This Library contains documents from all recent United Church governance meetings, including General Council and its Executive. It will also soon include “Our Beliefs Explained” official policy documents dating back several decades. If you can't find something you think should be included, contact gcbusiness@united-church.ca.
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Biblical calls to address injustice, inhumanity and racism compel us to reach out to oppressed sisters and brothers in South Africa, and call us to confront systems of repression and evil. Keywords: South Africa, Racism, Discrimination, Racial Justice, Globalization, Ethical, Investment, Economic, Community Development
At its meeting in Ottawa in August 1982 the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), of which The United Church of Canada is a member, declared apartheid to be a heresy, and suspended from the privileges of membership in WARC the two Dutch Reformed churches, declaring them to be “oppressive and in error,” an action which has since been confirmed by many of its members, including the Black Reformed Methodist and Anglican churches in South Africa;
Faith Base Jesus called persons into freedom from coercion and enslavement, and through the cross and resurrection delivers us from evil powers. The Bible tells us to be discerning of false prophets and doctrines. Preying on the human spirit, mind control is based on fear and guilt.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: THAT the 30th General Council of The United Church of Canada: 1 REQUEST the government of Canada to recognize the right of self-determination; 2 BRING influence to bear on the government of the United States of America to withdraw from interventions in Nicaraguan affairs.
In response to a letter from Montreal and Ottawa Conference, the Executive passed the following resolution: WHEREAS the violation of human rights is all too common in many countries throughout the world; and WHEREAS Guyana and Guatemala in our hemisphere have political and military regimes whose oppression is the cause of thousands attempting to flee their homeland
WHEREAS it has been thoroughly documented by the Inter-Church Committee for Human Rights in Latin America and the Christian Reformed Church, among others, that there is no protection for refugees in the neighbouring Latin American countries to which they flee; and WHEREAS people living as refugees are often at risk in regard to their personal safety, and may have barely adequate and extremely crowded shelter, with one meal a day and water to drink; and
WHEREAS we have been informed of investigations by church groups from the United States of America which indicate that people who had been returned to El Salvador were killed and that for people to be returned to El Salvador means almost certain death, so that it is therefore important that an alternative place of safety be provided; and Refugees, Asylum, El Salvador, Foreign Policy
WHEREAS South Africa continues to exercise stringent apartheid measures and supports racist policies in Rhodesia, Namibia and the Portuguese African Territories: BE IT RESOLVED that this General Council through the appropriate Departments of Divisions:
WHEREAS the apartheid policy of South Africa deprives a large majority of its people of economic, political and social freedoms solely on the basis of skin colour; and WHEREAS the white racist government of Rhodesia is moving rapidly toward a South African type of apartheid; and WHEREAS Portugal received NATO aid, enabling her forcibly to subjugate indigenous Africans; and WHEREAS the ambivalence of Canadian foreign policy at present allows a small fraction of trade to weigh more heavily than our attention to Christian principles of human justice, thereby lowering our credibility with those independent African nations whom we support verbally in the UN;
