This page lists our postings from earlier in October, 2010

Here's a great new study guide on the Belhar Confession

The 219th Assembly recommended the inclusion of the Belhar Confession, developed by the churches of South Africa, as part of our Book of Confessions

In our PVJ summary of the Assembly, we reported:

The Assembly voted 525–150 to send the Belhar Confession to the presbyteries for their votes to include it as the 12th doctrinal statement in the denomination’s Book of Confessions. The Belhar Confession was developed in the mid-1980s by the South African churches as their theological response to the racism of apartheid. That confession is valuable, proponents say, because it seeks to address issues of racial justice and reconciliation that are still relevant today. One overture opposed this based on the fear that Belhar’s affirmation of justice might be cited to oppose the exclusion of LGBT people from full participation in the life of the church, just as apartheid excluded people in South Africa on the basis of their race.  

We are happy to provide you with a very helpful study guide, below, on the Belhar Confession, prepared by the Rev. Lorelei Hillman, of Phoenix, Arizona.  She is a member of the Coordinating Team of Voices for Justice, and is currently serving as Interim Associate Pastor of University Presbyterian Church, Tempe, AZ.

Click here for the easy-to-print PDF version of this 6-page study guide.

And click here for a brief comment by the Rev. John Harris, examining the reasons why "We Need Belhar."

Last Saturday, (Oct. 23) we posted the announcement by the Board of Pensions (BoP for short) of its naming of a special committee to study how it should respond to a call by the 219^th General Assembly to provide full benefits to same-gender partners as well as married couples. We soon received this comment from Arnold Rots, who was one of the overture advocates at the Assembly for the overtures calling on the BoP to take this action:

It is hard to tell whether the BoP is taking evasive, obstructive action or is just trying to get cover.

This should have been straightforward: BoP said in 2008 "we can do it." GA said in 2010 "go do it." BoP responded "we will." So why do they need an extra committee to study things yet again?

Also, it is not BoP's job to function as PC(USA) polity police, assuming the role of presbyteries and PJCs: The question of whether ordained members should be covered is none of its business, but it is [stated] right there, front and center, in the committee's charge.

It all makes me wonder whether coverage will indeed be implemented by 2012.

  - Arnold

Click here to read the statements by the three advocates for related overtures.  (They're in PDF format.)

That the 219th General Assembly (2010): 1. Urge the Board of Pensions to adopt amendments to the Benefits Plan to extend eligibility for spousal and dependent benefits under the Plan to Benefits Plan members, their same-gender domestic partners, and the children of their same-gender domestic partners, on the same basis as, and equivalent to, benefits made available to Benefits Plan members, their spouses, and the children of their spouses. 2. Approve an increase in dues for the Benefits Plan of up to 1 percent, effective January 1, 2012, to be allocated among the plans of the Board of Pensions, including but not limited to the Pension Plan, as the Board, in its sole discretion, deems necessary to fund the cost of the additional benefits. Should the Board not implement these benefits for any reason, approval of the increase in dues is rescinded. Comment: That the Board of Pensions be highly urged to provide relief of conscience, to be implemented simultaneously with these actions, for those congregations for whom these actions cause a moral dilemma.

From the National Religious Campaign Against Torture Action Fund

In the 2010 election we face a stark choice between electing an anti-torture Congress and electing a Congress that might repeat the mistakes of the past and again make torture a part of U.S. interrogations. You can make the difference in this election by taking the opportunity to educate your friends, family, and community about the issue of torture and your candidates’ stances on torture.

The NRCAT Action Fund has produced two Congressional Vote Scorecards (one for the Senate  and one for the House ) that rate every current Member of Congress on their votes with respect to torture. Please look up your Members of Congress and share information about their voting records on torture with your friends and family.

Religion News Service reports:

Six months after advisers turned in 164 pages of recommendations to the White House’s faith-based office, thorny church-state questions remain unanswered and some critics say the office has been used to push the president’s health care reform.

