The Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ lives in the midst of several

Transcription

1 A Response to the Initial Statement of the World Council of Churches Toward an Ecumenical Declaration on Just Peace on behalf of Penn Central Conference, United Church of Christ The Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ lives in the midst of several of the historic peace churches///friedenskirche of the world. The state of Pennsylvania was founded by William, Penn, a Quaker. We interact, sometimes daily, with Amish and Mennonite///Amische und Mennoniten believers whose faith requires that they not serve in military organizations. Our mutual presence reminds the members of our Conference that we too are called to be peacemakers///friedensstifter, to resist violence, and to go beyond our own boundaries and definitions in seeking shalom for the world. 1 The United Church of Christ adopted a resolution in support of the Decade to Overcome Violence at our 23 rd General Synod in Kansas City in Throughout this Decade to Overcome Violence, one of the most significant witnesses to peace came more than six years ago, as protests against the beginning of the war in Iraq were staged by numerous local congregations and also ecumenical organizations in local communities. While this effort may not have stopped the war from happening, it was an important expression of our Christian faith and witness. Within our communion, the United Church of Christ///UCC Vereinigte Kirche Christi, congregations have been invited for nearly twenty-five years to identify themselves [following a period of study and reflection] as Just Peace churches///gerechte Friedenskirchen. An article celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the passage of the Just Peace Church Pronouncement by our UCC Synod, defined just peace ///gerechter Friede as the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence. 1 Gather Round, one of the educational curriculums promoted and distributed in the United Church of Christ was originally a project of the Church of the Brethren, Mennonite Church USA, and Mennonite Church Canada. 2 The text of the statement is appended to the end of this document. 1

2 The pronouncement///verkündigung called the church to a vision of shalom rooted in peace with justice and placed the UCC General Synod in opposition to the institution of war. 3. In 2003, at the onset of the Iraq war, the United Church of Christ published a resource called Patriotism, Nationalism and the Christian Life, a resource for UCC congregations which suggests appropriate Christian responses during time of war. 4 Much of this material, which includes worship resources///quellen der Verehrung, is still valuable today, six years later, when we still have troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A year later in 2004, we attempted an unprecedented effort to collect 100,000 signatures of church members on a petition opposing the continuation of the war in Iraq. In conjunction with our General Synod earlier that year, a statement was prepared by the officers/// of the United Church of Christ and endorsed by every Conference Minister in our then 39 Conferences. Theologically in keeping with the ancient understanding of shalom as the wellbeing of all, the United Church of Christ has included under justice and peace such things as working for equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals///transsexuelle Menschen, and even (as this is being written in August 2009) equal access to health care///gesundheitliche Versorgung for people of limited means. Page three of the Initial Statement cites the UN Year of Indigenous People///UN Jahr der indigenen Völker as a sign of the growing awareness of the need for shalom in the world. In Penn Central Conference, we have been in relationship with the people of the Dakota Association of the United Church of Christ for over twenty years. Indeed, on multiple occasions our brothers and sisters from the EKiR have come to the US and 3 from the webpage just-peace-church-1.html 4 2

3 joined us on trips to share with our Lakota brothers and sisters///mit unseren Brüdern und Schwestern aus Lakota, or have led trips of their own. Page three also mentions the lifting of apartheid in South Africa in Because Penn Central Conference is in partnership with the Namibia Synod of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa/// UCCSA, we are strongly aware that Namibia, once a province of South Africa against their will, also suffered under apartheid. We support our brothers and sisters in the Namibia Synod and in the whole UCCSA as they work for the elimination of not just racial barriers, but also poverty, lack of adequate housing, lack of educational opportunities, and lack of employment. We have worked with our Namibian partners to provide scholarships for refugee children///stipendien für Flüchtlingskinder in order for them to attend the Osire School. With its relative stability, Namibia has been a desirable destination for those fleeing oppression in places like Zimbabwe. Refugees present a special issue in war-torn or violence-prone areas///von Krieg oder Gewalt erschüttert throughout the world. Recently the United Church of Christ celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its creation as a united and uniting church. We celebrate our ecumenical partnership and consider them also to be a critical part of the work of shalom that God lays before us. Much of the work of the United Church of Christ in the area of direct peacemaking efforts in our current world is occurring in partnership with the Middle East Council of Churches///Kirchenrat des Mittleren Ostens. Our longstanding relationships in Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere, allow us to speak words of comfort and courage to those who are suffering under conditions of war, and even to stand physically present with our brothers and sisters as a symbol of our solidarity. Within the last two years, three UCC Conference Ministers have journeyed, along with our Middle 3

4 East Executive, and our General Minister and president, to Israel/Palestine, and to Jordan. While Penn Central Conference has not been directly involved at that point, we nevertheless have engaged in actions which we discern to be our work against violence and its roots on a more local level. Our most recent effort has been to combat racism, a form of violence, through the pursuit of sacred Conversations on Race///geistliche Gespräche zum Thema Rasse. This effort is our local expression of a national movement within the United Church of Christ, and has included multi-week discussions in local congregations, the viewing of a movie at our Conference Annual Meeting///Jahreskonferenz, and other local and regional actions. As I write this paper, the New York Times has announced that former President Bill Clinton is in North Korea seeking the release of two female journalists who were arrested while following a story about women being trafficked from North Korea for the sex trade///wegen Prostitution aus Nordkorea verschleppt. In paragraphs 33 and 41, the WCC Initial Statement///In der Eingangserklärung des Weltkirchenrats, 33 und 41 wird die Gewalt angeprangert, die insbesondere Frauen zu dem Glauben führt, dass Viktimisierung=ungerechte Behandlung unvermeidbar ist decries the violence that leads women, especially, to believe that victimization is unavoidable. We need many Christian, and other people of faith worldwide, to adopt the courage of the young journalists to expose human trafficking. We need to mobilize the public, and especially those in positions of power, to declare that violence against women is unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated. This is the power that we have with others (paragraph 36) or perhaps for others (paragraph 37). It is also important to find our voices as people of faith to speak both to and on behalf of our churches. 4

