Peacemaking: The Believers' Calling (1980)

Twenty centuries ago, "in the fullness of time," God sent Jesus the Christ. Now there is a special time in history-a season (kairos)- summoning the faith and obedience of God's people. For Christ has gathered and deployed his people around the earth, across political and economic lines, in places of powerfully protected affluence, and among the poorest of the poor. The body of Christ responds to the world's pain with empathy and anguish, one part for another, in our time. But we believe that these times, so full of peril and tragedy for the human family, present a special call for obedience to our Lord, the Prince of Peace. The Spirit is calling us to life out of death. The church must discern the signs of the times in the light of what the Spirit is revealing.

The Advisory Council on Church and Society was commissioned by the 187th General Assembly (1975) to reassess the concept of peacemaking and the direction of our country's foreign policy in the light of our biblical and confessional faith and a markedly changed situation in the world today.

This request of the General Assembly was a product of its times:

• born in part from the United States' defeat in Southeast Asia and the loss of prestige and power in the changing world situation;
• born in part from the unwillingness of the emerging nations to accept the continued domination of the developed nations;
• born in part from the increasing insecurity over the perilous nuclear weapons stalemate in which any miscalculation could annihilate humanity;
• born in part from concern for the hungry and oppressed of the world.