One thing that the 20th-wealthiest county in the United States — a south-central Texas community — and a Boston neighborhood, Roxbury, which is riddled with violence and underemployment and is also the home of the R&B music group New Edition, have in common: Both are touched by the epidemic of mental illness.
Are you eager to advocate and lean into the Great Ends of the Church, yet not quite sure where to find the theological, ethical, and Reformed resources for such advocacy? Are you concerned by how some groups use the Bible as tool of rhetoric, yet not sure where to turn for rich biblical reflection on current issues?
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) serves the prophetic calling of the whole Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by providing the General Assembly with careful studies of pressing moral challenges, media for discussion and discernment of Christian responsibilities, and policy recommendations for faithful action.
Presbyterians for Earth Care has joined a growing list of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) groups calling for a speedy divestment from companies that contribute to the production of the two major greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide and methane.
Dr. Susannah Larry, the author of a new book on sexualized violence, got to know the “happy parts” of the Bible while growing up in a Presbyterian church but had to wrestle with the book’s more troubling aspects while attending Vanderbilt Divinity School.
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and World Mission organized a gathering with ecumenical representatives from around the world this past fall in Bangkok. The purpose was to have deeper conversations about worldwide crises such as climate, weakened democracy within nations and increasingly divisive practices among nations.
The following is a prayer from the Rev. Christian T. Iosso, who serves the Presbyterian Mission Agency as the coordinator for the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and the senior editor of Justice Unbound. The ACSWP, according to their web page, “serves the prophetic calling of the whole Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) by providing the General Assembly with careful studies of pressing moral challenges, media for discussion and discernment of Christian responsibilities, and policy recommendations for faithful action.”
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), which serves the Church by providing the General Assembly with careful studies on issues with moral challenges, Christian discernment, and making policy recommendations for faithful action, announced the publication of two new General Assembly resources. Honest Patriotism is a theological and ethical guide on civic responsibility. Religious Freedom Without Discrimination describes claims of religious freedom being used to exempt individuals and employers from providing women’s reproductive health coverage or goods and services to LGBTQ+ individuals.
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.”
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.
