ACSWP sends domestic-violence policy to
synods
Idea is to make PC(USA) more responsive in cases of
abuse
The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP)
is sending to synods a draft policy statement on domestic violence,
suggesting that the church become a "responsive church
community" in dealing with issues of violence among its own
members. Studies on Africa
and on the changing family are also
in process.
This report
and others are now on their way to the 2001 General Assembly.
by Evan Silverstein
BLOOMINGTON, MN -- 24-October-2000 -- The Advisory
Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), which was charged by the
General Assembly (GA) with developing a policy statement on domestic
violence, has forwarded a draft to the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s 16
synods for additional feedback.
Consultations between the committee, the synods and
the General Assembly Council will take place early next year. The
committee then must decide during a meeting in January whether the final
proposal will be ready for the denomination's 213th GA next summer in
Louisville, Ky., or further refinements are necessary.
"I can't tell you how moved I was in reading this
paper," committee member Margaret Elliott of Winston-Salem, N.C.,
told the task force, "and how much obvious thought (there is) from
so many different angles. ... I appreciate what you have included."
In 1998, the ACSWP formed a task force to develop a
policy statement to help the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its
congregations deal with domestic-violence issues. The ACSWP-appointed
panel grew out of a 1997 GA overture from the Presbytery of East Iowa,
which called for a denominational policy on domestic violence.
The 12-member Task Force on Healing Domestic Violence
was asked to create principles and recommendations for educating PC(USA)
members and developing prevention strategies. The goal was to make the
denomination a "responsive church community" in fighting
domestic violence among its members. The task force also was responsible
for exploring the root causes of domestic abuse and assessing the
church's complicity in and responses to the problem.
On Oct. 20, members of the task force, which included
ministers, sociologists, lay people, seminary professors and others,
presented a draft of its proposed policy statement during the ACSWP's
fall meeting near Minneapolis. After a few revisions, including a name
change, the committee voted to forward the draft to the synods.
The policy statement, Turning Mourning into Dancing; A
Policy Statement on Domestic Violence, includes a lengthy list of
recommendations for pastors, church sessions and congregations when the
"bodies and spirits of women and men, children, teens, the elderly
and the disabled, are threatened."
"Our primary task here is to produce a persuasive
document that will help people take this issue seriously and hopefully
do more research on it," said the Rev. James N. Poling, a task
force member from the Chicago Presbytery, a professor of pastoral care,
counseling and theology at Garret-Evangelical Theological Seminary in
Evanston, Ill.
To define the many types of relationships in which
violence occurs, the task force used the inclusive term
"interpersonal violence" instead of "domestic
violence," a label typically reserved for abuse between spouses or
intimate partners. The draft said interpersonal violence takes place
between parent and child, spouse and spouse, partner and partner, and
adult child/parent, as well as violence between siblings and people in
dating relationships.
"In the social sciences and the literature being
published, the term nowadays that's being used as the umbrella or
overarching term is 'interpersonal violence' or 'family violence,'"
said task force member Vernon R. Wiehe, a professor in the College of
Social Work at the University of Kentucky, who cited research showing
that 75 to 85 percent of abuse occurs in cohabiting couples, not married
couples. "We debated a lot whether or not we should use the term
'family violence.' If we used the term 'family violence,' then dating
relationships wouldn't fit quite in there."
Four men and eight women served on the Task Force on
Healing Domestic Violence; at least three members are survivors of child
or spouse abuse.
The task force recommends that pastors, sessions and
congregations:
Study and
Resolutions on Africa
Members of the ACSWP hope to dispel misconceptions
that contemporary Africa is a "doomed" and "dingy"
continent that is perpetually at war and subject to pandemic HIV/AIDS.
The committee took steps to do that by firming up a study that includes
resolutions of support and advocacy for Africa that will be submitted to
the General Assembly, possibly as early as next year.
Resolutions call on consciousness-raising
"throughout the worldwide body of Christ," so that "all
partners may focus efforts, prayers and actions to bring about greater
levels of human and economic development" in Africa.
"If the church no longer wishes to look at Africa
through a dark glass, but through high-intensity polished lenses,"
the study proposal said, "she will have to look purposefully, and
earnestly seek new perspectives on modern Africa in the present
millennium."
A commissioners' resolution during GA in 1999 called
for heightened response to Africa through focused attention, advocacy
and compassion; that paved the way for the study and resulting
resolutions written by consultant Paul Frelick, a retired PC(USA) pastor
and missionary, with assistance from the Africa Resolution Team, made up
of PC(USA) staff members and ACSWP members Sue Dickson of El Paso, Texas
and Jananne Sharpless of Sacramento, Calif.
The committee voted to send the Resolution/Study on
Africa to PC(USA) area coordinators for Africa and to partner churches
in Africa for recommendations. The ACSWP will determine during its
January meeting in Louisville whether to forward the report to next
year's GA or wait until the 2002 Assembly.
Proposed recommendations in the Africa resolution
include those urging:
