This page lists our postings from earlier in April

For an index to all our reports from the
Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice >>

And for all our reports
from the Ghost Ranch Week of Peace >>

Last chance to sign petition to Burger King to end slavery in the Florida fields

On Monday, the CIW and its allies, including a national delegation of Presbyterians, will be presenting signed Petitions to End Modern-Day Slavery and Sweatshops in the Fields to Burger King in Miami. Please keep this historic action and all who are involved in your prayers. If you haven't signed the petition or circulated it among your friends, now is the time! http://fairfoodnation.org/petition

In this update you'll find:

1. CIW Petition – sign online; delivery on 4/28
2. Congressional Hearings Expose Tomato Pickers' Exploitation
3. Is Burger King Spying on Fairfood Group?
4. Interfaith Action is seeking interns for summer and fall

Top Administration officials planned and approved torture – write your local newspaper!

Please help inform the public about the fact that top Administration officials were directly involved in planning the torture of high-value detainees by writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper expressing your deep concern about learning that your leaders participated in the torture planning meetings and your disappointment that the media and the public have not responded to the news about the meetings with the appropriate vigor and outrage.

Spahr’s lawyers: There’s no constitutional ban on same-sex weddings    

From Presbyterian News Service – Lawyers for the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, who is facing charges for performing weddings for two lesbian couples, told members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s highest court on Friday (April 25) that there is no language in the denomination’s constitution that prohibits same-gender couples from marrying.

Spahr, in a reversal of an earlier decision, was found guilty last year of violating the PC(USA)’s constitutional ban on performing same-sex marriages. In August, the synod PJC ruled 6-2 that while Spahr, who lives in San Rafael, CA, “acted with conscience and conviction,” her actions were still at odds with the church’s constitution when she married the couples in 2004 and 2005.

The synod ruling reversed a March 2006 decision by the Presbytery of the Redwoods’ PJC that found Spahr acted within her rights as an ordained minister when she married the two couples.

General Assembly PJC members will deliberate and then issue a written decision on Monday (April 28), which is to be released the following day online at www.pcusa.org/gapjc/decisions/decisions.htm after confirmation that both parties have received the ruling. But the ruling probably will be no secret by then since Spahr has scheduled a Monday press conference in Tiburon, CA, to respond to the ruling.

Spahr has organized several events surrounding the appeal hearing, such as a silent witness at the Presbyterian Center before the PJC hearing, and a worship service and reception following the hearing at Mount Auburn Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati.

The full story from PNS >>

Can there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here's the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the "success" of the President's surge strategy, Americans sense this perfectly well. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56% of Americans "say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties" and this has, as the Post notes, been a majority position since January 2007, the month that the surge was first announced. Imagine what might happen if the American public knew more about the actual state of affairs in Iraq – and of thinking in Washington. So, here, in an attempt to unravel the situation in ever-unraveling Iraq are twelve answers to questions which should be asked far more often in this country:

Engelhardt’s top five reasons (for each of which, along with the other seven, he gives careful explanations and evidence):

Projections include no downsizings, increased mission personnel and new environmental ministries office

From Presbyterian News Service, Louisville – April 25, 2008 – The General Assembly Council (GAC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) today (April 25) approved General Assembly Mission Budgets totaling $110.3 million for 2009 and $107.6 million for 2010.

The budgets, which now go to the upcoming 218th General Assembly in San Jose, CA, in June for adoption, call for no GAC staff cuts, create a new Environmental Ministries office, and for the first time in 50 years increase the number of overseas mission co-workers — from 196 this year to 215 in 2009 and 220 in 2010.

The budgets will utilize $3.5 million in Presbyterian Mission Program Fund reserves each year, which will still leave the GAC’s cash reserve levels nearly $5 million above GA requirements at the end of 2010.

The Presbyterian Layman has recently posted an article by their retired editor, John H. Adams, describing Douglas Ottati as “a self-described ‘progressive’ theologian, which essentially means believing anything and adhering to nothing...”

Ottati has been a much-appreciated speaker at Witherspoon events and has written frequently for Network News. We encourage you to look at a few of his recent essays, and see whether he believes just any old thing, or is in fact articulating a strong, socially conscious understanding of the Christian faith and life.

