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Note #8350 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Peacemaking
GA04058
June 29, 2004

Peacemaking

by Alexa Smith

RICHMOND, June 29 - After hours of wrangling, the Committee on Peacemaking
overwhelmingly approved a paper outlining the moral responsibility of the
United States toward Iraq and recommended that the Assembly instruct the
General Assembly Council to develop a plan to send missionaries and money to
Presbyterian churches there.

The Rev. Younan Shiba, a pastor in central Baghdad, had challenged the
committee to "send an army of missionaries" to help the Iraqi church grow,
pointing out, "We are a product of your mission." The churches were planted
by missionaries in the 1920s.

The committee will also recommend that the Assembly:

*Instruct the PC(USA) stated clerk to send a pastoral letter to PC(USA)
congregations outlining the political ideology of Christian Zionism, and to
advise U.S. government officials that that ideology is not that of a majority
of American Christians;

*Ask the Worldwide Ministries Division to study the feasibility of beginning
economic-development work in Palestine and to put a "concrete, measurable
action plan" in place by 2005;

*Commend the 4,723 PC(USA) sessions and other governing bodies that have
adopted the "Commitment to Peacemaking," a pledge to work for peace.

The panel voted down a resolution demanding that Stated Clerk Clifton
Kirkpatrick justify his support of a World Council of Churches (WCC)
statement calling for a United Nations investigation and prosecution of the
leaders of the war on Iraq; and approved a "Resolution on Violence, Religion
and Terrorism" recommended by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness
Policy.

This story and many others may have photos, media, video clips that can be
found at http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/.

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