Call on Political Leaders to Take a Lead in the United Nations Climate Negotiations

 We are called to be good stewards of the Earth and care for all of God’s creation. Communities of faith are coming together to call on political leaders to address issues of climate change. Join your voice with others as we call on political leaders in the United States to take a lead role in helping to craft a moral global framework for the UN climate negotiations that will take place in Paris 2015.

 
 Click here to sign the Faith Climate Petition.

 

As people of faith, we care for all of God’s creation with a special concern for vulnerable populations. Presbyterians have acknowledged the burden of climate change and environmental injustice placed on the backs of the poor and oppressed. The 218^th General Assembly presented a policy recommendation on climate change that emphasized a commitment to stand with ‘the least of these.’ The 219^th General Assembly also approved an overture that affirmed “concern for God’s creation is, for every Christian, an essential way of living faithfully.”

U.S. policymakers need to take a lead role during the United Nations climate treaty negotiations. Reducing carbon emissions is vital to preventing devastating  impacts of climate change and to providing meaningful support for vulnerable communities. With the UN Climate Summit taking place in September in New York, now is the time to let both President Obama and Congress know that we need a strong treaty that requires all nations to take steps to control greenhouse gas emissions. 

Click here to sign the Faith Climate Petition.

We too can lead by example in taking action to address climate change. We are joining with ecumenical partners to collect individual pledges for action as a way to demonstrate our commitment to address climate change to our political leaders. Pledges for action can range from changing a light bulb to installing solar panels on your church roof, from hosting a climate vigil to preaching a sermon. Pledges for action will be highlighted during several faith events in New York in September.                     

 Click here to pledge to take action.

Together, let us respond to the challenge of climate change with compassion; standing in solidarity with our neighbors living in or near poverty who are most severely affected by the changing climate, and striving to preserve God’s “good” Creation.

23 Hour Fast to End 23 Hour Solitary Confinement: June 18th-19th

Torture is a reality here on U.S. soil as well as abroad. The U.S. is a world leader in holding prisoners in prolonged solitary confinement. This practice is not only cruel and inhumane, under certain circumstances it can amount to torture.

“…solitary confinement is a cruel practice which causes permanent psychological damage to those who have been treated in that manner [which]…even in the absence of brutality can cause emotional damage, hallucinations, delusions, de-personalization and decline[d] mental functioning…Solitary confinement is banned under…the Geneva Conventions as it amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” -Amnesty International

In the U.S., there are 44 state-run super-max prisons and one federal super-max prison, each of which holds inmates exclusively in solitary confinement. At least 80,000 people in the U.S. criminal justice system are held in solitary confinement on any given day.

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights will hold the first-ever Congressional hearing on solitary confinement this Tuesday, June 19^th.

We are partnering with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) in calling for a nationwide 23 hour fast beginning the day before the hearing. This fast symbolizes the 23 hours per day prisoners spend in solitary confinement cells. Sign up here to join people of faith fasting across the nation from 1 p.m., Monday, June 18th until Noon, Tuesday, June 19^th including our very own Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II. We also invite you to participate in a picture campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Take a picture of yourself holding a sign declaring why this issue is important to you, why you decided to act, or a statistic about solitary confinement. Here are some examples: “I stand in solidarity with those suffering in solitary”, “23 Hour Fast to End 23 Hour Solitary”, “I fast because____.” Then post your picture to the NRCAT event page on Facebook and use it as your profile picture June 18^th and 19^th. If you use Instagram, please post your photo and send it out through both Facebook and Twitter. 

For those who are in the D.C. area, please consider joining us at the hearing on Tuesday, June 19^th at 10:00 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226. This is a unique and meaningful opportunity. A well-attended hearing would show strong support for ending prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, so please come on the 19^th, even if only for a short period of time. Please tell us if you are able to join us at the hearing by using this form.

As we have seen in recent prisoner hunger strikes in Virginia and California, refusing food is one of the few means prisoners across the country have to protest their conditions in solitary confinement. Praying and fasting will provide a powerful testimony that people of faith care deeply about limiting the use of solitary confinement.

To learn more about solitary confinement, go to NRCAT's page on Torture in U.S. Prisons and watch "Solitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard," a 20-minute film produced by NRCAT which features survivor testimonies and speakers from multiple faith perspectives.  

Thank you in advance for your participation in this incredible opportunity to shine a light in some of our nation’s darkest places. As we address the issue of torture domestically and internationally, let this fast be one way in which we, as a nation, pay attention to the log in our own eye and not only the speck in our neighbor's eye (Matthew 7:3-5).

LINKS:

·   Sign-Up Form: www.surveymonkey.com/s/FKQG2D5

·   Sample Tweet: Plz join me 4 the “23 Hour Fast to End 23 Hour Solitary” starting June 18 1pm. http://www.nrcat.org/23HourFast #23HourFast via @NRCATtweets

·   Facebook page to share: www.facebook.com/events/406272916089904

·   Prayer for use during the fast: www.nrcat.org/23_hour_fast_prayer

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s concern for prisoners has been established for almost a century. In 1910, the General Assembly declared that the church ought to stand: 

For the development of a Christian spirit in the attitude of society toward offenders against the law. The Church holds that a Christian society must seek the reformation of offenders, and that it must endeavor to prevent the commission of crimes by furnishing a wholesome environment and by such education as will develop moral sense and industrial efficiency in the young (Minutes , PCUSA, 1910, Part I, p. 232).

…The ultimate goal of the criminal justice system should be “restorative justice”: “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” ( Resolution on Restorative Justice, Minutes , 2002, Part I, p. 576 ).

…Encourage all Presbyterians…to work to protect the health, welfare, and well-being of the prisoners that are held in these facilities.

(Resolution Calling for the Abolition of For-Profit Private Prisons, 2003)

Iran Bombing Threat: Creating a Mindset that Leads to War

By Chris Iosso, an editorial

 published by Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice

Ban­ner photo by “jonasjonas,” the chess of cal­cu­lated rhetoric

The first thing one encoun­ters in dis­cussing the war drum­beat tar­get­ing Iran is the one-sidedness of the debate. Glenn Green­wald of Salon gives a quick sum­mary on this point, and James Wall, for­mer Chris­t­ian Cen­tury edi­tor, describes the same real­ity. This sug­gests that the talk of war with Iran, though help­fully called, “loose talk,” by Pres­i­dent Obama in his Sun­day, March 4, speech to the Amer­i­can Israeli Pub­lic Affairs Com­mit­tee (AIPAC), is actu­ally quite delib­er­ate and orches­trated talk designed to cre­ate a mind­set favor­ing war. And even if this talk is a repeated strat­egy to dis­tract the U.S. pub­lic from con­tin­ued set­tle­ments or other Israeli polit­i­cal objec­tives, it con­tin­ues to mil­i­ta­rize U.S. for­eign pol­icy and affects our rela­tions not just with Iran, but with the larger com­mu­nity of nations. In prac­ti­cal terms, it keeps us from build­ing stronger alliances to deal with the cri­sis in Syria (for exam­ple) and revives a uni­lat­er­al­ist mind­set that dis­re­gards inter­na­tional law. (continue reading on Unbound)