But first, here’s a little longer sample of Mr. Adams’ view of Ottati:

The headline reads: “Professor who shuns Reformed orthodoxy hired to teach it at Davidson College”

 ... Dr. Douglas Ottati, a Presbyterian elder (not minister) ... came to Davidson this academic year as part of a deal cut by the college's trustees in 2006. In exchange for abandoning Davidson's requirement that all trustees of the 1,700-student, Presbyterian college be Christians, the board sought to assuage the traditionalists by seeking money for a professor who would specialize in Reformed theology. They got the cash and hired Ottati away from Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va. Their new specialist is a self-described "progressive" theologian, which essentially means believing anything and adhering to nothing...

The rest of the Layman's story >>

And now why not try this:

Read Ottati’s address to the 2002 Witherspoon General Assembly luncheon – the whole thing, instead of Adams’ carefully selected snippets.

He also reflected (theologically, we think!) in 2003 on the perpetual Presbyterian issue of “why we shouldn’t wait.”

There, he offers such shocking thoughts as this: “that we belong to the God of grace and that, therefore, we have little reason to exclude either ourselves or anyone else from the scope of redemption.”

There’s lots more. Just click here to Google “Ottati” and see what else you find. We promise it’ll be good stuff.

Witness in Washington Weekly
April 21, 2008

Find helpful information for expressing your views to Congress on:

This very helpful newsletter is published by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

We have reported earlier on the Senate hearing on April 15 on working conditions for tomato pickers in Florida. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, has now published a more detailed story on that event. She and co-author Greg Kaufman write: 

The hearing revealed that even when multibillion-dollar corporations like McDonald’s and Yum! Brands (whose subsidiaries include Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, Long John Silver’s and A&W) attempt to do the right thing — and pay the workers more — powerful agribusiness interests have stood in the way. These corporations agreed to supplement the workers at a rate of an additional penny per pound for the tomatoes they purchase. Doesn’t sound like much — and it isn’t for the corporations — but it would result in about a 75 percent salary increase for workers who a 2001 US Department of Labor report described as “a labor force in significant economic distress… [with] low wages, sub-poverty annual earnings, [and] significant periods of un- and underemployment.”

As some growers began to implement the Yum/McDonald’s agreement — an extra paycheck cut to the farmworkers by the buyers, not the growers, mind you — the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange (FTGE), representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, said any members who adopted this policy would be fined $100,000 per worker benefiting from the agreement.     The whole story >>

And don’t miss the report from the Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers >>

The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq.

The strike, being organized by the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), will seek to shut down all west coast ports for a period of 8 hours on the day of May 1st 2008. The Vermont AFL-CIO is the first state labor federation to publicly back the Longshoremen; other state federations are expected to follow.

Combat stress may cost U.S. up to $6 billion

Study warns of post-traumatic stress and depression leading to drug use, suicide and marital problems.

The Washington Post reported on April 18, 2008:

About 300,000 U.S. military personnel who have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, a mental toll that will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion over two years, according to a Rand Corp. report released yesterday.

In addition, nearly 20 percent of the 1.64 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, or about 320,000 personnel, reported a probable traumatic brain injury during deployment, the report notes, although it says their treatment needs have not been determined.      More >>

Witherspoon treasurer Darcy Hawk reports that Pittsburgh Presbytery, on April 17, passed by a vote of 112 to 95 an overture which calls on 218^th General Assembly “to advocate for, educate about, and work toward single-payer universal health care reform through national health insurance that is privately provided (improved Medicare for all in principle) and publicly financed.”

Arguments against passage of this overture generally cited instances where the British, French, or Canadian systems have catastrophically failed individuals. These arguments overlook the social benefits of universal health care and obscure the devastation our current system visits on people of limited means, through bankruptcies, denial of service for the underinsured, and the reluctance of people to seek treatment because of the cost.

Furthermore, unlike other national health systems, this overture recommends leaving the private sector providers, physicians and hospitals, intact. A national insurance pool brings low risk people into the system to balance costs. It removes the burden of healthcare from business, reducing labor costs. In terms of Christian ethics it provides for a fairer, more equitable sharing of health care resources. I am pleased to report my presbytery passed the overture making it available for consideration in San Jose this summer.