Much of the work done by the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships has been low profile, and successors to the blue-ribbon advisory panel that ended its work in March haven’t been named.

Outsiders say whatever progress has been made has been done too quietly and that the White House has dragged its feet on a promise to change Bush-era rules that allow federal grant recipients to hire and fire based on religion.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s been six months of silence,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who served on a task force charged with reforming the office.

Joshua DuBois, who was tasked by President Obama with overhauling and expanding the office, estimated the administration has started or finished implementing at least half of the advisory council’s 64 recommendations.

Program will give student leaders and chaplains skills to lead interfaith community service events

News release from Evangelism & Church Growth Ministries, PC(USA)

Ten Presbyterian Colleges and Universities have been selected to attend the Interfaith Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C. this weekend (October 22-24). Chaplains and students from Agnes Scott, Carroll, Coe, College of the Wooster, Macalester, Mary Baldwin, Marysville, Rhodes, Schreiner and Westminster will join about 100 other delegations from colleges and universities.

The event, sponsored by Interfaith Youth Core (IFCY), the White House and its faith based community initiative office, will provide leadership training designed, according to information on its website, "to give student leaders and campus staff allies the vision, knowledge and skills necessary to lead interfaith and community service initiatives on campus." Interfaith Youth Core Founder Eboo Patel, voted one of America’s best leaders in 2009, created the organization to bring people together from different religious backgrounds, creating opportunities for them to understand and respect each other, by serving their communities.

Nine-member panel to deliberate on GA's recommendation

Jerry L. Van Marter of Presbyterian News Service reports:

Thomas C. Paisley, chair of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Board of Pensions (BOP) today announced the appointment of a special committee of the board to consider same-gender benefits under the BOP's healthcare and pension plans.

The nine-member special committee will be charged with developing the BOP's response to this summer's action by the 219th General Assembly "to urge the Board of Pensions to extend benefits to same-gender domestic partners of plan members and to the children of those same-gender domestic partners."

TEAMWORK

A cautionary tale for Grandparents. And others.

At one point during a game, the coach called one of his 9-year-old baseball players aside and asked, 'Do you understand what cooperation is? What a team is?'

The little boy nodded in the affirmative.

'Do you understand that what matters is whether we win or lose together as a team?'

The little boy nodded yes.

'So,' the coach continued, 'I'm sure you know, when an out is called, you shouldn't argue, curse, attack the umpire, or call him a pecker-head. Do you understand all that?'

The little boy nodded again.

He continued, 'And when I take you out of the game so another boy gets a chance to play, it's not good sportsmanship to call your coach 'a dumb ass' is it?'

Again, the little boy nodded.

'Good,' said the coach. 'Now go over there and explain all that to your grandmother.'

A number of the most important actions taken by the 219^th General Assembly, meeting in Minneapolis in July of 2010, are now being sent to the presbyteries for their action, to confirm or reject them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

Our three areas of primary interest, based partly on questions and comments we have received from visitors to this site, are:

For each of these three actions, we intend to provide you with:

Resources from ...

Conversations about the actions on Amendment 10-A (needing your contributions!)

If you hate puns, don’t click here!

Otherwise, you’re invited to enjoy them – and share your own!

Just send a note with your own contribution to the PunFest.

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

You’ve probably seen this little speech of hope already, or least heard or seen bits of it. But here’s the whole thing, and it’s worth every one of the 12-plus minutes that it will take. It is a call to hope for GLBT teens as they face the bullying and harassment that driven so many to suicide over the past few days.

Click here for the AOL News report, and scroll down just a bit for the YouTube video itself.

Reacting to a rash of suicides committed by gay teenagers in America who have been bullied, Joel Burns, a Fort Worth, Texas, city councilman, delivered his speech Tuesday to a City Council meeting. He told of the pain he experienced as an adolescent at the hands of anti-gay bullies – and he urged gay teens not to give in, not to give up, with the promise that “it gets better.”

