This page lists our postings all of March, 2010

An overture, which will be numbered OVT 107, was approved by the Presbytery of Providence on March 18, 2010.  It calls for steps toward peace, including withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 31, 2010, and all U.S. armed forces and defense contractors by December 31, 2011, and aid to refugees and to returning U.S. veterans.  

The Rev. David McGown, who served as president of the Witherspoon Society in 1995, and was active in campus ministry for many years, most recently at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle Campus, died peacefully Friday afternoon, March 26, at his home in Santa Fe. He had struggled with Alzheimer’s for several years and had lived in an assisted living facility with his wife Jeanne for the past several years. A memorial service is being planned for Saturday.

Jeanne McGown's address is 2400 Legacy Court, Santa Fe, NM 87507.

Thanks to Ray Kersting for sending word of this.

In April of 2001 – on Palm Sunday, no less – David wrote a note to us reporting on a remarkable, inclusive, joyful, violence-defying worship service at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Santa Fe. Take a look at it, and give thanks for David, for his strong witness over many years, and his entry into the New Life.

We also want to acknowledge with gratitude that David's wife, Jeanne (to whom I apologize for getting her named spelled wrong when first posting this!), was one of the first and most active members of Voices of Sophia.

Here are a few of the important reports on a vitally important issue:

New National Poll: people of faith support immigration reform, approve of clergy speaking out

Large majorities of major religious groups support opportunity for citizenship

A new survey of U.S. citizens who are registered to vote by Public Religion Research Institute finds broad support across religious groups for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform and strong approval for clergy speaking out on the issue. ...

“By a 2-to-1 margin, American voters strongly support a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, and they want a solution that reflects strongly held values,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “More than 8-in-10 Americans – including overwhelming majorities of white mainline Protestants, Catholics, and white evangelicals – believe strongly that immigration reform should be guided by the values of protecting the dignity of every person and keeping families together as well as by such values as promoting national security and ensuring fairness to taxpayers.”   More >>

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“Need for immigration reform is now,” U.S. faith leaders tell White House and Congress

Two reports on visits to Congress by delegations of people of faith

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“A place to call home”

Ecumenical Advocacy Days calls for justice for immigrants, refugees, displaced people

Presbyterian News Service reported from Arlington, Va., on March 22:

The ninth annual gathering of Ecumenical Advocacy Days opened with an enthusiastic show of support for faith-based social justice work.

The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, asked the 700 participants [including about 100 Presbyterians] to raise their hands if they thought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a better theologian than Glenn Beck. The conservative radio and TV show host recently encouraged his audience to leave their churches if they hear the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice.’

The event focused this year on the need for immigration reform, on which Kinnamon commented:  “This is not a call for tolerance. It is a call for hospitality.”

The full PNS report >>
 

Robert A. McKenzie, in his book of reminiscences, comments on a famous dictum: 

Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian, said that Christians need to read the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He had it wrong. Newspapers, I discovered, are apologists for the world's power brokers.

To read the Bible aright we have to get behind the newspapers to the stories told by the poor and oppressed because the newspapers, not to mention governments or business or even much of the church, have no interest in the stories of the poor. But when I read the Bible from the perspective of the stories recited by the poor, I invariably find a perfect correspondence. Indeed, it is the poor themselves who make that correlation.

It's on pages 358-59 of Life Keeps Coming At Me: A Son of the Soil Takes Root in Berkeley (1st Books Library, 2003). The statement is more applicable today than at the time of its publication.

While the book has much personal and family information, it also tells the important story of how a North Dakotan who voted for Nixon in 1960 became a "Sixties radical" on the basis of his experiences in Berkeley (where he was pastor at St. John's Presbyterian Church from the Sixties to the Eighties) and in Central America. 

You can order through Amazon >>>>>

Thanks to Gene TeSelle

We’re looking for a few good volunteers
     ... to help staff the PVJ booth at General Assembly

Vicki Moss, our long-time Gracious Hostess at our Exhibit Hall booth, is looking for folks who can spend some time meeting and greeting people who come by the booth, helping them with any questions or concerns, introducing them to the materials and events that we will be providing ... and whatever else comes along.

