Friends,
As a Presbyterian minister part of my job involves being active in the life of the denomination to which our congregation belongs. This obligation is actually written into the ordination vows I took almost 29 years ago, and, for the most part, it has been a pleasure to see what’s happening beyond the confines of the local church, and to be a part of that good work. In this edition of Contact I want to let you know about some of that good work.
I am currently serving on the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s antimilitarism working group. I like this group because the committee includes Presbyterian mission co-workers from Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia who bring an important global perspective to what we do (though, the downside is that because our members come from as far west as Oakland and as far east as Seoul, the meetings start at 5AM Pacific time, which is 9PM in Korea; my colleague Unzu Lee and I both yawn a lot on those Zoom sessions, but for different reasons).
At our last meeting, we decided to go through the actions of last month’s General Assembly to find out what work we should be supporting and how we might find points of collaboration going forward. My assignment was to learn about the work of the General Assembly’s Environmental Justice Committee, and I have to say that I am really impressed with what our denomination is doing in the areas of climate change and environmental justice.
Here is a link to a page that lists the ten actions our denomination’s highest governing body took last month https://www.pc-biz.org/#/committee/3000086/business .One of those actions, which involves divesting from fossil fuels, came out of an overture cosigned by the Presbytery of San Francisco, at the prompting of Montclair Presbyterian Church. We should feel really good about that. (To see that action, go here: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000876)
I haven’t yet made an in-depth study of all of the actions, but I’m particularly drawn to an action that establishes a tree-planting fund within the denomination. At the face of it, the action is just about reforestation for the sake of providing carbon offsets when Presbyterian travel, but it does so in a way that is comprehensive in its acknowledgement of a wide variety of environmental and climate issues. (Here is a link to the tree fund action: https://www.pc-biz.org/#/search/3000854)
It can be hard for Californians to stay abreast of what goes on in the Presbyterian Church (USA)–ours is a decidedly East Coast denomination–but we are doing really good work on issues like climate change and environmental justice. Check it out. I think you will find it to be worth the effort.
God’s Peace,
Ben