeton Presbyterians during our $2022 for the Class of 2022 stewardship campaign. Give $20.22, $202.20, $2022, or anything in between, here.
If you are in Princeton for Reunions, please stop by Princeton Presbyterians Open House on Saturday, May 21. Find details and RSVP here.
Princeton Presbyterians’ Fall Newsletter is full of highlights from the past year. Hear from Jonathan Wang ‘21 and board member Rev. James Klotz about the impact of Princeton Presbys, and get an overview of the year from Chaplains Len & Andrew. Please prayerfully consider making a donation to support Princeton Presbyterians of the Westminster Foundation here.
We are incredibly proud of the students and community that make up Princeton Presbyterians. Their perseverance and compassion in this time of physical distancing and social solidarity has helped the ministry remain vibrant even as we pivot in the pandemic.
Read more about what the year has looked like and hear from the executive co-directors, students, a recent alum, and a board member in the Fall 2020 Newsletter.
When the community isn’t gathered via zoom on Sunday evenings, there is a space to find resources and rest in the virtual chapel. It is curated by Nicole Busacca, one of Princeton Presbyterians’ interns from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Amid the struggle for social justice after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and Rayshard Brooks, student leaders of Princeton Presbyterians were looking for anti-racism resources in the Christian tradition. As a ministry, and as individuals, we imperfectly acknowledge our complicity in racist systems in the Church and world. We realize that our struggle against these sins will be marked by mistakes and opportunities to grow. Nevertheless, we commit to this work as a community that strives to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”
Chaplains Andrew and Len Scales have put together an annotated list of resources for learning more about the intersections of Christian faith and anti-racist activism. This list is by no means exhaustive, but we hope that it sheds light on our individual and collective responsibility as Christians to confront and dismantle systemic racism in the United States and the world.
Brian Blount is the President of Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA, and the foremost New Testament scholar on Revelation (The Apocalypse). His New Testament Library commentary on Revelation examines the Church as a community radically committed to proclaiming Jesus as Lord in opposition to the cruel and oppressive Roman Empire. His scholarship deeply influenced Breaking Bread’s 2019 Lenten sermon series “Revelation: All Things New.” Reflecting on the death of George Floyd, Dr. Blount draws upon Revelation’s rejection of systemic evil and its meaning for today.
Martin Luther King’s 1963 letter from prison addresses the urgency for civil rights, and the betrayal of white liberal Christian friends who named support for integration, but did not speak up or act in the struggle for justice.
In 2017, Presbyterian pastors, scholars, and leaders drafted the brief Sarasota Statement to reaffirm the Church’s commitment to working toward the Kingdom of God in our time, and to renounce racism, discrimination, and injustice with our words and actions.
In 1982, Reformed South African theologian Dirk Smit (now a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary!) was one of the authors who drafted the Belhar Confession as a rebuke to Apartheid in the 1980s. The Belhar Confession articulates how the Gospel of Jesus Christ stands opposed to segregation, racism, and apartheid, all systemic evils of our time.
Dr. Thames, Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University, preaches at The Riverside Church in NYC on Pharaoh/the President in Exodus/America: “What do you do when you are oppressed on every side?”
Dr. Barber’s sermon examines the Hebrew prophets and the ministry of Jesus to talk about the need for social justice movements in the United States today.
Dr. Cannon, one of the major voices of womanist theology, was one of the most incisive critics of racism in the Church. This short video features her and other theologians who have centered the stories and experiences of women of color in both Scripture and the Church today.
Shorter Clips
Catholic saint Óscar Romero was a bold voice who confronted systemic evils of economic inequality and political repression until his assassination during worship. This short clip from the Archbishop Romero Trust gives a glimpse of what it looks like to bear witness against corporate sin.
Within about two minutes, James Baldwin dismantles Yale philosophy professor Paul Weiss’ focus on individual responsibility for overcoming oppression with a devastating account of what it’s like to live as a Black man in an America defined by systemic racism.
A short primer on “intersectionality” from Kimberlé Crenshaw, the legal scholar who coined the term.
Dr. Kim is a professor of homiletics (preaching) at the Iliff School of Theology, and speaks in this clip about the need to represent different voices to grow in our understanding of who God is.
The Nap Ministry on Instagram
21 Day Anti-Racism Challenge by the PC(USA)
Cone was a brilliant theologian who developed African American liberation theology from the 1970s until his death in 2018. He is unsparing in his criticism of white churches in the United States as racist institutions. He demonstrates with clarity and creativity how the sins of racism are individual and systemic evils, that our whole society must confront its deep commitment to terrorizing Black people. The Cross and the Lynching Tree sets the horrors of lynching in America against the crucifixion of Jesus. Cone explores how the historical death of Jesus is so similar to the murder of African Americans, but he also excavates the failures of prominent white American theologians and pastors to confront racism.