There will be a sign-up sheet at the booth for anyone who wants to take a turn at staffing, or you can contact Vicki directly to pre-request a shift. Just e-mail her at luseana@me.com

Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty, an elected member of Advocacy for Women’s Concerns, and Associate Professor of Theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, takes a fresh look at the theological idea of sin, as it has generally been viewed in a distinctively male perspective, as a misuse of power.  But from the experience of women, the problem is the lack of power, and the cure for sin, then, is empowerment.

Her essay is published in the Winter 2010 issue of Network News (pp. 31-32), and is now posted here in html format as well.

The Rev. Melissa Lynn DeRosia met last January with the board and network leadership teams of PHEWA in Louisville, KY, and talked with them about her experiences with social media. She says, "They were particularly interested in how I utilize it in my local ministry as a pastor and connect with others across the denomination, as I serve as moderator of the Presbytery of Lake Huron and an elected member of the General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC)."  She has kindly shared some of her knowledge with us, as well.  Click here for her article >>

This article, too, is published in the Winter 2010 issue of Network News (pp. 40-42).

Help Make Tax Day Good News for Poor People

The Sunday after Easter is also the Sunday before Tax Day, April 15. Join Bread for the World in making it (or perhaps Wednesday, April 14) a time to reflect on the ways our nation’s tax system can help poor and hungry families.

Following the example of Zacchaeus, the tax collector whose confrontation with Jesus brought good news to poor people, our Tax Day resources—including a new hymn by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette—will help your members see the connection between tax policies and their neighbors’ ability to feed their children.

You can also use Tax Day as a way to help prepare your congregation for an upcoming Offering of Letters, or you may want to hold your offering on that day. Visit our site for more information.

Thanks to my diligent search for new knowledge on the Internet, I’ve discovered that "Britney Spears" can be rearranged to spell "presbyterians."

Here's an addition from Bruce Gillette:

On Glenn Beck and Social Justice

Valerie Elverton-Dixon, writing for Tikkun Daily, offers some very good reflections on Beck’s much-noted call for Christians to leave congregations that call for social justice – because they’re just serving the evil goals of the Communists and the Nazis.

She begins:

Fox News host Glenn Beck has created a firestorm by calling for Christians to leave congregations that preach and teach social justice. According to Beck, this is code for a socialist agenda. He has said that the one idea that Nazis and Communists have in common is the concept of social justice. Many Christians, and I would dare say many non Christians, are outraged by such statements. It is clear that Beck has neither a clear understanding of what social justice is or what most religions require of believers. Moreover, social justice is not only a requirement of faith, but it is a duty of citizenship.

Religion is the recognition that we as individuals are connected to others—to a transcendence, to other human beings, to nature and to all of creation. This connection leads to moral responsibilities both to ourselves and to others. We err when we think that we exist only for our individual selves or only for our family, tribe or nation. The more we grow in spiritual maturity, the wider is our range of moral concern. We not only care about our moral obligations to ourselves, but that care extends out to all. The them versus us delusion falls away, and we come to recognize that they and we are the same. We each are a part of the other. Martin Luther King called it a network of mutuality. This insight helps me to know the imperative that commands me to love God with all my heart and soul and to love my neighbor as myself.

The full essay >>

by Sylvia Thorson-Smith

This article has been published originally in our newsletter, Network News, the Winter 2010 issue, pages 28-30.  It is here online in PDF format >>

I have the very good fortune of belonging to a More Light Church in Tucson, Arizona (St. Mark’s Presbyterian). Since I chair the More Light Ministry Team and regularly teach adult ed courses, I think it’s important to provide regular opportunities for our members to study issues of human sexuality, especially as they pertain to our work for LGBT justice.

In January and February, I coordinated a 6-week course called “Querying Queer Sexuality.” The reason I used the term “Queer” is to familiarize our congregation with the changing meaning and context of this term. For many, it still feels like a negative label (weird, odd, abnormal), while within the LGBT and academic communities, it’s been recast as a broadly inclusive term and one that reflects new scholarly thinking (as in queer theory). There is much to discuss about this new terminology, as well as other changing attitudes toward the politics of sexual and gender identity.

I’ve been asked to give an overview of this series in Network News, with the hope that others may be encouraged to do something similar. Following is an outline of the course with comments about the content and process of each session.

