New York Times
August 26, 2004
Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar
By AMY HARMON

he fight started at school, when some eighth-grade girls stole a pencil
case filled with makeup that belonged to a new classmate, Amanda Marcuson,
and she reported them.

But it did not end there. As soon as Amanda got home, the instant messages
started popping up on her computer screen. She was a tattletale and a liar,
they said. Shaken, she typed back, "You stole my stuff!" She was a
"stuck-up bitch," came the instant response in the box on the screen,
followed by a series of increasingly ugly epithets.

That evening, Amanda's mother tore her away from the computer to go to a
basketball game with her family. But the barrage of electronic insults did
not stop. Like a lot of other teenagers, Amanda has her Internet messages
automatically forwarded to her cellphone, and by the end of the game she
had received 50 - the limit of its capacity.

"It seems like people can say a lot worse things to someone online than
when they're actually talking to them," said Amanda, 14, of Birmingham,
Mich., who transferred to the school last year. The girls never said
another word to her in person, she said.

The episode reflects one of many ways that the technology lubricating the
social lives of teenagers is amplifying standard adolescent cruelty. No
longer confined to school grounds or daytime hours, "cyberbullies" are
pursuing their quarries into their own bedrooms. Tools like e-mail messages
and Web logs enable the harassment to be both less obvious to adults and
more publicly humiliating, as gossip, put-downs and embarrassing pictures
are circulated among a wide audience of peers with a few clicks.

The technology, which allows its users to inflict pain without being forced
to see its effect, also seems to incite a deeper level of meanness.
Psychologists say the distance between bully and victim on the Internet is
leading to an unprecedented - and often unintentional - degree of
brutality, especially when combined with a typical adolescent's lack of
impulse control and underdeveloped empathy skills.

"We're always talking about protecting kids on the Internet from adults and
bad people," said Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, a
nonprofit group that has been fielding a growing number of calls from
parents and school administrators worried about bullying. "We forget that
we sometimes need to protect kids from kids."

For many teenagers, online harassment has become a part of everyday life.
But schools, which tend to focus on problems that arise on their property,
and parents, who tend to assume that their children know better than they
do when it comes to computers, have long overlooked it. Only recently has
it become pervasive enough that even the adults have started paying
attention.

Like many other guidance counselors, Susan Yuratovac, a school psychologist
at Hilltop Elementary School in Beachwood, Ohio, has for years worked with
a wide spectrum of teenage aggression, including physical bullying and
sexual harassment. This summer, Ms. Yuratovac said, she is devising a new
curriculum to address the shift to electronic taunting.

"I have kids coming into school upset daily because of what happened on the
Internet the night before," Ms. Yuratovac said. " 'We were online last
night and somebody said I was fat,' or 'They asked me why I wear the same

pair of jeans every day,' or 'They say I have Wal-Mart clothes.' "

Recently, Ms. Yuratovac intervened when a 12-year-old girl showed her an
instant message exchange in which a boy in her class wrote, "My brother
says you have really good boobs." Boys make many more explicit sexual
comments online than off, counselors say.

"I don't think the girl is fearful the boy is going to accost her, but I do
think she is embarrassed," Ms. Yuratovac said. "They know it's mean, it's
risky, it's nasty. I worry what it does to them inside. It's the kind of
thing you carry with you for a lot of years."

The new weapons in the teenage arsenal of social cruelty include stealing
each others' screen names and sending inflammatory messages to friends or
crush-objects, forwarding private material to people for whom it was never
intended and anonymously posting derogatory comments about fellow students
on Web journals called blogs.

"Everyone hates you," read an anonymous comment directed toward a girl who
had signed her name to a post about exams on a blog run by middle-school
students at the Maret School in Washington, D.C., last term.

"They would talk about one girl in particular who had an acne problem,
calling her pimpleface and things like that which was really mean," one
Maret student said. "That stuck with me because I've had acne, too."

One of the girls who started the blog said she and her friends had deleted
all the posts because so many people - including some parents - began to
complain.

"I didn't see why they cared so much," said the girl, who preferred not to
be identified. "It's obviously not as serious as it seems if no one's
coming up to you and saying it."

Rosalind Wiseman, whose book "Queen Bees and Wannabes," was the basis for
the recent movie "Mean Girls," said that online bullying had a particular
appeal for girls, who specialize in emotional rather than physical
harassment and strive to avoid direct confrontation. But boys do their fair
share as well, often using modern methods to betray the trust of adolescent
girls.