Presbyterians Caring & Responding to a Hurting World

Grace and peace to you. Our hearts are broken with the epidemic of anti-gay bullying resulting in teen suicides. Our country is not a safe place for its LGBT or questioning children, youth and adults and their families. Sadly, neither is our Church. We give thanks to God for the many exceptions of welcoming and affirming Presbyterian churches, of course. As long as the Presbyterian Church (USA) is not yet a safe place for LGBT persons, younger or older, it continues to be a contributing factor to this failure of safety. Since 1978, our Church has been studying and debating homosexuality and whether or not LGBT persons are part of God's good creation, too, along with their heterosexual sisters and brothers. We could be offering life-giving, life-saving messages to LGBT youth and their families instead.

The 219th General Assembly's Ordination Amendment 10-A offers our Church a clear path to ending the discrimination against LGBT persons and the resulting sanction of anti-LGBT prejudice and violence in our society and across the world. 10-A offers one ordination standard for all. 10-A returns our Church to what matters most in our life and service together as Presbyterians: faith, character and a call to serve. 10-A will end categorical discrimination based upon marital status, gender or sexual orientation.

You can be part of this change. May all of us offer life-giving, life-saving messages now in our church and presbytery. Contact Rev. Debra Peevey, our Campaign Outreach Director, today to connect in with the Amendment 10-A work in your presbytery at debra@mlp.org

We thank you for being part of the change in our Church, nation and world. Together we are creating a Church that reflects God's heart.

This is the lead item in the latest on-line newsletter of More Light Presbyterians >>

Immokalee Tomato Pickers Secure Path-Breaking Deal with Florida Grower

Mischa Gaus reports in Facing South, posted on CommonDreams.org

The farmworker group Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced this week it has reached a landmark deal with a Florida tomato grower to govern conditions in the fields.

The agreement greatly expands the proportion of Florida's $500 million tomato crop that will be produced under CIW's code of conduct. That code includes a grievance-like complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and access for CIW to the fields for direct worker-to-worker contact.

The group's aim is to keep tomato pickers themselves at the center of the battle to improve the notoriously poor conditions in agriculture. CIW has helped uncover eight cases of involuntary servitude among Florida farmworkers over the last 13 years that have resulted in prosecutions of farm bosses and labor contractors.

Yesterday's deal with Pacific Tomato Growers, a privately held company reported to sell $151.6 million worth of produce a year, also brings in third-party monitors to ensure that the penny-per-pound wage increase CIW has won over the last five years actually reaches farmworkers. Big purchasers of tomatoes -- McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, three big campus food service companies, and Whole Foods -- have all agreed to pay the penny increase, but the Florida tomato growers' trade association has refused to pass through the gains to workers.

The Presbytery of Cimarron approved the Belhar Confession at its stated meeting
today in Guymon, OK.  The vote was 28 to 0.

Thanks to John Mcneese

Now through October 17, the PC(USA) encourages you to participate in the Churches Week of Action on Food.  It occurs every year around World Food Day, which is always October 16. We encourage you to learn more and also to take action on the Campaign for Fair Food as a sign that God intends well-being for all people.

Short Video and Supermarket E-Action

Please visit the CIW website for a fantastic new video entitled “One Penny More.” The new two-minute video highlights the connection between the tomatoes we buy in supermarkets and the farmworkers who pick them. And share this video with members of your congregation. After you watch the video, you can send an e-mail to Publix, Kroger, Ahold (Stop ‘n Shop and Giant) or Trader Joe’s asking them to support fair wages and conditions for farmworkers.

Visit the CIW’s Modern-Day Slavery Museum

The CIW’s Modern-Day Slavery Museum is on tour throughout the southeast. If it is coming to your area, please visit it and encourage others to do the same. If not, take a virtual tour of the museum through photos and the downloadable museum booklet which traces the continual presence of slavery in different forms in the fields of Florida and what we can do to end it.

Peace,

Leslie Scanlon reports in Presbyterian Outlook:

The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies has ruled that John Knox Presbytery did not commit irregularities when it voted in February 2010 to approve for ordination Scott Anderson, a gay man in a long-term committed relationship.