Coordinator of ACSWP summarizes what's coming

The Rev. Dr. Christian T. Iosso, on behalf of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy which he staffs, has sent a letter to an e-list of interested people around the church, detailing the reports that ACSWP will be submitting to the Assembly, a little more fully than we have done previously. He has graciously agreed for us to share it here.   He begins:

Dear Friends interested in Social Justice and Social Witness Policy:

At tax time, with a recession taking hold – in the midst of a very exciting political primary season—with two wars grinding on – and before Pentecost, I write to share with you information on a number of items going to this year’s General Assembly and on several other matters. We use links rather than attachments and I urge you to look at the resources made available, especially posted copies of the policies themselves. The core of all this effort is the conviction that the Church must speak and act on matters of grave social concern as part of our witness to Jesus Christ.

The Palm Beach Post reported on April 16 about the testimony given to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee about the realities of “slavery” in the tomato fields of Florida. For the hearing, held on Tuesday, April 15, no Republican committee members were in attendance.

Collier County Sheriff’s Detective Charlie Frost said that “Today’s form of slavery does not bear the overt nature of pre-Civil War society, but it is nonetheless heinous and reprehensible,” explaining that workers are held in “involuntary servitude” through threats and actual violence against them and their families – often in Latin America – and in a system of “perpetually accruing debt,” in which they are overcharged for housing, food, water and transportation.   More of this report >>

S. F. Labor Council backs ILWU May Day action in West Coast ports with this resolution:

Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council has a longstanding position calling for an immediate end to the US war and occupation in Iraq; therefore be it

Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council supports the decision of the Longshore Caucus of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) to stop work for 8 hours on Thursday, May 1, 2008 – International Workers Day – at all West Coast ports, to demand "an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East." The Council supports the decision of Branch 214 of the National Association of Letter Carriers to observe 2 minutes of silence in all carrier stations at 8:15 a.m. on May 1^st, in solidarity with the ILWU action and to express their opposition to the war in Iraq; and be it further

Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council encourages other unions to follow ILWU's call for a 'No Peace-No Work Holiday' or other labor actions on May Day, to express their opposition to the US wars and occupations in the Middle East; and be it finally

Resolved, that the San Francisco Labor Council send a letter of congratulations to ILWU President Bob McEllrath for his union's bold initiative to use the occasion of International Workers Day to stop work to stop the war.

Converting a permanent war economy

You’ve seen some of the endless numbers about the cost of the war in Iraq. So have lots of other people. But sometimes numbers don’t move us very deeply. And the war goes on, the numbers keep growing. And people keep dying.

Mary Beth Sullivan is a trained social worker and community organizer from Maine, who has worked with homeless people, women on welfare and disabled children. In 1995 she began volunteer work with Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. Now she speaks out against the American commitment to a war economy, as more and more people begin to consider the alternative: an economy that promotes sustainability and peace.

The Omaha Weekly Reader recently interviewed her prior to the 16^th annual Space Organizing Conference & Protest at St. John’s Parish basement at Creighton University, April 11-13.

She humanizes the numbers, and it is powerful.

She shared with Bruce Gagnon in a seminar at Ghost Ranch a few years ago, which was sponsored by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and the Witherspoon Society.

The newspaper report >>

Don’t get too excited; this is not as titillating as it might sound!

Jeremy Adam Smith has written in Public Eye magazine about the realities of family life among members of the Religious Right. George Lakoff in his book Moral Politics noted that "Models of idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics. ... Our beliefs about the family exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of society we should build."

For the Religious Right and conservative political leaders who appeal to them, the family is clearly a major focus. Smith says the family for them is “a major arena of political struggle and a showcase for the world they want to live in.”  He continues: 

But recent research into the daily lives of evangelicals also reveals the degree to which their ideal is vulnerable to social and economic forces that all American parents must confront. ... Even as Christian Right leaders are "talking Right," as University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox puts it, some of the evangelicals who form the base of their movement are "walking Left" and embracing a more moderate way of political and family life. This creates a fissure in the Christian Right that no manifesto can close.

As one example of the various ways the realities of family life and attitudes differ from the views proclaimed by Religious Right leaders, he says:

But for all its gains in the political realm – which have captured most of the outraged attention of the political Left – the Christian Right continues to lose the culture war. According to Gallup polls, in 1982, only 34 percent of Americans "believed that homosexuality was an acceptable alternative lifestyle." Last year, 61 percent of those polled by People for the American Way supported at least civil unions for gays. Families are more egalitarian than ever, with more and more men participating in housework and childcare, and with more and more mothers working.

