Beth Mueller got a note from a man who saw the virtual choir of international peacemakers video she created for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and had a question.
“He wanted to know how we got all those people from around the world to sing at the same time on Zoom,” Mueller said, laughing.
One of the surprising headlines, to some people, out of the COVID-19 pandemic is that in addition to toilet paper and hand sanitizer, people have been stocking up on guns.
Guns?
Halfway through her opening statement on Wednesday’s edition of “Standing Our Holy Ground,” the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’s year-long webinar series about how the church can respond to gun violence, Nicole Hockley of Sandy Hook Promise cited some extraordinary achievements by her group.
The latest webinar in a series on how churches can address American gun violence highlighted the need to refocus discussion on the communities most deeply affected by the problem and the societal pressures that may lead to shootings.
Urgency filled the room. On January 19, the Rev. Jacqueline Troncoso had just been elected as moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Chile (IEPCh), the first woman to hold this post. The Synod assembly had just approved a powerful pastoral letter calling on all Chilean Presbyterians to support the drafting of a new national Constitution.
Down the street and around the globe, Presbyterians are committed to addressing the scourge of gender-based violence.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) states that “violence against women and girls is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world.” Noting that an estimated 1 in 3 women worldwide will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime, UNFPA observes that gender-based violence “knows no social, economic or national boundaries.” For this reason, every year the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations facilitates the involvement of a PC(USA) delegation at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. This group shapes global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women and is supported in part by gifts to the Peace & Global Witness Offering.
Fifteen years after being sent to Iraq as a U.S. soldier, the Rev. Matthew Fricker felt compelled to return in response to a higher calling.
“I felt affection for the country, and I could feel God calling me back to this place because of the needs of the churches over there and the needs of all the Iraqi people,” Fricker said. That calling, he added, extended to his personal need for healing and reconciliation.
