| RICHMOND, June 30 - Prayerful pleas for peace offered by Presbyterian poets J. Barrie Shepherd and Ann Weems brought affirmations of "Amen!" and "Yes!" during Wednesday morning's Peace Breakfast, an annual Assembly event sponsored by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF).
The event at the Marriott Hotel was also a celebration of 60 years of promoting non-violence and alternatives to violence.
Ten people who have been prisoners of conscience were honored with the fellowship's Peace Seeker Awards for 2004. At least one is imprisoned for trespassing during a protest of the former School of the Americas, a combat training school for Latin American soldiers at Fort Benning, GA, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
The Rev. Robert Edgar, a former congressman who now is the general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, told those in attendance that the challenges facing the church today are challenges of "vision, mission, courage and relevance - not financial."
"Let's stop worrying about how many people come to our churches, and start living a life of justice," he said. |
