The year was 2009, the place was Yei in what is now South Sudan, the newest country in the world. I was a mission co-worker serving as the first principal of RECONCILE Peace Institute, and our first class of students had arrived. The student body included about 45 church and community leaders from a dozen or more ethnic groups on opposing sides of a two- decades-long civil war. They had come to Yei to take courses in community-based trauma healing, peace studies and conflict transformation.
Making long-lasting change to nullify racism, we must change our culture, build relationships with people who are different, and foster mutual respect.
Tuesday evening on the PC(USA) web series “Just Talk Live,” Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Robin Kimbrough Hayes recalled speaking at a town hall a few days earlier when she turned to the Bible and the passage in Ezekiel 37 about the Valley of Dry Bones.
“Seeing Jesus: Social Justice Activities for Today Based on Matthew 25” includes 60 social justice activities for children, teens and adults to live out the Matthew 25 vision.
Justice is at the very heart of who God is, Professor Rebecca Davis of Union Presbyterian Seminary said during a Thursday workshop at the annual gathering of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators. And justice is not a political issue — it’s a biblical issue. “We must come to grips with that,” she said to an overflow workshop crowd, “if we are going to be faithful to the witness of the church.”
With roots in a historic family farm in rural Appalachia with an old-growth forest, the Rev. Dennis Testerman is deeply connected to the natural environment and the need to care for it.
Living in intentional Christian community looks different this year for Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) in South Korea. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s two Korea YAVs — Susannah Stubbs and Amanda Kirkscey — are living in a school dormitory and a church guest house instead of the previous site model where they lived together, next door to the YAV site coordinator.
