wfn.org | Advisory Committee Commends New Churchwide Policy Statement

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

4-February-1997 
97055 
 
                   Advisory Committee  Commends 
                 New Churchwide Policy Statement 
 
                         by Julian Shipp 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.-- The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) 
is commending a new churchwide policy statement and study guide that 
examines the social, economic and ecological effects of U.S. international 
policies on the world's poorest nations and recommends directions for 
reform. 
 
     "Hope for a Global Future: Toward Just and Sustainable Human 
Development" was developed by ACSWP and approved by the 208th General 
Assembly (1996). 
 
     Released to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations last November, 
the statement's emphasis on overconsumption has been acclaimed as a 
prophetic word to people in the PC(USA) and America, particularly its 
noting that women are among the poorest of the world's poor and its 
insistence on the need for justice among the world's rich and poor. 
 
     "We are pleased  Hope for a Global Future' is published with a study 
guide and is now out in the churches," said the Rev. Peter A. Sulyok, ACSWP 
coordinator. "I believe this timely document will have a long shelf life in 
the church. It will take some time for church study groups to weave the 
policy statement into their adult studies and social witness advocacy work. 
 
     "We look forward to feedback from the policy statement," Sulyok told 
the Presbyterian News Service. "We hope to be able to share creative ways 
in which  Hope for a Global Future' is being used in the church so that 
others can duplicate successful models of use." 
 
     According to Sulyok, the Restoring Creation Network, Hunger Action 
Enablers Network and Peacemaking Task Force members in local presbyteries 
and congregations will find this document especially useful as church 
policy in their areas. 
 
     The policy recommendations in the report linked to the term "just and 
sustainable human development" integrate historic concerns of the church. 
Sulyok said the church's concerns of justice, community and sustainability 
are all woven into the document in a way that challenges Presbyterians as 
they seek to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ. 
 
     Moreover, he continued the document lifts up for those with many 
resources the Reformed tradition's emphasis on frugality so that the basic 
needs of those with few resources can be met responsively. Jesus' central 
concern for the poor is at the heart of this policy statement, which calls 
on Presbyterians to continue to make caring for the poor central to the 
church's life and ministry. 
 
                Task force members have their say 
 
     ACSWP appointed the Task Force on Sustainable Development, Reformed 
Faith and U.S.  International Policy to develop the document in 1991.  Dr. 
James Kuhn, task group chair, a Presbyterian elder and retired business 
professor from Columbia University in New York, said the study document has 
a global focus and takes a go-for-broke approach in addressing the world's 
problems because it is centered around the notion that human beings will 
"either accomplish sustainability together or not at all." 
 
     Kuhn said experts in theology, business, government, sociology and 
other related fields were consulted during the creation of the document. 
For instance, in February of 1993, the group met for eight days in 
Honduras, the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, for on-site 
experience and study. 
 
     The Rev. Sarah Blyth Taylor, a task group member and Presbyterian 
pastor in Phoenixville, Pa., said she hopes congregations will first read 
the document, then get a sense of the "criticality of addressing the whole 
issue of sustainable development globally. 
 
     "We are all a family of God and one with creation in the sense that we 
need to take seriously our responsibility to ensure that everyone has a 
decent life and that we preserve the beautiful nature that God gave us," 
Taylor said. "I'm deeply concerned about the abuse of nature and how our 
natural resources are dwindling."  
 
     "I really do like the document and I hope it has some impact on the 
Presbyterian Church," said Dr. Heidi Hadsell, a task group member who is 
dean of the faculty, vice president for academic affairs and professor of 
Christian social ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. "I 
think that professors and students will use it, and I hope churches will, 
too," added Hadsell, who has been named director of the World Council of 
Churches' Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland. 
 
                         A Hopeful Future 
  
     Sulyok said initial responses to "Hope for a Global Future" have been 
"strongly appreciative," adding "folks have been amazed that such an 
integrative document linking together poverty, population and environmental 
concerns from a deep faith perspective could be produced." 
 
     He said people also have been appreciative of the document's 
confessional nature and its call for fundamental reforms in the churches, 
United States governmental policy and the international economic order. 
 
     " Hope for a Global Future' is a beginning," Sulyok said. "It is a 
small stone dropped into a large pool. We await the little ripples to move 
out from the center to make their hope-empowering impact." 
 
     Copies of "Hope for a Global Future" are available at $2.50 each from 
Presbyterian Distribution Services (PDS), 100 Witherspoon Street, Room 
2412, Louisville, KY 40202-1396, or by calling 1-800-524-2612 outside of 
Louisville; (502) 569-2503 in Louisville.  Specify PDS order #OGA-96-013. 

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