Saturday, May 3, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Clarendon Presbyterian Church, Arlington, VA
Sponsored by More Light Presbyterians/Open Doors Chapter

A Wake Up Call for New Policies to Eradicate Hunger

The Oakland Institute, "a progressive policy think tank working to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic, environmental and foreign policy issues." takes note of the current crisis and the many countries where emergency measures are being taken. But they add:

It is however essential to understand the underpinnings of this food crisis before rushing to adopt policy solutions. Over the last few decades liberalization of agriculture, dismantling of state run institutions like marketing boards, and specialization of developing countries in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton, and even flowers, encouraged by international financial institutions backed by rich countries like the U.S., has driven the poorest countries into a downward spiral, directly threatening food security and economic sustainability.

Note that Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Institute, will be one of the main presenters at the Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference this summer, July 15-19, in Orange, California, on the theme “Sowing Mustard Seeds: Working for God's Justice – Confronting Poverty.”

Yesterday was Tax Day - How will your dollars be spent?

From Witness in Washington Weekly, published by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), April 14, 2008

Budgets are about restrictions, about how to live within spending limits, and about defining essential or unavoidable expenses. You can't make these types of decisions without first defining a vision for yourself and for the country. Let's not talk about the federal budget.

The Eco-Justice Program of the National Council of Churches wants to help you in celebrating Earth Day! If you, your community, or your church is sponsoring or attending an Earth Day event, send an email to jblevins@ncccusa.org and let them know. If you are looking for a place in your community to attend an event, click here to view an interactive map and find one near you!

Click here to download the NCC's 2008 Earth Day resource, "The Poverty of Global Climate Change", and get your church involved!

Celebrate More Light Sunday – Tell the PCUSA "It's About Time!"

More Light churches and other supportive congregations across the country are getting ready for a special celebration of the gifts of LGBT Presbyterians. The annual More Light Sunday – set for June 1 – is a wonderful time of worship. It is a chance to lift up what being a More Light church means to your congregation. And this year, since More Light Sunday comes three weeks before General Assembly, there will be perfect opportunities for your congregation to send supportive messages directly to the Assembly, saying "It's About Time" for the church to embrace LGBT people as fully as you do.

We recently posted a list of reports from ACSWP (the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy) which are being presented to the 2008 General Assembly.  Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle has now provided very brief summaries of each of the reports, and we have links to the full text of each one.

The Toronto Globe and Mail's Eric Reguly writes: "For the first time in decades, the specter of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years – famine and starvation – are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries."

The causes are many and complex. (But you knew that, didn’t you?) He includes the growing global population, soaring energy prices, competition from biofuels, the rising demands for meat from the rising Asian middle class, climate change, and “hot money pouring into the commodity markets.”

He cites Nigeria's Kanayo Nwanze, vice-president of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, as saying, "I wouldn't be surprised if there is an escalation of food riots in the next few months. It could lead to famine in certain parts of Africa if the international community and local governments do not put emergency actions into place."

He concludes his report with another statement by Mr. Nwanze: "I can say with some degree of confidence that if governments and international development agencies do not put in place a concerted effort quickly, then we are looking at a very serious problem."

Read the full article – in the Globe and Mail ... or on TruthOut

Another view: it’s the free market system

Another analysis of the situation, under the title “Let Them Eat Ethanol!” is provided by Sharon Smith, writing for Counterpunch. She tells of the growing conflicts over food scarcity in Haiti and Egypt ... and in the United States, where “food inflation ... has reached a level not seen in decades, with food staples like milk rising 17 percent over the last year, rice, pasta and bread rising over 12 percent and eggs increasing by 25 percent.”

She places the blame for the situation not so much on a shortage of food, as on “the merciless laws of the free market.”        The full article >>

July event set at Chapman University in southern California

The causes and effects of poverty are the focus of the 2008 Intergenerational Peacemaking Conference of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), July 15-19 on the campus of Chapman University in Orange, CA.

The theme of the annual conference – sponsored by the General Assembly Council’s Presbyterian Peacemaking and Hunger Programs, the Presbyterian Washington and United Nations Offices, Mission Responsibility Through Investment, the Child Advocacy Office and the Office on Small Church and Community Ministry of the PC(USA) – is “Sowing Mustard Seeds: Working for God’s Justice – Confronting Poverty.”

The conference is set against the backdrop of economic globalization, which has created new forms of poverty with more extreme disparities between the rich and the poor, conference organizers say. The annual income of the richest 1 percent of the world’s population is equal to that of the poorest 57 percent, with over 24,000 people dying each day due to causes of poverty and malnutrition.

