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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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
The National Energy Sub—Unit and the church have a wider mandate in approaching energy and environmental concerns. It derives from the unlimited sovereignty of God over creation, and our human vocation of stewardship within that creation.
The General Council called on the governments of Canada (provincial and federal) to enact immediately legislation banning all alcohol advertising through the media; and, further, to challenge the members of the church to examine their own use of alcoholic beverages. Keywords: Alcohol, Liquor, Advertising
THEREFORE we call on the church to renounce its alliances with security and power; to name with courage the forces that militate for death and against life; to repent and to call for repentance all in the church who have allowed the longing for security to replace the love of freedom; optimism to replace hope, and fear to overcome faith. We call on the governments of the nations for an immediate end to the arms race, and to the production and deployment of nuclear weapons. We call instead for a serious commitment to a just social order with freedom and wholeness for all.
The Sessional Committee, noting that the report had been provided for information, presented the following resolution: The 28th General Council, in the Preamble to the Petition on Inclusive Language, states that “Children, youth, women and men, are all called to be members of the Body of Christ and the household and family of God.” We therefore affirm the work reported by the [Changing roles of Women and Men in Church and Society] Task Force to continue the educational process towards fulfilling its mandate.
WHEREAS we, as Christians, recognize all peoples of the earth as our brothers and sisters; and WHEREAS the escalating world arms race is now costing hundreds of billions of dollars a year perverting and squandering precious national resources, robbing the human family of food, water, health, education, housing, roads, transportation and peaceful industry
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
This policy statement on the issue of peace and disarmament has been prepared in response to the specific call of the 28th General Council to “recognize the escalation of the arms race, to study the complex issues involved, including the assumptions, values and life-styles giving rise to this escalation, to consider these issues in the light of scripture, doctrine and personal favour…to speak and act clearly, prophetically and courageously on this subject in a way which is faithful to our understanding of Shalom in which Peace, and Justice are linked…” (1980 ROP, p. 923)
As Amended by the Executive Council of the General Council, November 1989. Preamble As Christians we wish to affirm: The sanctity of human life, born or unborn. That life is much more that physical existence.
WHEREAS we are concerned about the effect of alcohol on unborn babies, specifically: -a complex of growth deficiencies, -physical malformation, -mental retardation known as the fetal alcohol syndrome;