The current Co-Moderator of Presbyterian Voices for Justice, the Rev. Bill Dummer, has been encouraging us to take seriously our calling to work for justice not just at global and national and denominational levels, but also locally -- right where we are.  So we're posting his thoughts about his own activities here, and inviting you to share what you're doing locally as well.

It may be a story of your own involvement in a congregation's or other group's work for justice in your community, or a report on what others are doing in your area.

What we'd like to hear form you:

The contents:

Ghost Ranch Seminar, July 26-August 1, 2010 –                
We’re All In This Together: Confronting the Structures of Injustice  (48)

Some of the articles in the on-line print version are also posted in html format, as regular web pages.  Clicking on any of the titles above that are formatted as links will take you to those pages, which may differ slightly from the "print" version.  And we'll be adding more of those as quickly as we can.

We regret that once again we are not able to print and mail this issue.  We hope we'll be able to do better with the spring issue! YOU can help by sending a  special contribution.  Just click here.

The Interfaith Alliance supports recommendations by the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, that would bring the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in line with the Constitution's guarantees of both religious freedom and the separation of religion and government. But the Alliance calls on people to urge the President to support those recommendations.

Full report of PC(USA) Middle East Study Committee is now available

‘Breaking Down the Walls’: a comprehensive report about a complex context

by Sharon Youngs, Communications Coordinator, Office of the General Assembly

LOUISVILLE — March 10, 2010 -- The full 172-page report of the Middle East Study Committee (MESC) to the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is now available.

The 219th General Assembly (2010) will meet July 3-10 in Minneapolis.

The third and final portion of “Breaking Down the Walls” was posted online at the Middle East Peace Web site today. The most recent release includes committee members’ firsthand accounts of their Middle East experiences, policy recommendations, and several appendices.

“This report reflects the extensive, hard work of the study committee and the wealth of experience each member brought to our discussions,” said the Rev. Ron Shive, a pastor in Salem Presbytery who chairs the MESC. “Given the interest in this topic and the diversity of our backgrounds, our conversations were always lively. And yet, we managed to have consensus on the bulk of our report and recommendations.”

All but one of the nine-member committee voted to approve the report and recommendations.

The MESC was established by the 218th General Assembly (2008) to “prepare a comprehensive study, with recommendations, focused on Israel/Palestine within the complex context of the Middle East.” The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the 218th General Assembly, appointed the committee in consultation with the two previous GA moderators.

In its report, the committee writes that the complex context includes:

... two, ongoing wars, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and the northwest border regions of Pakistan, wars that, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, involve issues of U.S. involvement, a use of force, an occupation, and religious tension. … ongoing struggles within particular nations: between religious and ethnic groups in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Lebanon; between the rulers and the ruled in Egypt and several other Arab countries; between the native-born and the guest workers in the Gulf region; between political factions in Palestine; between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel; between the ideals of democracy and theocracy in Iran, Israel, and Palestine; and between forces of modernization and tradition in all countries. The undue influence of outside forces continues a history of colonial interference throughout the Middle East. Yet most expert observers and popular opinion polls confirm that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is playing a central role in exacerbating region-wide grief and grievance.

The full news report >>

Download the full report >>   (172 pages, in PDF format)

Download the "recommendations" section only >> (9 pages in PDF)

The General Assembly website now has things set up for you to register both for the Assembly itself, as well as for hotel rooms and the many events that you may want to attend.

Click here for the first registration page.

The first official Assembly events are on Saturday morning, July 3, and adjournment is scheduled for around noon on Saturday, July 10. You may want to arrive early for events like the Voices for Justice Commissioner Orientation, which will be an early breakfast on Saturday morning. 

For the docket of official Assembly events >>
For the complete schedule of events >>  (This is 36 pages, in DPF format)

Please note that in the registration form for event tickets, you'll find our Commissioner Orientation on Saturday morning listed as "Presbyterian Voice (oops, just one voice?) for Justice Commissioner Orientation/Breakfast," 7:00 am-8:30 am

What once was the Witherspoon Awards Luncheon is now the Presbyterian Voices (we got our other voice back) for Justice Luncheon -- Sunday noon.

On the registration form, our name is abbreviated as PVJ.