Conference participants will explore the convergences of economic, political, cultural, and military systems that force and facilitate the flow of wealth and power from vulnerable persons, communities and countries to the more powerful.

Theological reflection and worship will be lead by Rev. Mark Lomax, pastor of First African Presbyterian Church in Lithonia, GA. He will be joined at the conference by keynote speakers Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank on social, economic and environmental issues; Roberto Jordan, president of the Reformed Church in Argentina; and Lisa Schirch, professor of peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA.

Some extra reading on the Social Creed   

Witherspoon Issues Analyst Gene TeSelle recommends four books as background and enhancement for anyone who is interested in dealing seriously with the New Social Creed, as it comes up for discussion at the General Assembly in San Jose.  Details >>

A Call to Knit and Pray our Way to the GA in San Jose!

This request comes to us from Lyndsey King, Cokesbury’s Event & Conference Coordinator:

In order for Cokesbury to supply the best possible resources for the 218th General Assembly, we need your help by suggesting books to have there for sale. Please take a few minutes to fill out the information on the attached form and return it via e-mail, fax or mail by Friday, May 2, 2008. Remember to include ISBN, title, author, and publisher. Looking forward to seeing you in San Jose!

Many Thanks,

Before each General Assembly, the Witherspoon Society sends a letter of welcome to those who will be attending as commissioners or advisory delegates, with the hope of offering a little orientation to the confusing goings-on that they will be encountering, many for the first time.  Even if you're not a commissioner, you may find some of the information interesting and helpful.

The Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) urges Presbyterians to call members of Congress and ask them to take a position against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The collective energy of faith based, human rights and labor groups has stopped the FTA for a year because of the serious situation in Colombia with regards to human rights and labor concerns. A campaign has been launched by the administrations of both the Colombian and U.S. government to push the bill through.

More information for contacting Congress >>

Learn more from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program >>

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship offers more information and actions on Colombia >>

PPF urges: Take action to stop the U.S.-Colombia FTA

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship strongly opposes the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Our years of work with the people of Colombia and our ongoing relationships there convict us that the FTA will only lead to more poverty, more injustice, and more violence for the people of Colombia. We add our voices to the many people of faith in the U.S. who oppose this agreement. More >>

The Presbyterian Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy has posted its Reports to the 218th General Assembly (2008):

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship sends this word on two prisoners of conscience, sentenced for their participation in the vigil against the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, on November 18, 2007.

Our two Presbyterian prisoners of conscience reported to begin serving their sentences on April 3. LeAnne Clausen will be in a county jail for 30 days and Chris Lieberman was assigned to a federal prison for 60 days. I know that they would appreciate letters.

McHenry County Jail
LeAnne Clausen
2200 N. Seminary Avenue
Woodstock, IL 60098

Chris Lieberman #93645-020
FCI La Tuna
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 3000
Anthony, TX 88021

One of the Democratic presidential candidates has a pastor who opposed both Iraq wars, supports same-sex marriage, opposes the death penalty, and has been a passionate critic of American foreign policy. The clergyman isn't the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Senator Obama's spiritual leader who has become a household name and a campaign issue for his fiery rhetoric, but the Reverend Edward Matthews, a little-known Arkansas preacher who is the closest Senator Clinton has to a pastor of her own. While Mrs. Clinton says she would have quit Rev. Wright's church, Rev. Matthews expressed sympathy for Rev. Wright in a 35-minute phone interview with The New York Sun. "We preachers get irresponsible," Rev. Matthews, the former pastor of First United Methodist Church in Little Rock, said yesterday with a laugh. His take on Rev. Wright's now-infamous exclamation, "God Damn America," is that many pastors, himself included, say things "that if we had to say it over again we probably wouldn't say it in the same way."

The report in The New York Sun >>

Thanks to Media Roundup: a report on the use of religion in American life, presented by The Interfaith Alliance >>

Richard J. Mouw, who is president and professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary, offers thoughts on the generosity of God, and the ways we keep trying to limit that generosity. It’s a perspective – undeniably evangelical – that might be helpful in our own lives, and also in our encounters and debates in the coming General Assembly.

Gun Violence and Gospel Values
Stony Point Center
September 15 - 17

Sponsored by Stony Point, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, this colloquium will explore ways in which the church must respond to growing gun violence in communities across the United States. Save the dates; stay tuned for more information!

