TUCSON, AZ — Last summer at the Peacemaking Conference
at Ghost Ranch, I was approached by several participants who
asked me, “What is our denomination going to do about torture?”
My response may surprise you. “Probably nothing,” I
said, “but if you will organize a grass-roots effort to
encourage Presbyterians to address this troubling issue, I will
do everything I can to back you up.”
If you go to the Web site, www.no2torture.org,
you’ll
see the result. Presbyterians went to work over the summer and
designed a study guide to help us address this difficult issue
in our churches.
Ed Brogan, the director of the Association of Presbyterian Military
Chaplains, joined me in October in extending a call to all Presbyterians
to study and pray about the standards our government should uphold
regarding the use of torture.
Most exciting, a group of us will be gathering on Epiphany,
January 6, 2006, in Miami. Our goal is to spend time in spiritual
discernment, to hold a public worship and witness in which we
will call our country to the best of our historic ideals, and
to strategize about how to be a part of a growing movement to
stand firmly, unequivocally against the use of torture.
We hope that many of you will join us.
I believe this is a glimpse into the
future of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Our role at the
level of the General Assembly is to pursue the passions of
Presbyterians who are willing to give their lives to Christ.
Our church’s mission, in this
case and in so many others, is about what happens when many of
us start to discover that Jesus has planted similar passions
in our hearts.
What passion
will you pursue? I hope you will find a way to invite others
of us into that passion with you. That’s
what being church is all about!
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