About hotels – you’ll find the official GA hotels listed in the registration information, along with a map of the hotel locations.

Yes, the hotels are fairly costly, but Voices for Justice has a block of rooms reserved at a relatively good rate at the Best Western Normandy Inn, just about 5 blocks from the Convention Center. For more information, get in touch with Doug King, by e-mail at dougking2@aol.com, or by phone at (608) 782-5275.

Ralph Carter offers this advice for on-line registration: 

I strongly recommend you print out the schedule of events first, before doing the registration. Another caution: there are 5 pages with <continue> between them with the online registration. Be sure to make sure all fields are the way you want them before clicking <continue>. If you have to go back (I forgot to put in my email address, for instance), the computer gets confusedArchive for March and you have to start all over again. 

Another problem with the online registration: You don't get an itemized list of the tickets you have ordered, even when you are asked for your credit card. So, be sure to make sure the tickets are what you want. When you put in the quantity for each ticket, be sure to click the <tab>, so the dollar amount shows for the ticket. This may or may not make a difference, but better safe than sorry.

This comes to us from the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF).  Thanks to Gene TeSelle.

Domestic workers around the world are organizing to challenge the harsh, abusive, often slave-like conditions in which they work. They are organizing unions and support networks, and they are mobilizing in support of an international Convention that will finally recognize them as workers and establish their rights in international law.

Domestic work is one of the oldest and most important occupations for many women in many countries. It is linked to the global history of slavery, colonialism and other forms of servitude. In its contemporary manifestations, domestic work is a global phenomenon that perpetuates hierarchies based on race, ethnicity, indigenous status, caste and nationality. In the past two decades demand for care work has been on the rise everywhere. The massive incorporation of women in the labour force, the ageing of societies, the intensification of work and the frequent lack or inadequacy of policy measures to facilitate the reconciliation of family life and work underpin this trend. Today, domestic workers make up a large portion of the workforce, especially in developing countries, and their number has been increasing – even in the industrialized world. Domestic work, nonetheless, is undervalued and poorly regulated, and many domestic workers remain overworked, underpaid and unprotected. Accounts of maltreatment and abuse, especially of live-in and migrant domestic workers, are regularly denounced in the media. In many countries, domestic work is very largely performed by child labourers.

A new report from the ILO - Decent work for domestic workers - concludes that domestic workers need a Convention (the strongest form of ILO instrument which once ratified is a legally binding treaty) supplemented by a Recommendation to protect their rights. The IUF welcomes this conclusion, and on International Women's Day urges affiliates to take action in the runup to the 2010 International Labour Conference, where negotiations will begin in June to develop new international labour standards for the protection of domestic workers.

More, including action suggestions >>

We recently reported on a statement by the Simon Wiesenthal Center which called on Jews to protest to the PC(USA), both its leadership and its members, about the yet unpublished report of the Middle East Study Group on Israel/Palestine issues, that will be presented to the General Assembly July 3-10 in Minneapolis.

The following article has been prepared by the Steering Committee of the IPMN to address “the disinformation campaign being waged by the Simon Wiesenthal Center” against the report.   It begins:

In 2008 at its 218^th General Assembly meeting in San Jose, California, the Presbyterian Church (USA) affirmed the obligation of the Church to speak to U.S. and foreign governments when it sees those governments violating the commandments of God; endorsed the Amman Call created in 2007 by the Christian Churches in the Middle East which then called upon our denomination to take significant actions in our policies for seeking a just Israeli-Palestinian peace, assuring that we remain active partners in this effort; called for Presbyterians to travel and take pilgrimages to Israel/Palestine in a manner that offers a full view of life conditions for both Israelis and Palestinians; and strengthened its resolve to monitor closely U.S. corporations that support or profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In addition to these justice issues affecting all Palestinians, the Assembly was very concerned that intensified Israeli control of Jerusalem and the West Bank was accelerating the shrinkage of the Christian population in the Holy Land—a matter of real urgency at this point. Thus the Assembly voted to create a Middle East Study Group (MESG), appointed by the present PC (USA) moderator and the two most recent past moderators, that would report to the 219^th meeting of the General Assembly in 2010.