Thurman was a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and he met with Gandhi in India in the 1930s. He became one of the most important voices for shaping the concept of non-violent resistance in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s. Thurman was part of the movement to desegregate the YMCA, he served as Dean of the Chapel at Howard University and Boston University, and he co-pastored a large, racially integrated congregation (Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples) in San Francisco in 1944. Jesus and the Disinherited explores Jesus’ life as an oppressed Palestinian Jew living in Roman-occupied Judea. Thurman confronts a complacent American Christianity that has nothing to say to the disinherited, the “people who stand with their backs to the wall.”
Barber is the pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC. He founded the Moral Mondays Movement in Raleigh in 2012, and he received the MacArther Genius Grant. He has recently revived Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Poor People’s Campaign” with Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. The Third Reconstruction is the story of Dr. Barber’s activism in “fusion coalitions.” On June 20, 2020, Barber and Theoharis led a digital justice gathering for the Poor People’s Campaign: a National Call for Moral Revival.
Gutiérrez is one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the 20th and 21st century. His A Theology of Liberation is not specifically about systemic racism, but rather about how systemic issues that oppress the poor are sins that the Gospel of Jesus Christ confronts. His context orients him toward a particular focus on extreme poverty and political repression in Latin America in the late 1960s. He offers a transformative perspective that God works in and through human history to deliver people from oppression (see Exodus, the Minor Prophets, Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels), and that theology must reflect critically on Christian praxis. For Gutiérrez, what we believe and what we do as Christians are inextricably linked. Furthermore, Christian practices should be critically evaluated by their impact more than their intentions.
Gafney is a Hebrew Bible scholar, She blends ancient Jewish interpretive methods (midrash) and African American preaching practices (sanctified imagination) to look at the lives of oppressed women and girls in the texts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). She examines systemic evil as a theme in Scripture, and what it means for us reading, teaching, and preaching these texts today.
Princeton Reunions is coming up this weekend, and we wanted to share an update about this spring semester. If you’d like to join us for Princeton Presbyterians’ Online Reunions gathering via Zoom, please pre-register here at https://bit.ly/2Z1azsL to receive a link to the party. We’ll meet on Saturday, May 30, at 1pm (EST). Join us!
Even though the year has concluded in quarantine, Princeton Presbyterians has a lot of reasons to celebrate! We are proud of the hard work that our student leaders, board members, and ministry staff have dedicated to the flourishing of this Beloved Community gathered around Jesus.
Before the physical distancing measures went into effect, we hosted our annual ecumenical Mardi Gras party with the Jammin’ Crepes food truck. Five hundred Princeton students, faculty, and staff joined us, the Wesley Foundation, the Episcopal Church at Princeton, and the Office of Religious Life for sweet treats and good fellowship. Our student leadership team also organized a "midterms care package table” where more than one hundred students put together a “study break” gift for themselves or a friend.
As students left campus to shelter in place, Princeton Presbyterians transitioned to Breaking Bread worship online via Zoom. Average online attendance at Breaking Bread Worship from March 15 through Easter grew by 36% compared to last spring. On May 10, we blessed and sent seven graduating students! We’ve also sent care packages to undergraduate students for finals.
There are some plans that we have had to put “on pause” until it’s safe to travel and be together again. We have postponed plans to make our June pilgrimage to Taizé with seven Princeton students. We also had a service day in Philadelphia with Broad Street Ministry planned, as well as various fellowship events like a "Mister Rogers Film Night” and a board games party.
What’s next for Princeton Presbyterians? Princeton University is currently discerning whether the fall semester will be online or in person. We’re continuing worship with Breaking Bread while students are sheltering in place, and our student leadership team is thinking through how to adapt and welcome new students to an unprecedented fall semester.
We’re so excited to celebrate the Class of 2020 during Princeton Reunions Online! Join Princeton Presbyterians for a gathering of Princeton alumni and friends just before the virtual P-Rade.
Featuring:
Music by the Hontz Family Band: Thomas '22, Nathaniel '21, Stephanie (McConnell) '92, Mark '89, and Susanna ('24 at Lafayette College)
Prayers and words of encouragement for the Great Class of 2020 by rising senior Jon Ort ’21 and alums Kim Pearson ’78, Blair Moorhead ’07, Jamie Hintson ‘18, Lafayette Matthews ‘17, and Rebekah Keazer ’16.
Sharing ministry year highlights with Chaplains Andrew and Lenore Scales.
Our Reunions party will meet via Zoom on Saturday, May 30, from 1:00-1:30PM EDT. Please pre-register via Zoom at https://bit.ly/2Z1azsL. We hope you’ll join us!