Anderson, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, previously served as a Presbyterian minister in California, and set aside his ordination in 1990 when his homosexuality was publicly revealed. He is now seeking to be ordained again – and has publicly declared a “scruple,” or conscientious objection, to the requirement in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Book of Order that those being ordained practice fidelity if they are married or chastity if they are not.

John Knox Presbytery voted 81-25 on Feb. 20 to ordain Anderson, although a stay of enforcement was quickly issued to allow a challenge to the ordination to proceed.

You may want to tune in October 11th, 12th and 13th to "God in America" on PBS

Interfaith Alliance is a cooperating organization for the three-part PBS series God In America that airs for three nights beginning Monday, October 11th and explores how religious belief has shaped American history. While the series is heavily focused on the early history of religion and religious freedom in the U.S. and not on current religious issues, the close relationship between religion, power and politics is a continuing concern in America today, if with new players. Current debates on where mosques (masjid) can or cannot be built and whether or not a Mormon, Atheist or Jew can successfully run for President are just two of the powerful signs that we still have a great deal of work to do in our continuing effort to form a more perfect union.

There are lessons that can be learned from the past as we see religious and political debates relived in this series. The six-hour, three-night television special utilizes documentary footage, dramatizations and interviews with historians of religion to examine:

All of us have been appalled by the suicides occurring over the past few weeks among young gay men, in response to the harassment they experience for more often -- and more intensely -- than most of us have realized.  But how can we respond in some way to this horror?

This call for action has come from the Human Rights Campaign, “America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.”

In just the last few weeks since school started again, too many teenagers have taken their own lives following bullying and harassment because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

How many more young lives will be lost before schools act?

Ask Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: Include gender identity and sexual orientation in anti-bullying programs.

Dear Secretary Duncan:

I know you are as shocked and saddened as I am about the recent rash of teen suicides following bullying and harassment based on anti-LGBT bias.

We are counting on you to speak out immediately before more lives are lost.

Every school in America should include sexual orientation and gender identity in anti-bullying programs. It will save lives – and saving lives shouldn’t be up for political debate.

You must act to end this tragedy.

To send this letter >>

Legislation would allow immigrant high school graduates to go to college, work or join U.S. military

Jerry L. Van Marter, Presbyterian News Service

Louisville, September 30, 2010 — The Rev. Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly, has written a letter to members of the U.S. Congress urging them to pass the DREAM Act (S.729/H.R.1751).

The legislation would allow the children of illegal immigrants to continue their education, work or join the U.S. military if they graduate from high school.

"The denomination is extremely concerned over the fate of millions of young people who have lived in the United States for most of their childhood, yet have no right to legal work authorization or higher education," Parsons wrote in his Sept. 27 letter.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Office of Public Witness (OPW) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) today unveiled its Internship for Public Witness, a new program designed for the formation of servant leaders in public policy ministry.

Persons participating in the Internship program will enjoy exposure to a wide range of formative experiences. Working with OPW staff, interns will have the opportunity to follow an issue or issue portfolio of interest through the legislative and decision-making process. In addition, they will also be exposed to other components of public policy ministry, which may include church relations, communications, resource development, and event planning.     More >>

What can two novels about an elderly preacher teach us about life and love, about parenting and letting children go, about our human roles in the working out of divine providence? Peter Hodgson, Charles G. Finney Professor of Theology, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt Divinity School, reflects on the two novels by Marilynne Robinson, Gilead and Home. They are two accounts of the end-of-life season for the Rev. John Ames, 76 years old and still pastor of the Congregational church in Gilead, Iowa.

Hodgson focuses his comments on the question of the human role in raising children, but finally enabling them to live on their own, and trusting them to the care of God. But beyond that is the call to all of us to care for the world in which our children will live on. So, he says, Robinson reminds us that “salvation is in fact a long and difficult journey on which we human beings play a continuing role.”

For this essay in HTML >>

For the same essay in easy-to-print-out PDF format >>

GA actions going to 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.

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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?