The Rev. Alex E. Awad, a peace and justice advocate and former missionary with the United Methodist Church, will speak to U.S. audiences this fall as part of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program’sInternational Peacemakers initiative. He’s served in Israel/Palestine as an educator and pastor for more than 30 years and will speak about his experiences in the Holy Land, the conditions faced by Palestinians under occupation, the impact of Israeli settlements, and the role of the church in ending the current injustices found in his homeland.
El secretario permanente de la Asamblea General de la Iglesia Presbiteriana (U.S.A.), el Rev. J. Herbert Nelson II, ha escrito al presidente de Colombia, Iván Duque, condenando a los «informes dignos de confianza detallando una campaña sistemática de asesinatos extrajudiciales, la cual ha causado en Colombia la muerte de centenares de líderes comunitarios y de iglesia, y también de activistas por los derechos humanos».
Presbyterian churches now have a new tool to energize and educate congregations around global issues such as poverty alleviation and climate change. The Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations (PMUN) has produced a new Educational Resource Guide that highlights what the PC(USA) and its global church partners are doing to address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The National Council of Churches opposes the Trump Administration’s reimposition of trade sanctions on Iran, ninety days after announcing the United States’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. All indications are Iran has abided by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and that it has been successful in deterring any progress toward a nuclear-armed Iran.
The renewed sanctions will cause needless suffering among the people of Iran, likely destroy the success of the JCPOA (which is still in force for other countries that were part of the agreement), strain relationships with allies, and increase tensions in the Middle East and in Europe.
A national report ranks Louisiana 49th in children’s well-being, but Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services is working to change that. It is also healing children and preserving families in Texas, which ranks 47th in children’s well-being, and Missouri, ranking 26th.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Stated Clerk the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson has named Rick Jones, who is currently serving in Presbyterian Mission Agency Communications, as the new Director of Communications for the Office of the General Assembly. Jones begins his new work September 4.
Jones joined the PMA staff in 2014 as the communications strategist for Compassion, Peace and Justice Ministries. During his time, he has covered ministry work in disasters, immigration, environment, poverty and social justice issues. His work has taken him to the Middle East, West Africa and Central America as well as across the U.S.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Stated Clerk the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II paid tribute today (August 9) to the Rev. Katie Geneva Cannon, who died August 8.
Cannon, the first African American woman ordained to the ministry in the former United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) “represented the power of faith and love despite the tensions of both race and gender struggles within the denomination,” Nelson said. “Her quick wit was not to be mistaken as ‘throw away lines,’ but grounded in a sense of expressing some hard truths in ways that all could understand.”
Back2School, the daily devotional series geared to youth and young adults and those who walk alongside them in ministry, returns to d365.org on Monday, August 13.
The Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, a pioneer and legend in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), died Wednesday, Aug. 8. She was the Annie Scales Rogers Professor of Christian Social Ethics at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and the first African-American woman ordained as a minister of Word and sacrament in the former United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She was also a minister member of the Presbytery of Philadelphia.
Zimbabwe’s voters went to the polls in large numbers on Monday, July 30, in “harmonized elections” for president and members of Parliament. Domestic and international election observers commended the voting process as orderly and generally peaceful.