When committee work of the 226th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) begins next week, its Domestic Engagement Committee will consider overtures and recommendations on a wide swath of issues. Among them, a particularly robust overture from the Presbytery of Chicago calls upon all congregations in the PC(USA) to “take some specific action of love and responsibility for children as part of the movement to prevent gun violence.”
The comprehensive proposal offers seven specific actions that churches may take, including promoting proper gun storage, participating in larger gun-safety movements, and voting in ways that prioritize the lives of children. The overture also calls up on the Office of Public Witness and the Presbyterian Decade to End Gun Violence to include the safety measures outlined in their resources and advocacy efforts.
The action item has concurrences from 11 other presbyteries across the United States. Alongside several startling statistics about gun violence, the rationale for the overture states that, “Babies born the year of the watershed Columbine massacre are now 25 years old. No American youth today knows a world without the threat of sudden deadly gun violence. Yet, we affirm that ‘Children are a heritage from the Lord’ (Psalm 127:3).”
Other proposed actions for committee consideration include an overture from South Louisiana Presbytery to develop a policy around internally displaced persons, and another from the Presbytery of Northeast New Jersey to support an amendment to abolish the exception in the 13th Amendment that permits those who are convicted of a crime to be enslaved.
In addition to these action items, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy has recommended two studies to be conducted by a team formed by ACSWP. The first study concerns “recent deployments of white Christian nationalism” and societal forces that enable and perpetuate its existence.
In addition to the study, ACSWP is recommending that the PC(USA) confess its complicity in “the emergence and expansion of a U.S. civic religion.” It is also recommending that the General Assembly direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation to work together on producing resources to help people and congregations to “deconstruct white Christian nationalism in the church and society at large.”
The Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice supports ACSWP’s recommendation, with the amendment that the study team present its work at the 227th General Assembly (2026).
The second study proposed by ACSWP is on Artificial Intelligence and faith. It calls upon the church to consider the “the destabilizing potential AI has for employment, the economy, civil governance and global conflict, increasing existing technological disparity, and the theological implications for its usage in the work of the church.”
Given this, the committee is recommending a team be formed to study and determine what responsible use of artificial intelligence looks like. Alongside this study, they’re recommending that Research Services conduct a survey on perceptions of AI within the wider church. The recommendation also suggests that, while the study is in process, the church’s ongoing advocacy work in this area be guided by a number of existing social witness policies as well as a provided values framework.
“AI has profound implications for workers’ rights and employment security, environmental justice, and addressing racial and gender bias often baked into technology,” the rationale states. “The church must speak to these innovations authoritatively with a statement grounded in a reformed theological understanding of the world.”
The 226th General Assembly runs from June 25 through July 4. The Committee on Domestic Engagement is scheduled to meet online from June 25-27.