Responding to a New York Times report on April 2, about a Justice Department memo which in 2003 “gave military interrogators broad authority to use extreme methods in questioning detainees and argued that wartime powers largely exempted interrogators from laws banning harsh treatment,” Curt Goering of Amnesty International USA wrote this:

It’s high time that the authors of the Bush administration’s legal recipe book for torture be brought out of the kitchen and into the courtroom. Yet despite volumes of highly credible evidence of human rights crimes, or even war crimes, a negligent Congress continues to fail miserably in its responsibility to mandate proper investigations into these cruel policies. 

The United States’ moral and political standing in the world have completely eroded, and legitimate prosecutions of crimes against humanity against the United States have been compromised. Congress must finally face its own complicity in torture with concrete measures — not shortsighted hearings — by ordering a full, independent investigation into how torture became United States modus operandi and holding those responsible accountable.

By Americans United For Separation Of Church And State

Religious leaders frequently have questions about the appropriate role of religion in politics and what activities houses of worship may undertake in the political process. This guide, based on information provided by two tax attorneys who are experts in non-profit law, is designed to answer some of the common questions about this subject.

Please take action by calling your Representative TODAY

"Must we starve our children to pay our debts?"
            Julius Nyerere, former President of Tanzania

From the Witness in Washington Weekly, published by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Join us today as we call on Congress to pass the Jubilee Act and break the chains of debt for the world's impoverished countries (additional information below the call script).

Please take the simple steps below -- and help change the lives of millions:

1.         Find out who your Representative is by entering your zip code at http://www.pcusa.org/washington

2.         Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

3.         Ask to be connected to your Representative's office. The receptionist will answer. Introduce yourself as (your name), a constituent from (city, state).

4.         I am calling today to urge Representative________ to vote yes on the Jubilee Act (H.R. 2634), which will be considered on the House floor in early April. This bill would expand eligibility for debt cancellation to 67 impoverished countries. Without debt cancellation these 67 countries will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). (If you'd like, add an additional sentence about why this issue is important to you). Do you know how Representative _________ plans to vote on the Jubilee Act?

5.         Please be sure to thank the receptionist when you are finished.

6.         Thank you for taking action -- now send this message on to 10 friends & urge them to make the call too!!

John Dart writes in The Christian Century on how three of the major Protestant denominations – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) – “continue to move to and fro on issues of sexuality, with leaders often expressing concern about whether the churches will survive the turmoil.”

He quotes Phil Soucy, publicist for the gay-friendly Lutherans Concerned/ North America, as saying this is not a “sexual revolution,” for “it's difficult after all these years to think of it as a revolution; it is more like an evolution."  The report >>

Ruben Navarrette Jr. Reports in the Fort Myers [FL] News-Press :

SAN DIEGO – April 3, 2008 – More and more states are doing the job that Congress failed to do by trying to formulate immigration policy – either by scaring off immigrants or bringing in more of them.

According to The Associated Press, about 350 immigration-related bills were introduced in state legislatures in the first two months of this year. Legislators in states across the country are doing everything they can to make illegal immigrants feel unwelcome – by denying them driver's licenses, college admission, medical care, etc.

The irony is that, in many of these states, it is illegal immigrants who helped fuel growth, construction, development and economic prosperity. Show me a state where people feel overrun by illegal immigrants, and I'll show you one where individuals, businesses and municipalities have, in recent years, lined their pockets thanks to illegal labor.

Talk about ungrateful. More >>

Mindful Living:
Healthy People, Healthy Churches, Healthy Planet

October 9-11, 2008

The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program will host its biennial conference Oct. 9-11, 2008, in Alexandria, MN, at Lake Geneva Christian Center. The focus for the conference will be environmental health.

Join this ecumenical gathering of denominational staff, clergy, seminarians, lay leaders, church educators, eco-justice coordinators, and Christians to educate yourself on the unfolding world of toxics found in everyday items in our homes, our churches, and even our bodies.

Click here to visit the conference website.
For more information, contact Chloe Schwabe .

Washington Office staff is participating in planning this conference.

From the Witness in Washington Weekly, published by the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)  If you would like to receive this information directly, click here >>

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

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia meditates on the life and death of Martin Luther King, 40 years ago today.

As a young secular Jew deeply involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements, he was led by the shock of King’s death, and the ensuing upheavals in Washington, DC, to a new awareness of the meaning of the Passover celebration a few days later. It became for him, a Jew, an opening to awareness of the real meaning of resurrection, and a call to action.

