The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, director of the Office of Public Witness, joined faith leaders from major Christian denominations to host a prayer vigil and rally in Lafayette Park in front of the White House on Wednesday. Their call to witness was to demand that the Trump administration stop slashing the refugee program and welcome 75,000 new refugees in 2019. The rally, sponsored by Church World Service, was held prior to the administration’s planned consultation meeting with Congress, which is expected soon, although no firm date has been set.
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has issued a letter today commemorating the anniversary of the dismantling of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“I’m just the pastor. This congregation rocks!” Such is the outlook of Kirk Perucca, pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church. This small, ethnically diverse congregation located south of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, has been a Presbyterian Hunger Program Certified Hunger Action Congregation since 2017, but has been advocating hunger, fairness and justice issues for most of its 110-year-plus existence.
Faith is not just personal; it’s political. Our leaders pass laws about how we treat one another, laws about money and finances, laws about how our resources are allocated and more. The Bible addresses these issues as well in Scriptures like the Ten Commandments, the parable of the sheep and the goats, Sabbath rules and Jesus’ advice to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions and give to the poor. To say the Bible and Jesus are not political is to deny their influence and relevance to our lives in the 21st century.
This Labor Day marks the 10-year anniversary of “A Social Creed for the 21st Century,” an ecumenical message of hope adopted by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. The creed’s foundation lies in the Christian bases of faith, hope and love and offers a vision of society that “shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination, and finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms.”
Presbyterian World Mission received a heartfelt message from the Rev. Wickliff Kang’ombe Zulu, Nkhoma Synod prison chaplain, expressing gratitude for sponsorship of his attendance at the eighth annual International Conference on Human Rights and Prison Reform (CURE).
Eight newly elected national committee members to the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP), which empowers economically poor, oppressed and disadvantaged people through its Presbyterian and ecumenical partners, gathered in Louisville recently for a two-day orientation session.
Presbyterian churches now have a new tool to energize and educate congregations around global issues such as poverty alleviation and climate change. The Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations (PMUN) has produced a new Educational Resource Guide that highlights what the PC(USA) and its global church partners are doing to address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
August 6 and 9, 1945, are the days that the United States Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing over 185,000 immediate and slower deaths in those Japanese cities. Ever since, most churches and many other religious and moral people have sought to prevent any further use of nuclear weapons. Remembering and mourning that initial devastation is part of the spiritual resistance of Christian obedience.
The Office of Public Witness (OPW), the public policy information and advocacy office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), recently published an updated version of its community advocacy guide titled “Holy Discontentment: Grassroots Advocacy and Organizing in the PC(USA).”
