This Library contains documents from all recent United Church governance meetings, including General Council and its Executive. It also includes “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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This report serves as an accountability measure and offers an overview of the church’s overall work on anti-racism and equity from the perspective of the General Council Office.
We believe God is calling The United Church of Canada to deepen its racial justice work by making a clear and unequivocal commitment to becoming an anti-racist denomination. God’s Spirit continues to move in this time, and calls people in the church to respond to ongoing manifestations of racial injustice in church and in society.
This timeline offers an overview of some key moments of anti-racism work in The United Church of Canada.
People in the United Church have developed anti-racism policies and education programs, worked towards reconciliation and Indigenous justice, adopted the Calls to the Church, and created intercultural policies and initiatives.
At its November, 2013, meeting, the General Council Executive directed the Theology and Inter-Church Inter-Faith Committee “to research and devise a position paper regarding adoption and create a United Church of Canada statement on adoption.”
That the Executive of the General Council approve that: • Before being recognized as a candidate, an inquirer must complete all mandatory trainings required of ministry personnel; and • The following statement be added to the Entering Ministry Handbook in the section “Inquiry and Discernment” to reflect this addition policy
That The Executive of the General Council as part of its response to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, and its commitment to reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples, and in light of previous commitments to racial justice and anti-black racism, name work on identifying and understanding White privilege as important for the church and direct the General Secretary, General Council to appoint a task group to create an education program around White privilege for the church. Included in the terms of reference for the task group would be to develop or identify:
That the 42nd General Council (2015): Direct the Executive of the General Council to promote existing resources for congregations and other ministries to understand alternatives to the “first past the post” electoral system in Canada.
The 42nd General Council (2015) direct the General Secretary, General Council to: a) contact the Prime Minister, the party leaders and appropriate ministers calling on them to eliminate solitary confinement; b) contact the Prime Minister, the party leaders and appropriate ministers calling on them to: • Provide better training of staff regarding mental health issues of offenders; • Schedule mental health assessments and development of treatment strategies; • Ensure transfer of inmates prone to injuring themselves to treatment centres; • Ensure that there is adequate oversight of prison conditions. • Work more closely with the John Howard Society, the Elizabeth Fry Society, and the Canadian Mental Health Association in developing better strategies for treatment and training. • Work more closely with the interfaith chaplaincies.
Individually and in community, we do everything through the lenses of our cultures: there is no such thing as a culture-free perspective. Our experiences and understandings are shaped by our cultures. Since we cannot capture the complexity of God through our limited cultural understandings, our understanding of God is limited when we see this God through only one dominant cultural perspective. Instead, our understandings of God and our scriptures can be deepened when we come together, as disciples of Jesus Christ, in all of our differences and diversities to acknowledge intercultural reality and richness.
