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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The issue here is the moral issue of loving our neighbour as ourselves, recognizing our common humanity; education in the history of religions is needed by any responsible person in our society, in order to combat the ignorance that feeds racism, prejudice and bigotry. This petition is not advocating any particular theology of religion or a missiology of any kind. It is simply recognizing that knowledge of other religious traditions is necessary for peace and reconciliation in the world. WHEREAS our Canadian society is becoming increasingly pluralistic and multicultural, with people of many different religious traditions living in close proximity; and WHEREAS racism is at least partly a product of ignorance about the different cultural orientation of other people; and WHEREAS a knowledge of the religious traditions of the major participants is an essential element in understanding world affairs; and
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.
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
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)
Notwithstanding many international efforts toward securing peace with justice in the Middle East and creating a better understanding of the issues, there has been no significant progress towards a just settlement of the problems in the Middle East since the General Council last met in 1974. The Geneva Conference has not reconvened at the time of writing. The Arab States and the Palestinians continue to regard the Palestine Liberation Organization as the only legal representative of the Palestinians, and Israel remains adamant in its refusal to sit in a Conference with the PLO.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: 1 THAT this General Council reaffirm the stated opposition of the United Church to, “…the testing and use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world as being a miscarriage of man’s stewardship for human life, the earth and the resources of creation as revealed in Christ”;
WHEREAS the United Nations Charter is revised every ten years; and WHEREAS it is the conviction of this Committee that the government of Canada should be lending all possible support to reform of the UN Charter and the more effective working of the United Nations in the pursuit of world peace:
WHEREAS conditions in the Middle East have continued to deteriorate, the numbers of homeless and their suffering have increased, the threat of major war continues, and the chief hope for settlement and peace still seems to be in the implementation of action of the U.N. Security Council by Resolution 242, unanimously adopted on November 22nd, 1967, which Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats and acts of force; and Affirms further the necessity for guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area; achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;