For instance, last spring, when an eighth-grade girl at Horace Mann School
in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, sent a digital video of herself
masturbating to a male classmate on whom she had a crush, it quickly
appeared on a file-sharing network that teenagers use to trade music.
Hundreds of New York private school students saw the video, in which the
girl's face was clearly visible, and it was available to a worldwide
audience of millions.

Students would go online at school while the girl was there and watch it,
said one student from another school, who declined to be named. Horace Mann
officials did not reply to requests for comment this week, but the student
newspaper reported at the time that the school had set up out-of-school
counseling for the students directly involved and held assemblies to
discuss issues of sexuality and communication.

The incident is not an isolated one. In June, a video showing two Scarsdale
High School freshman girls in a sexual encounter, apparently taking
direction from boys in the background, prompted an investigation by the
Westchester County district attorney's office when a parent reported that
students were sending it to each other by e-mail. A nude picture of a
15-year-old in Wycoff, N.J., taken with a camera phone, is still
circulating after she sent it by e-mail it to her boyfriend and he
forwarded it to his friends, other students said.

Online lists rating a school's girls as "hottest" "ugliest" or "most
boring" are common. One that surfaced at Horace Greeley High School in
Chappaqua, N.Y., a few years ago, listed names, phone numbers and what were
said to be the sexual exploits of dozens of girls.

But girls are not the only victims of Internet-fueled gossip. A seventh
grader at Nightingale-Bamford School in Manhattan said she had recently
seen an online video a boy had made of himself singing a song to a girl he
liked, who promptly posted it all over the Internet. "I feel really bad for
the guy," she said.

To a large degree, psychologists say, teenagers are being tripped up by the
same property of the Internet that has compelled many adults to fire off an
e-mail message they later regret: the ability to press "send" and watch it
disappear makes it seem less real.

"It isn't quite the same as taking a dirty picture of your girlfriend and
showing it to everyone in the school when you're standing there holding the
picture," said Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and author of "Life on the Screen." "There's something about
the medium that has a coarsening effect."

But a growing number of teenagers are learning the hard way that words sent
into cyberspace can have more severe consequences than a telephone
conversation or a whispered confidence. As ephemeral as they seem, instant
messages (better known as I.M.'s) form a written record often wielded as a
potent weapon for adolescent betrayal and torment.

A sophomore girl at Fieldston High School in the Bronx, for instance,
agreed not to return this fall after a racist comment she wrote in an
instant message to a friend about a boy who had spurned her ignited
controversy last spring. The friend forwarded the message to the boy, and
copies were distributed around the school the next day, people familiar
with the situation said.

Fieldston High officials declined to comment, as did the girl and her
parents, who requested that her name be withheld to protect her at her new
school. But several parents criticized the school administration for
pressuring the girl to leave rather than using the incident as a means to
teach a lesson about racist speech - and the pitfalls of instant messaging.


"When you say things over the Internet, it feels like you are spewing into
your diary," said Sandra Pirie Carson, the parent of a Fieldston graduate
and a lawyer who offered to mediate between the school and the girl's
family. "If she had said those offensive things to her friend on the phone,
I have a feeling the friend wouldn't have called him and repeated what she
said, and even if she had, I doubt it would have had the same effect."

Many schools, ill-equipped to handle these new situations, are holding
assemblies to talk about them and experts in traditional bullying are
scrambling to develop strategies to prevent them.

"It's so nebulous; it's not happening in the lunchroom, it's not happening
on the school bus, yet it can spread so quickly," said Mary Worthington,
the elementary education coordinator for Network of Victim Assistance, a
counseling organization in Bucks County, Pa. "Over the last year when I've
been out in schools to do our regular bullying program the counselors will
say, 'Can you talk about e-mails or I.M.'s?' "

For parents of several students at the Gillispie School in San Diego, such
strategies were to be developed on the fly when online threats between
their children and those at another school turned into a more classic form
of bullying.

About 30 students from Muirlands School showed up at Gillispie one
afternoon last spring, carrying skateboards over their heads and calling
out the screen name of one of the boys with whom they had been chatting
online. Kim Penney, the mother of one of the Gillispie boys, said she had
since removed the Internet cable from the computer in her son's room and
insisted that he hold online conversations only where she could see them.

"It was frightening to see the physical manifestation of this back and
forth on I.M.," Ms. Penney said. "I just never thought of it as such a big
deal."




Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

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From: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America- Division for Ministry

1. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2. Love your neighbor as you love yourself – be an example of
self-care as well as caring for others.

3. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy – be intentional about time
for rest and renewal within your week, church year and life in ministry.

4.Honor your body as a gift from God and temple of the Holy Spirit.
Feed it healthy foods and build your physical and emotional endurance
with regular physical activity.

