The Road to Detroit: Issues of Social Justice Before the 221st General Assembly
Reflections on an Ethical Dilemma Looking Back as We Prepare to Move Forward As we approach the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA), we prepare for a longstanding controversy to come back to the floor — divestment from Caterpillar because of its manufacture of bulldozers used to demolish homes in
MoreA Response to Jan Edmiston Editor’s Note: A few months ago, Presbyterian blogger Jan Edmiston wrote a post on her blog, achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com, entitled “Denominational Political Stands (& Who Really Cares?).” Edmiston raised an honest and important question, one that is perhaps especially on our mind as we move toward another
MoreEditor’s Note: A few months ago, Presbyterian blogger Jan Edmiston wrote a post on her blog, achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com, entitled “Denominational Political Stands (& Who Really Cares?).” Edmiston raised an honest and important question, one that is perhaps especially on our mind as we move toward another General Assembly: Why do we
MoreThe following poem was written by Caryl Westerberg as she prepared for the Mosaic of Peace Conference of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program during which more than 100 Presbyterians traveled to Israel/Palestine to listen people – Jewish, Christian, and Muslim; Israeli and Palestinian – involved in the work of peace and
MoreMay 1, 2014 Editor’s Note: The following blog is one if the entries in the daily blog from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s Mosaic of Peace Conference to Israel/Palestine in April/May of 2014. Read the other featured blog in Unbound here, and click here to read more from the blog! If yesterday
MoreMay 3, 2014 Editor’s Note: The following blog is one if the entries in the daily blog from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s Mosaic of Peace Conference to Israel/Palestine in April/May of 2014. Read the other featured blog in Unbound here, and click here to read more from the blog! While no day
MoreFor the last two years I have attended Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) March shareholders meeting in Mountain View, CA, and I have asked HP’s Senior Vice President and Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, Ashley Watson, for an example of how HP’s ethical business practices have changed the way they do business with
MoreIntroduction The Presbyterian Church (USA) has been engaged in a decade-long struggle to divest from companies that are profiting from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. After an extensive corporate engagement process, the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) has recommended that the
MoreA Reflection from the Mosaic of Peace Conference Our bus drive from Bethlehem to Qasr el Yahud, the latter designated as the possible site of Jesus’ baptism, is brown and dusty like much of Palestine. Israel either claims or controls most of the water, so there is no chance for
MoreGrape-Nut Flakes. Eleven days in Israel/Palestine…eleven exhausting, eye-opening, life-changing days…so many defining moments, so many stop-dead-in-your-tracks encounters… And the take away? Grape-Nut Flakes. Let me explain. Put 110 Presbyterians in a hotel meeting room in Newark to prepare them for the Holy Land and you will have diversity: age, gender,
MoreEditor’s Note: As the PC(USA) heads to the 221st General Assembly wrestling with whether or not to engage in certain forms of boycott and divestment in Israel/Palestine, a church with whom we are in full communion, the United Church of Christ (UCC), finds itself wrestling with the same issue. This
MoreEditor’s Note: For business items before the General Assembly, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP, for short) has the opportunity to offer “Advice and Counsel” – including comments on the social witness implications of the overture, relationship to past social witness policy, and the opportunity to recommend approval,
MoreAs I write, the Presbyterian Church (USA) finds itself in a strange place, at an important juncture. Even as our denomination has affirmed our call to care for creation, we continue to profit significantly from fossil fuel companies. In November 2012, Cool Planet Working Group, one of the small groups
MoreAs a Christian theologian, I support marriage equality because I take the Bible seriously. More importantly, I take the God of the Bible seriously. The God I worship has a divine passion for justice that compels me to respect all neighbors and defend their human rights, including the freedom to
MoreMarriage in the PC(USA) That’s my daughter there, with the rainbow face paint and the “Love who you are” sign. We were downtown in Richmond, VA, standing with same-sex couples who have asked Virginia to recognize their marriages. Ours is one of the states that currently ban same-sex marriage. Last
MoreThe Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will soon make headlines, one way or another. The decisions we make at our 221st General Assembly will be reported across national media outlets through words loosely connected to what we actually experience together as a denominational family. (Prayers for you, reporters!) Amongst other decisions—some of
MoreGeneral Assembly Takes on Taxation in a Gilded Age “Tax Justice: A Christian Response to a New Gilded Age” provides Presbyterians with a framework for engaging in discussions about the large and growing concentration of income and wealth in U.S. society and about the tax structure as a way of
MoreThis article was originally published on the blog of the PC(USA) Office of Public Witness. “In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunities of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to
MoreA Reflection on Education Policy in the PC(USA) and Response to Item 14-02: “Educate a Child, Transform the World” My students are the legacy of Brown v Board of Education. Let me introduce you to my students. They are eighth-graders living in Tuscon, AZ, who find themselves tasked with studying
MoreAs I entered the scene, it felt like I was standing on sacred ground. A paradox, like so much of life in this part of our globalized world. There lay a woman, motionless and blanketed by the compassion of her counselor. Her integrity had been desecrated only the day before
More“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9). Humanity, Scripture tells us, has been made in the image of God. Jesus was recognized as the son of God. Central to the notion of being “sons and daughters of God” is that of being a
MoreA Response to “Risking Peace” and the Peace Fellowship’s Proposals The forthcoming General Assembly is facing a number of issues with important consequences for the present and future identity of the Church. While the two issues that have created the greatest pre-assembly discussion are whether to permit Presbyterian ministers to
MoreLet’s not drop the urban ministry conversation after the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaves Detroit. Instead of responding decently and in order through debate and a simple up or down vote on the ACSWP resolution “The Gospel from Detroit,” with its appropriate urban history, statistics, and
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