Peacemaking History at SPC
1982-2011
The Peacemaking Committee of the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church had its genesis in a series of adult education forums in the fall of 1981 on the theme “Christians as Peacemakers.” When the series ended, several who attended wanted to perpetuate a small group activity to promote peacemaking. The Session gave its blessing by authorizing a Peacemaking Task Force “to discuss and implement plans for working for peace and the limitation of nuclear weapons.” The group held its first meeting on January 19, 1982.
The formation of a Peacemaking Committee at SPC coincided with the beginning of the Peacemaking emphasis of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the establishment of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program through the Program Agency of the church. According to Presbytery records, the Session of SPC signed the Commitment to Peacemaking on November 22, 1983. A recommitment was signed in 1991. Each year since 1982 SPC's Session has authorized a special Peacemaking Offering to be received on World Communion Sunday. Half of the amounts received support the national program, including the Presbyterian United Nations Office in New York; 25% are shared by the Presbytery of Philadelphia and the Synod of the Trinity; the remaining 25% is retained by SPC for allocation by the Peacemaking Committee (please visit Special Offerings for more information).
In its first decade alone, SPC's Peacemaking Committee was responsible for more than 75 educational forums on subjects ranging from nuclear disarmament, relations with the Soviet Union, and the book Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev, to regional conflicts in Central America, South Africa, the Middle East, and the Philippine Islands. Audiences have ranged from a core group of about 40 to more than 150. During that period Soviet visitors were hosted on three separate occasions in as many years.
In May 1987, in response to a recommendation fom the general Assembly, the Committee sponsored an all-day Saturday study of “Presbyterians and Peacemaking: Are We Now Called to Resistance?” Responses of the 21 participants to a summary questionnaire were sent to the Advisory Council on Church and Society to assist in the development of policy recommendations to the General Assembly.
The Committee affiliated with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, a PCUSA-wide, General Assembly approved, group involved in peacemaking, and, in the 1990s, with two interfaith groups. One was the Central American Sanctuary Alliance of Delaware County (CASA), a coalition of the Concord, Media, Providence, and Swarthmore Friends Meetings, and committees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County and Mainline Unitarian Church, to support projects (piping of clean water, teachers’ salaries, etc.) in Nuevo Gualcho, El Salvador, a community of Salvadoran refugees repatriated from Honduras after the civil war of the 1980s. It has also assisted a local refugee family from El Salvador to become self-sufficient. The other organization was the Interfaith Alliance, a national nonpartisan interfaith group formed in 1994 with three goals: (1) to promote the positive role of religion as a healing and constructive force in public life; (2) to encourage faith-based values within families and neighborhoods; and (3) to provide people of faith an alternative voice to that of the radical religious right.
Since its inception SPC's Peacemaking Committee has encouraged its members to write letters to public officials on matters of peace and justice, both national and international, and occasionally has written letters as a committee.
Working with the Presbyterian United Nations Office, in 1993 the Peacemaking Committee organized for SPC members a trip to the UN to tour the building and to listen to briefings by UN officials. It also promoted participation in trips organized by the Presbytery of Philadelphia in 2004 and 2010.
The Committee has hosted numerous itinerating international peacemakers, sponsored by the national Peacemaking Program and brought into the area by the Presbytery Peacemaking Committee, to promote international understanding. The Committee has engaged in numerous studies, ranging from violence, racism, and interfaith issues to international political issues.
The Synod of the Trinity awarded SPC its Andrew E. Murray Peacemaking Award to this committee in 1986 and again in 1993 in recognition of its active role in a wide variety of peacemaking activities.
In 1997 the committee sponsored a weekend conference with former PCUSA Moderator John Fife on “Just Peacemaking” in memory of former committee member Jim Getaz, and in 1999 a series of programs on debt relief for developing countries.
Beginning in 2001, the committee has invited guests to fill the pulpit on Peacemaking Sunday and to lead the first of a series of three adult education programs in October each year. These guests have included two former PCUSA moderators (Fahed Abu-Akel and Rick Ufford-Chase), five national staff officials (Bob Smylie, Vernon Broyles, Peter Sulyok, Cliff Kirkpatrick, and Chris Iosso), former Congressman Bob Edgar, two academics (Ron Sider and Don Wagner), and in 2011 Isaac Miller, a retired Episcopal priest from Philadelphia.
In the summer of 2004 the committee sponsored a series of educational programs on public theology, focusing on issues presented by the Presidential election campaign. Again in 2008 the committee presented a program comparing party platforms on issues of environment, health plans, and foreign policy, along with statements from the General Assembly on peacemaking. In 2006 it hosted a regional round table discussion of the General Assembly resolution to “initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel in accordance [with] General Assembly policy on social investing” and a presbytery workshop on the Middle East led by Fahed Abu-Akel. It has presented film showings on Gaza, the Israeli Wall, and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Since 2006 the committee annually has sponsored a $100 Peacemaking Award for a student at Strath Haven High School. In 2006 and 2007 it observed a Season of Nonviolence in commemoration of the assasinations of Mahandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. And in 2007 the committee led the congregation in observing a Week of Prayer and Witness with Christians in the Middle East.
In 2008, after reading a plea from Jim Klingaman (who was serving in the US military forces in Afghanistan) for winter clothing for the local population, the committee, in cooperation with the deacons, facilitated the collection of items donated by the congregation, and the subsequent packing and mailing of 30 large cartons for distribution to the needy.
The committee initiated the paper recycling project at SPC and has sponsored several adult forums on environmental themes. It was also responsible for initiating the use and sale of Fair Trade coffee and of Palestinian olive oil.
Over the years, the committee has hosted numerous itinerating international peacemakers, sponsored by the national Peacemaking Program and brought into the area by the Presbytery Peacemaking Committee, to promote international understanding. The committee has engaged in numerous studies, ranging from violence, racism, and interfaith issues to international prolitical issues. And since its inception the committee has encouraged its members to write letters to public officials on matters of peace and justice, both national and international. And it has used its funds derived from its 25% retained share of the annual peacemaking offering to support a variety of educational endeavors, for grants to support attendance at peacemaking conferences, and by making contributions to the Adopt-a-Minefield campaign of the United Nations Association, the Non-Violent PeaceForce, the presbytery’s Paul A. Hopkins Education Travel Fund, the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PCUSA, and other allied causes.