Mission

Unbound: An Inter­ac­tive Jour­nal of Chris­t­ian Social Jus­tice (“Unbound”) is an online jour­nal and com­mu­nity that exam­ines, expresses, and pro­vokes social jus­tice as inspired by the prophetic gospel of Jesus Christ. As both a jour­nal and a forum for con­ver­sa­tion, action and com­mu­nity build­ing, Unbound is at once the inher­i­tor of the print jour­nal Church & Soci­ety (98 years run­ning) and the inno­va­tor of an inter­ac­tive approach to sup­port­ing social min­istry. This means we are not solely a jour­nal, nor solely another web­site or news outlet.

By mak­ing the jour­nal freely avail­able on the inter­net, we seek to attract a great diver­sity of read­er­ship in the “World House,” beyond the Pres­by­ter­ian, ecu­meni­cal and Chris­t­ian houses that are our base. This means broad­en­ing while affirm­ing the long-time mis­sion state­ment: “to pro­vide a forum for the church on sub­jects of social con­cern for Chris­tians. It includes reflec­tive com­ment on social issues, mod­els and resources for indi­vid­ual and group study and action, and arti­cles to encour­age dia­logue among per­sons with reli­gious com­mit­ment. Arti­cles rep­re­sent the opin­ion of the authors.”[1] Broad­en­ing the dis­cus­sion online means adding options for any reader (over the age of 13) to join in crit­i­cal yet respect­ful dia­logue, nec­es­sar­ily pro­tected against a wide range of poten­tial misuses.

Unbound remains a jour­nal. Four to six times a year, Unbound issues a theme-based col­lec­tion of well-crafted and thought-provoking arti­cles writ­ten by aca­d­e­mics, clergy, lay lead­ers, and prac­ti­tion­ers of all kinds. These arti­cles are sub­ject to edit­ing by an edi­to­r­ial team of staff and guest edi­tors. Fur­ther­more, upon request of the author, arti­cles may be sub­ject to peer review – and will be iden­ti­fied as such. These jour­nal issues con­sti­tute an inten­tional and focused exam­i­na­tion of press­ing jus­tice mat­ters, con­vers­ing with, even cri­tiquing, the poli­cies of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) and the larger church.

Unbound is also a com­mu­nity, adding inter­net dimen­sions to the long­time Church & Soci­ety forum. In between jour­nal issues, Unbound is alive with action alerts, dis­cus­sion pieces, com­ments, news, blogs, mul­ti­me­dia, art, an events cal­en­dar, orga­niz­ing tools for local and national move­ments, all related to jus­tice, social wit­ness and min­istry. Reader-participants, over the age of 13, (for the pur­poses of col­lec­tive own­er­ship, rel­e­vance, and free exchange) are invited to start con­ver­sa­tions, inter­act with other users, and sub­mit art and alter­na­tive forms of expres­sion, related to imme­di­ate mat­ters of con­science and sol­i­dar­ity and to the themes of cur­rent and upcom­ing jour­nal issues.

By pro­vid­ing such an inter­ac­tive jour­nal, we seek to unite con­tent with com­mu­nity, analy­sis with action, mis­sion with wor­ship, schol­ar­ship with broad read­er­ship, and social media with orga­niz­ing efforts. Through Unbound, we encour­age com­mu­ni­ties and indi­vid­u­als to come together for timely, provoca­tive social thought and action for justice.

Unbound is pub­lished by the Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Social Wit­ness Pol­icy (“ACSWP”) of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.), which is elected by the Gen­eral Assem­bly Mis­sion Coun­cil (“GAMC”) to develop, inter­pret, and mon­i­tor poli­cies that encour­age and chal­lenge church and soci­ety to reflect and act in faith­ful response to God’s call to do jus­tice.[2] The edi­to­r­ial team’s pri­mary account­abil­ity is to ACSWP as it encour­ages lis­ten­ing and dia­logue across the Church and out­side it. Work­ing par­tic­u­larly with the Com­pas­sion, Peace, and Jus­tice Min­istries area of the Gen­eral Assem­bly Mis­sion Coun­cil, Unbound is thus guided by the poli­cies of the Church but open to sometimes-controversial new ideas, chal­lenges, and mat­ters of self-critique. As in the pre­vi­ous Church & Soci­ety, edi­to­r­ial integrity requires care­ful dis­cern­ment and free­dom of judg­ment. The edi­to­r­ial team and its guest edi­tors (for­merly, con­tent edi­tors) are also advised by a board of advi­sors drawn from con­gre­ga­tional lead­er­ship, col­leges and sem­i­nar­ies, and Gen­eral Assem­bly agency staff.

Unbound thus oper­ates with the fol­low­ing the objectives:

  1. To strengthen the Chris­t­ian con­science of read­ers as they seek to be faith­ful dis­ci­ples of Jesus Christ.
  2. To be a forum for thought­ful con­ver­sa­tion open to all (over the age of 13) con­cerned with jus­tice, inside and out­side the church, includ­ing effort to include “the voices of those long silenced.”
  3. To pro­vide resources to com­mu­ni­ties, con­gre­ga­tions, and orga­ni­za­tions deal­ing with mis­sion, ethics, pub­lic the­ol­ogy, and social witness.
  4. To empower and pro­vide a vehi­cle for col­lec­tive action based on the online exchange of strate­gies and the for­ma­tion of rela­tion­ships that extend beyond the vir­tual world.
  5. To help con­nect min­istries (be they on the col­lege cam­pus, in the prison, the social ser­vice agency, in urban, sub­ur­ban or rural com­mu­ni­ties and else­where) with each other and with the most cur­rent strate­gies and strug­gles of the larger church.
  6. To share ideas and pro­grams from the Com­pas­sion, Peace, and Jus­tice Min­istry area, the Church’s con­fer­ence cen­ters and spe­cial­ized pub­lic wit­ness pro­grams of the Wash­ing­ton and United Nations offices.

By using this web­site or by sub­mit­ting arti­cles, reviews, com­ments, artis­tic or other mate­r­ial, you agree to the Sub­mis­sion Guide­lines, Com­ments Guide­lines and Terms of Ser­vice and Pri­vacy Pol­icy. If you do not agree, do not use this website.

[1] Orig­i­nal print Church & Soci­ety mis­sion statement.

[2] Mis­sion State­ment of the Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Social Wit­ness Pol­icy (ACSWP) approved at its meet­ing on Octo­ber 24–27, 2002 in El Paso, Texas.

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