5 One of our challenges in Penn Central Conference is around effective peace education///wirksame Friedenserziehung. During the years when I lived in Billings, Montana, I worked with the Institute for Peace Studies at Rocky Mountain College, which is related to the United Church of Christ. The Institute was instrumental in helping to introduce peace education in the public schools of Billings. It also learned about a UCC church in Oregon that has inaugurated a peace camp for children in the summer, and we were able to replicate that model in Billings. Now churches in Pennsylvania must undertake similar endeavors and even add more creative ideas for promoting peace education in churches, schools, service organizations, and summer camps. Another related challenge for the United Church of Christ, and for Penn Central specifically, is to make real the need for peace-making skills and peace-making efforts to the person in the pew ///Mensch auf der Kirchenbank in average congregations. Conference Ministers of the United Church of Christ have recently been in discussion online about what our various Conferences do in regard to conflict mediation for our congregations. There is a pressing need to promote new ways of thinking in a society that is oriented to conflict and self-interest. The pursuit of peace is as old as the church itself. As the Initial Statement makes clear, our mandate comes from the life, ministry and teaching of Jesus himself. While the need may be old, it has never been more pressing. Together with ecumenical partners around the world, we have an opportunity to proclaim peace and to teach the ways of peace-making. May we respond as vigorously as our faith calls us to respond. 5

6 Appendix In 2001, at our 23 rd General Synod, the United Church of Christ adopted the following resolution in support of the Decade to Overcome Violence: Summary: This resolution calls upon the various settings of the United Church of Christ to take an active role in the Decade to Overcome Violence and to join together and with other denominations and organizations in doing so. Doing so, we shall overcome some day... Resolution: WHEREAS the psalmist wrote, Seek peace, and pursue it (Ps. 34:14), and the prophet Isaiah wrote the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox;... They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain (Isa. 65:25), and Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount///Bergpredigt, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God. (Matt. 5:9); WHEREAS we recall with thanksgiving the history of saints and martyrs of the church who gave their lives as witnesses for God against the powers of violence and at the same time we confess the role that the church has too often played in adding to the violence and injustice of the world; WHEREAS the world s Nobel Peace laureates///nobelpreisträger have appealed for a Decade for a Culture of Nonviolence, and a Year of Education for Nonviolence, with special emphasis on children and youth; WHEREAS the United Nations has designated the years as the Decade for Nonviolence///Gewaltlosigkeit and a Culture of Peace for the Children of the World; WHEREAS the World Council of Churches, meeting at its Eighth Assembly in Harare, called upon its member churches to observe a Decade to Overcome Violence from 2001 to 2010, calling upon its member churches to provide a clear witness to peace, reconciliation, and nonviolence, grounded in justice; WHEREAS the U.S. Conference of the World Council of Churches began this observance with a Lenten fast from violence in 2001, requesting member churches to pray the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, Lord make me an instrument of thy peace; WHEREAS the United Church of Christ has designated itself as a Just Peace church and many local churches have designated themselves as Just Peace churches; WHEREAS violence is fracturing our world, destroying our culture, and takes many forms from the violence of war and genocide///genozid=völkermord, to the violence due to the use of land mines and the proliferation of small arms, to the systemic violence of poverty and racism, to violence in the home against women and children, to the violence done to the whole of God s creation, to the violence of hate crimes and police brutality, to the violence of gangs, to the violence which erupts in U. S. schools and is found in our churches; WHEREAS as Christians, we are called upon to recognize that our cultural addiction to violence is a spiritual challenge that calls us to prophetic witness; WHEREAS we have heard the call to nonviolence as an active alternative to violence from modern prophets such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and as a way of living out Jesus teachings and bearing witness to God s promise of peace with justice; and WHEREAS the culture of violence surrounds us all and is found in our entertainment, our sports, our worldview, and is embedded in our history; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon every local church to act to overcome violence in our world and especially in its own community by being a witness for peace with justice and reconciliation, through Bible study and 6

7 theological reflection, and through dialogue and prayerful consideration of how it can be active participants in the Decade to Overcome Violence; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon the Conferences and Associations of the United Church of Christ to affirm the commitment of the United Church of Christ to support a Decade to Overcome Violence and to discern how they might become active participants in the Decade; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon the seminaries of the United Church of Christ and the historically related seminaries to include education on issues of violence in the curriculum for the preparation of pastors and in continuing education programs; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon Justice and Witness Ministries to coordinate work in the national setting of the church around overcoming violence and to provide leadership training on nonviolence and conflict resolution and violence prevention education, to work with youth and young adults in programs to end violence, to advocate for an end to land mines and the proliferation of small arms, and to work to overcome the institutional and systemic violence of racism and poverty; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon Wider Church Ministries to explore appropriate ways for the United Church of Christ to participate in the United Nations Decade for Nonviolence and a Culture of Peace and to develop necessary resources for such participation; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon the Office of General Ministries to coordinate the promotion and information for the United Church of Christ s participation in the World Council of Churches Decade to Overcome Violence, and BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Twenty-third General Synod calls upon Local Church Ministries to produce the appropriate bulletin inserts and curriculum resources for local churches to participate in the Decade to Overcome Violence. 7