Risking Peace is a five or six session companion to the book Five Risks Presbyterians Must Take for Peace by Christian Iosso, published in 2017 by Westminster John Knox Press. The guide helps participants explore reflect upon and apply the five peacemaking affirmations approved by the 222nd General Assembly in 2016.
From Organization for Mission appendices.
From Organization for Mission appendices
Despite some decrease in the inequality between countries since 2000, there is still much inequality within countries and many disadvantaged people lack access to adequate health and education services. Learn how the PC(USA) and partners around the world work to reduce inequalities by promoting inclusive policies for the disadvantaged and advocating in the United Nations community.
This information packet helps congregations study who they are as a congregation and learn more about their local community using qualitative and quantitative information-gathering exercises that are involving, participatory in nature, and easy to use. This information packet contains detailed instructions.
This policy establishes biblical foundations for opposing torture, especially the affirmation that all persons, created by God, have value and rights that preclude inhumane treatment via torture. Although it addresses a number of places in the world where torture was ongoing in 2006, it focuses primarily on the United States’ use of torture in the course of the Iraq and Afghan wars. The resolution places the PC(USA) squarely in opposition to torture and approves any congressional steps to curb the practice by the country’s military and intelligence communities.
This resolution seeks to address the growing assumption and acceptance of the idea that conflicts in the post-cold war era involving either a major violation of basic human rights or a massive degree of human suffering require the response of the international community. Amplified by the immediate nature of television broadcasting, the intensity of such crises as Bosnia, Burma, Haiti, Rwanda, and Somalia call for a Christian response to help alleviate internal upheavals and to undertake humanitarian rescue to relieve suffering and rescue dying human beings.
This resolution builds upon the prior actions of the General Assembly, calling for actions at all levels and within all entities of the PC(USA) to address race-based injustice, promote reparations and engage in repair. It reviews the work already done and currently underway, and focuses on needed structural changes to deepen the PC(USA)’s reparative work. It calls for an interim report to the General Assembly in 2024 and a final report in 2026.
This resolution affirms the continued use of restorative justice as the guiding metaphor for the work, program and ministry of the church engaged with the criminal "justice" system. If offers a simple definition of restorative justice as "addressing the hurts and the needs of the victim, the offender, and the community in such a way that all — victim, offender and community — might be healed."
This resolution calls for impact reviews before and after the implementation of sanctions, ensuring that sanctions regimes do not cause undue harm to civilian populations. Addresses the sanctions powers of the U.S. President and seeks to restore congressional oversight and review. Calls into question the use of broad economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy.