Your two cents for social justice
The PCUSA’s ‘faithfully partisan’ plans
By Carmen Fowler LaBerge, The Layman, July 12, 2012
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — As the fifth great end of the Church is “the promotion of social righteousness,” social activism is a part of Presbyterian DNA. However, not all Presbyterians agree on what forms that advocacy and action should take. In approving a commissioner’s resolution calling for “two seasons of prayer to seek the will of Almighty God in this year’s election,” (item 11-21), a bi-partisan spirit might have been assumed at the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). However, in almost every case, the social justice advocacy of the denomination has become indistinguishable from straight-line partisan politics. The assembly confirmed its political allegiance in approving item 11-11 which celebrated the PCUSA’s denomination’s “prophetic witness” as “faithfully partisan.”
Thanks to the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), the Advocacy Committee on Racial Ethnic Concerns (ACREC), or the Advocacy Committee on Women’s Concerns (ACWC), the PCUSA has its own self-perpetuating pipeline of social justice related business. That business was handled at the 2012 GA by Committee 11. The business can be broken down into five broad categories: the economy, the environment, the justice system, women and racial ethnic concerns and children.
One item defies categorization. Item 11-15 relates to approval and promotion of a project of the National Council of Churches called “Words Matter.”
The Words Matter project traces its roots to the Reimagining God conference in 1993 and advocates for “expansive language” including the feminization of the divine through the use of Sophia in place of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Presbyterian Women’s Justice and Peace committee of the PCUSA is a part of the Justice for Women Working Group (J4WWG) of the NCC.
The Words Matter project seeks to go beyond feminizing mainline language related to God. It now seeks to eliminate imagery and references that would “subjugate” anyone, including words like Lord in reference to Jesus. According to the website, the project seeks to unmask “the power of language and the part it plays in patriarchy/kyriarchy, including exploring God-language as a cultural construct.”
Wordsmatter.org says that “kyriarchy,” a “term coined by feminist theologian Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, is used to describe all systems of “lordship” of one person or group of people over and against another, i.e. men over women, white over black, straight over lgbt, ablebodied over differently-abled, etc. Schussler-Fiorenza, and the J4WWG, believes these systems of power to be interconnected and deeply entangled with one another, so that one may not speak of discrimination against women without also speaking of all other – “isms.”
The assembly committed the PCUSA to promoting and encouraging the use of the Words Matter Project by having the Presbyterian Mission Agency (formerly the General Assembly Mission Council) “include the Words Matters project on its website’s carousel of rotating features for one week each quarter, developing and distributing a bulletin insert promoting the Words Matter project, and providing financial support to the NCC for Phase 2 of the Words Matter project.
Other assembly actions in the social justice arena also have financial implications. Every member of the PCUSA bears the cost of these advocacy efforts which are funded through both mission and per-capita dollars. The actions listed in the remainder of this article account for a $18,420 impact to the GAMC unrestricted budget in 2013 and an additional $13,740 in 2014. On the per capita side, the impact is $42,865 in 2013 and $18,935 in 2014. With membership now just under 2 million, each penny of per capita covers $20,000 in spending. So, a little over two cents of the per capita that will be paid by your session to the General Assembly in 2013 will go to cover the costs of the initiatives outlined here.
2012 GA social justice agenda on:
The Economy
- advocacy against greed and capitalism in support of the Occupy movement (11-01)
- advocacy for labor unions, collective bargaining and redefining human rights to include work, healthcare and education (11-02 and 11-10)
- advocacy for “World of Hurt, Word of Life” on economic reconstruction that promotes a socialist reformation of government and the economy (11-09)
- advocacy for trade reform, “particularly the United States’ role in NAFTA.” Including the “investigation of violations of land, water, labor rights and tax-shelters by corporations taking advantage of World Trade Organization and free trade agreement provisions.” (item 11-19)
- referral of the investigation of banking and financial institutions to Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) (item 11-20)
Having established is pro-unionized labor position, the assembly disapproved a commissioner’s resolution seeking to ensure that union members were notified that the unused portion of their dues could be applied to charitable efforts, like Presbyterian world missions, at the end of each year (item 11-23).
The Environment
- advocacy for the 50 year farm bill; toward renewability, sustainability, resilience, minimized carbon emissions, participatory research and decision making (11-03)
- advocacy for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, elevating protection of the environment to an “essential” part of the Christian faith (11-07).
The criminal justice system
- instructed MRTI to investigate the practices of publicly traded for-profit prison corporations operating in the U.S. and report recommendations to the 2014 GA (11-06)
- advocacy for and study of the perceived connection between race, the war on drugs, incarceration and the disproportionate and adverse impact on racial ethnic communities (11-08)
- advocacy against prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons (11-23).
Women and Racial Ethnic people
- advocacy for racial ethnic churches (11-04)
- approved the continuation of a program supporting racial ethnic women’s ministry (11-12)
- commended the study of the 2011-2012 Horizon’s Bible Study and the Accra Confession (11-14)
- approved initiation of new standards for affirmative action for all GA related entities (11-17)
- approved a resolution seeking to clear the backlog of processing of rape kits, seeking justice for survivors of sexual assault (11-18).
Children
- called for an end to corporal punishment in homes, schools and childcare facilities (11-05)
- ensuring the implementation of an updated safe child policy throughout the PCUSA (11-16)
Other committees handled specific social issues like immigration reform and the mandate for universal single-payer healthcare. Both of which the PCUSA GA supports. The real costs of which are far greater than your 2 cents.