He concludes his reflection:

That is how my deadened Jewish soul was reborn out of the death of Martin Luther King. Now when I praise the God Who "gives life to the dead," I mean it.

Forty years later. Now the question is about the death and rebirth of an American vision: the transformation of our society. 

Forty is an iconic number in biblical tradition: forty days of rain as the Flood began, forty years of wandering in the Wilderness, forty days of fasting for Moses (and then Jesus) on the mountaintop, forty days of Lent.

Rabbi Jeff Roth teaches that this iconic “forty” is rooted in the forty weeks of pregnancy.

Each forty, a pregnant pause.

From 1968 to 2008: forty years of pregnant pause after King’s death, Kennedy’s death, the hopes of an America reborn killed off in Memphis and Los Angeles and Chicago.

Is the pregnancy completed? On the night before King died, he said that he was standing on the mountaintop, looking across the river toward the Promised Land; that he might not cross over, but the people would.

Forty years later, are we prepared to give birth? To cross the Jordan not to utopia but to a new, unpromised place?

The full essay >>

Gradye Parsons tapped as Stated Clerk nominee

Election of successor to Cliff Kirkpatrick set for June 27 at GA

Presbyterian News Service reports that the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee (SCNC) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) announced today that the Rev. Gradye Parsons is its consensus nominee to serve as the next General Assembly Stated Clerk, the top ecclesiastical post in the 2.3 million-member denomination.

In posting on the JustPresbys website a variety of resources dealing with overtures coming to the 218^th GA, we invited responses and comments.  This communication, and the long essay which it introduces, seem to offer both a thoughtful response and a call for action.  We welcome your comments!  Just send a note, to be shared here.

Dear Friends:

GA218 has the promise to become a time for the PC(USA) truly to move beyond the obstacles of exclusion of our LGBT sisters and brothers, and into the time of healing and mission that awaits a powerfully united church, even if not in total agreement.

The attached article: "Moving Beyond The Theological Task Force Report: A Call for Progressive Advocates to Unify for GA 218" is written with the hopes that we can find a way to work as one in this time leading to GA, at the Assembly, and following its decisions. Please take some time to review its contents and then decide how you might encourage the advocacy groups you support to unite.

You may also download the document in PDF or Word format at www.raybagnuolo.net . Additionally, your thoughts are welcome in response to this Email or through the blog at www.bagnuolo.blogspot.com .

I invite you to distribute this, as you wish.

In peace,

Ray Bagnuolo, Minister of the Word and Sacrament
Interim Minister, Palisades Presbyterian Church
Presbytery of Hudson River
Ordained as an Openly Gay Man, November 2005

Presbyterian Peacemaking Program Update
for April 2, 2008

includes information on ...

From the website Tomdispatch

In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe's "sole superpower" is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an "empire lite" has proven increasingly light-headed. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can't seem to make a move in its own interest that isn't a disaster. The Iraq government's recent offensive in Basra is but the latest example with – we can be sure – more to come.

In the meantime, the fate of that empire, lite or otherwise, is the subject of Howard Zinn at Tomdispatch, and of a new addition to his famed People's History of the United States. The new book represents a surprise breakthrough into cartoon format. It's a rollicking graphic history, illustrated by cartoonist Mike Konopacki, that takes us from the Indian Wars to the Iraqi "frontier" (with some striking autobiographical asides from Zinn's own life). It's called A People's History of American Empire. It's a gem.

In honor of Zinn’s new book, the website Tomdispatch offers Zinn’s new essay, plus an animated video, using some of the book's art, with voiceover by Viggo Mortensen.

Event reflects growing concern by religious groups over global warming

Presbyterian News Service reports on an interfaith group that included Presbyterians, which gathered outside the Memphis, TN, office of U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) last week in support of Congress’ work to draft effective climate change legislation.

The Climate Change Rally on March 27 was among more than a dozen gatherings held across the country by the National Council of Churches (NCC) that signaled the faith community’s growing concern around the issue of global warming and its desire for action.

Those attending the events urged their elected officials to take stronger action to cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Hundreds of congregations and communities across the country have already taken steps to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.

We have just begun posting on the JustPresbys website some information on a few of the many overtures that have been submitted for consideration by the General Assembly. So far, we're offering:

You can help us build this resource for the Assembly!

For an index to all our reports from the
Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice >>

And for all our reports
from the Ghost Ranch Week of Peace >>