Poll shows strong support for ‘two-state’ solution in Israel/Palestine

Jerry L. Van Marter of Presbyterian News Service reports:

At least two-thirds of Presbyterians believe the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) should try to dissuade corporations from doing things that “directly or indirectly” support violence against Israeli or Palestinian civilians, and at least three in five Presbyterians believe that the denomination should shift its investment funds away from corporations that continue to support such violence despite pleas to stop.

These are findings of the August 2009 Presbyterian Panel survey of representative samples of members, elders, pastors, and other ministers.

“Presbyterians don’t want companies supporting violence in the Middle East,” said Perry Chang, Panel administrator. “And they don’t think we should keep our investments in companies that continue to do so.”

Recommends extension to 2012 to explore joint translation with Reformed churches

Sharon Youngs, Communications Coordinator of the Office of the General Assembly, reports:

The General Assembly Special Committee on Correcting Translation Problems of the Heidelberg Catechism has unanimously approved its final report to the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The report, approved March 2, recommends that the current special committee continue its work to 2012 in order to continue conversations with the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) and the Reformed Church in America (RCA) about a joint translation of the Heidelberg Catechism.

“The report brings great news to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),” said the Reverend Neal D. Presa (Elizabeth Presbytery), who chairs the committee.

Presa continued, “This group of fifteen ministers and elders, who represent a true cross-section of the PC(USA) in theological, gender, racial ethnic, and geographic diversity, unanimously approved the report. We are speaking with one voice, and our work together is demonstrative of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

The special committee grew out of actions of the 218th GA (2008) to approve proposed changes that revolve around correcting “translation problems in five responses of the Heidelberg Catechism as found in The Book of Confessions and to add the original Scripture texts of the German Heidelberg Catechism.”  [Webweaver’s note: These translation problems all related to matters of sexuality, and apparently introduced into the English version condemnations of same-sex relations which were not in the original languages.]         The rest of the story >>

He will be serving in one of twelve Cabinet level Faith-based offices, which are coordinated by the White House Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership Office.

Last summer Phil Tom received the Rodney T. Martin award from the Presbyterian Health, Education & Welfare Association (PHEWA) during the group’s opening reception at the Big Tent event in Atlanta, June 11-13. The award is named for the late Rod Martin, who once served as executive director of PHEWA, and after his retirement was president of the Witherspoon Society in 1994.

So-called mainline Protestants led the fight for social causes such as civil rights, equality for women and other key issues of the day. Now that American society has embraced such norms, liberal Protestant groups have become marginalized. Or have they?

Oliver Thomas, a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job), sees in the progressive side of the mainline denominations some movements of change that he thinks will make them far more congenial to “what matters to young people.” As examples he cites their growing openness to sexual diversity and same-sex relationships, their “growing commitment to global stewardship,” their recognition of the link “between peacemaking and poverty,” and their affirmation of “theological exploration” rather than simply the continuing repetition (and enforcement) of ancient doctrinal formulations.

To read his short essay >>

Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Caledonia Presbyterian Church of Portage, Wis., has filed a challenge of the vote by John Knox Presbytery to ordain Scott Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Anderson is openly gay, living in a long-term committed relationship.

Smith’s blog page invites comments. This was the first one posted:

April 17-19: SOA Watch Lobby Days

from SOA Watch

Join us in Washington DC, April 17th through the 19th as we organize to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC.

We will be demanding that members of Congress stand with us as we work for justice in Latin America. Currently HR 2567, the bill to suspend and investigate the SOA/WHINSEC has 98 cosponsors. Your voice is needed in Washington DC as we lobby and vigil.

We will gather to build community on April 17th with an evening social. We will host panel discussions on torture and immigration, go through an in-depth legislative training, and on the evening of April 18th, SOA Watch will host our first public event on U.S. access to military bases in Colombia. On Monday, April 19th we will spend the day lobbying and vigiling on Capitol Hill.

This is a critical moment for our movement and an important time to be in solidarity with our partners in Latin America. We hope that you will join us!

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219^th General Assembly are now being sent to the presbyteries for their action, to confirm or reject them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We're providing resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

Our three areas of primary interest are:

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep Voices for Justice going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Presbyterian Voices for Justice" and marked "web site," to our PVJ Treasurer:

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

Got more blogs to recommend?