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St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church: Austin / October 22, 2006.

Article Excerpt
After silencing a noisy congregation by striking a bowl gong three times, David Marks, a large middle-aged man with a long ponytail, welcomed us to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. He then turned to ask Pastor Jim Rigby, "We are still Presbyterian, aren't we?" The question drew a laugh, but not because it was absurd. One of the most openly liberal churches in Austin, St. Andrew's was locked in a struggle for its Presbyterian life as a result of such offenses as hosting non-Presbyterian theologians and, more famously, for extending full membership to the controversial University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen, an acknowledged atheist and unsparing critic of the Bush administration.

In an op-ed piece that the Houston Chronicle published on September 14, 2001, Jensen argued that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were no worse than "the massive acts of terrorism--the deliberate killing of civilians for political purposes--that the U.S. government has committed during my lifetime." That assertion triggered a fire storm of criticism and serious attempts to rescind his tenure at UT. But Jensen, who joined the church in 2005, did not come to St. Andrew's in...

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