Church and state. Faith and politics. Religion and government. What a charged “and” links these oft-contested realities. Amid such flurried contests of identity, borders, meaning and structure, what do intercessory prayers, active participation and prophetic critique look like? How, when so many institutions — political, cultural and religious — appear to be fraying at the edges, are we to pray, participate, and critique in ways that heal and transform? These are pressing queries that resist simple answers. And yet perhaps a partial answer rests in the realization that there are numerous ways to engage in the life of faith and the civic realm.
World Community Day began in 1943 as a day for church women across denominations to study peace. After World War II, leaders of denominations felt that they should set aside a day for prayer and ecumenical study. The leaders thought that while many denominations were performing peace and justice work by themselves, having a day when they could study together would be beneficial to all. The theme for this year’s World Community Day is “Labor with Love, Hands to Heal.” “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10 NIV). As Christians, we are the hands and feet and heart of Christ in this world. Let us do all we are called to do in love.
Forty years ago, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa adopted Belydenis van Belhar — the Confession of Belhar — in its first reading. Belhar was an outgrowth of the DRMC’s effort to grapple with the church’s participation in and defense of apartheid and touches prominently on themes of unity, reconciliation and justice. The DRMC adopted Belhar in its final form in 1986.
By the end of World War II, there was a great urgency and need for global peace, and from that the international organization the United Nations was founded. Today we come together to celebrate the creation of the United Nations as the world’s only global organization and the one place where the world’s nations can come together to discuss shared problems and find solutions that bring peace and prosperity that creates a better world and future for all people.
A new group of Young Adult Volunteers arrived in Tucson in August 2022, where they were met with more than the usual level of rejoicing: This program year marks the 20th anniversary of the Tucson Borderlands Young Adult Volunteer program! For two decades now, young adults have sought the voice of God in their lives and in the U.S./Mexico borderlands through a year of service.
Each year, Presbyterian congregations join with partners around the country (and globe) to lift up World Food Day (Oct. 16) during the Food Week of Action – from the Sunday before World Food Day until the Sunday after. The week also includes the International Day of Rural Women (Oct. 15) and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (Oct. 17).
During my first year as a pastor, there were certain milestones I knew to look forward to. I looked forward to the first time I stood at the Communion table and invited my congregation to share in the feast, and the first time I marked an infant with water and proclaimed how much God loved her in baptism. I looked forward to my first Christmas and first sunrise Easter service. But there were other firsts that I didn’t know about that caught me off guard with their beauty.
“God, you are with me.” What a powerful statement of faith that is!
The psalmist says that even though we walk through “the darkest valley,” we fear no evil, or, as the King James Version of the Bible reminds us, “the valley of the shadow of death.”
Rola Al Ashkar is a Presbyterian Christian from Lebanon. She grew up in a nonreligious family, in a culture drenched in religion. Her parents took her and her brothers to church and Sunday school on occasions. When she had her confirmation class, she received her first Bible, and even as a teenager, she read the Bible with critical eyes, questioning parts of it and searching for answers. Her curiosity led her to regularly attend Sunday services, youth meetings and church summer camps, and through those experiences her faith grew, and she found a community in the Presbyterian Synod of Syria and Lebanon.
In the past several months, Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations has been leading peacemaking efforts in Israel-Palestine, the Korean Peninsula, and Sudan and South Sudan at the U.N. Some of these conflicts have been around as long as the United Nations has been in existence and appear intractable. Others are new, such as the war in Ukraine, as we note with concern the rising levels of political instability around the world. Peace is fragile, and justice is hard-won.
