This resolution affirms the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, and opposes?all measures that would disenfranchise voters on the basis of race or other condition. It supports the re-enfranchisement of felons who have paid their debt to society and "full voting rights" for the District of Columbia. It urges variability of voting machine totals, as well as "best practices" in the administration of elections. It opposes "caging," "purging lists," special ID requirements, and other arbitrary challenges and intimidation of voters. It favors public funding and lobbying restrictions designed to curb favoritism and conflicts of interest. Beyond …
The 165th General Assembly made the following pronouncement for the guidance of Presbyterians: 'All human life should be lived in accordance with the principles established by God for the life of men and of nations. This is a tenet of Biblical religion. It is also a basic emphasis in our Presbyterian heritage of faith. 'As individuals and as a group, Christians are responsible for adjusting their thought and behavior to those everlasting principles of Scripture. It is no less their responsibility as citizens of their nation, to seek as far as their influence may extend, to bring national life and …
Honest Patriotism addresses threats to the vital freedoms of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the U. S. Constitution due to changes in communications, media, and politics. It calls for measures of public accountability for truthfulness in the public square in all its forms: over public airwaves, through cyberspace, and through required public disclosure by government agencies, profit and nonprofit entities. Except for hate speech, freedom of speech is to be untrammeled, with widest possible access to information, protection of the press, publication of research, and public assembly rights. Respect for privacy of personal information from government or private surveillance …
212th General Assembly (2000) Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) There is strong evidence that the death penalty is applied in a racist manner. In 1987, in McCleskey v. Kemp, the United States Supreme Court refused to act on data demonstrating the continuing reality of racial bias. Justice William Brennan in his dissenting opinion said: It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not …
Policy Recommendations The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) recommends that the 211th General Assembly (1999) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) do the following: 1. Commend the United Nations and the International Conference in Rome for the drafting and adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). 2. Affirm the need for international judicial mechanisms for the administration of justice capable of addressing major categories of crime with consistent application for all countries. 3. Call upon all governments to be diligent in the conduct of affairs, preventing those acts that might constitute offenses of international character …
Drawing upon biblical sources, insights from the Reformed Tradition, and past policies of the General Assembly, 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. The resolution 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.”
Establishing a strong foundation on biblical, theological, and historic principals, this study explores the present context in which our justice system functions. It puts forward the position that the rehabilitation of prisoners and profiting off of their incarceration are fundamentally opposed points of view. The treatment of prisoners cannot run the risk of corruption by considerations of what will make the most profit for share-holders, yet in a for-profit prison system this is the primary motivation.
This report, approved by the 219th General Assembly (2010),challenges our society’s fatalism and numbness in accepting the highest gun death rates in the world, reviews past church positions and proposes a new “spiritual awakening” approach: a church-related, community-based strategy inspired by “Heeding God’s Call” in Philadelphia, with similar groups in Richmond, Virginia and central New Jersey. The report looks at our culture of violence-acceptance, with its undercurrents of fear and desperation.
This document sets forth a clear vision for social policy and social witness. The accompanying study guide is helpful in describing the "whys" and "hows" of social policy formulation and witness inn the PC(USA) and explains and interprets Reformed patterns of social witness.
The Social Creed for the 21st Century was adopted in 2008 by ecumenical representatives of 35 Protestant and Orthodox church communions. This booklet provides Biblical, theological and historical background as well as current application ideas for each of the Creed's affirmations. It also includes questions for discussion and study.