5. Honor your mother, father, siblings, spouse, and/or children with
your love, respect, and time.

6. Reflect your faith and use your gifts in your vocation.

7. Develop healthy habits to keep your wholeness wheel in balance and
to be fit for a ministry of servanthood.

8. Equip yourself to use your gifts effectively to proclaim and live
out the Gospel in the world.

9. Practice and seek forgiveness.

10. Pray daily.

Source: http://www.elca.org/dm/health/tenbest.html

from the Watching justice web site---


Poll: Most Border Officers Unsatisfied With Security Efforts


Watching Justice
August 24, 2004

A majority of Border Patrol and immigration officers believe the Department
of Homeland Security could do more to stop terrorists from crossing the
borders, and more than a third said they did not have the tools or training
to do so, according to a survey conducted by the unions representing the
officers.

The survey also showed that the agents and officers were divided on the
question of whether the country was safer now than it was prior to the 9/11
attacks, with 53% saying it was and 44% saying it was no safer or less
safe.

The Department disputed the poll's accuracy, saying the pool of 500 people
surveyed was not representative of the Department's 42,000 employees. DHS
officials defended the agency's performance, saying the Department has
turned away hundreds of criminals, travelers with false documents and
others from the borders. The Department also cited various technical
improvements in border security, including the collection by airport
officials of the digital fingerprints and photographs of more than six
million foreign visitors since January.

The study also revealed some positive views of the Department, finding that
64% of employees were satisfied with their workload and 59% said they
received the support they needed from their immediate supervisors. At the
same time, most of those polled cited a recently introduced hiring freeze
and proposed new pay systems and personnel regulations as having a negative
effect on their ability to accomplish the department's mission, with just
under two-thirds reporting low morale among fellow employees.












Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

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Education Week
American Education's Newspaper of Record

September 1, 2004

Poll: Public Still on Learning Curve
For Federal School Law


By Erik W. Robelen
Education Week

Washington

Most Americans remain largely in the dark about the No Child Left Behind Act
some 2½ years after its enactment, despite a steady stream of media coverage and
intensive efforts by the Bush administration and others to raise awareness about
the federal law, according to an annual survey of public attitudes on education.

The Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll found that more than two-thirds of respondents
knew nothing, or next to nothing, about the federal school improvement law.

Of those surveyed, 40 percent said they knew "very little" about the law, and 28
percent said "nothing at all." The results reflect only a slight improvement in
public awareness from when the same question was asked a year earlier. At that
time, an identical proportion said they knew very little, while 36 percent said
they knew nothing at all about the law.

The poll also sought to gauge public perceptions on some of the law's strategies
to identify low-performing schools and improve student achievement. It found a
fairly skeptical reaction.

For example, 52 percent of respondents said they opposed reporting test scores
separately by race, ethnicity, and other categories, as the law requires, while
42 percent backed that approach. And the vast majority would prefer, if their
own children's schools were identified as needing improvement, that the children
receive help at those schools rather transfer to higher-performing schools.

"What [the law] uses in terms of adequate yearly progress and in terms of
sanctions, the public is not very sympathetic to those strategies," Lowell C.
Rose, the poll director for Phi Delta Kappa International, a Bloomington,
Ind.-based professional association for educators, said at a press conference
here last week.

But critics suggested that at least in certain cases, the survey introduced a
bias that may have led respondents to offer more negative reactions.

The 36th-annual survey appears in the September issue of the association's
journal, Phi Delta Kappan. The Gallup Organization, based in Princeton, N.J.,
surveyed 1,003 adults by phone in May and June. The margin of error was plus or
minus 3 to 4 percentage points, Mr. Rose said.


A 'Single Test'
The survey asked a range of questions related to the bipartisan No Child Left
Behind Act, as well as on public schools generally, school choice, and other
issues.


Opinions toward the law were almost evenly divided. Twenty-four percent said
they viewed it either "very" or "somewhat" favorably; 20 percent said very or
somewhat unfavorably. Fifty-five percent said they didn't know enough to say,
while 1 percent said they simply didn't know.

On testing, one question asked whether a "single statewide test" provides a fair
picture of whether or not a school needs improvement under the No Child Left
Behind law. Two-thirds said no.

Ross E. Wiener, the policy director at the Education Trust, a Washington-based
research and advocacy group, and one of several outside analysts invited by Phi
Delta Kappa to comment on the poll, argued that the phrasing of that question
was loaded and inaccurate.

"[T]his poll employs questions that are clearly designed to produce particular
results," he said in his written comments.

Under the law, schools are deemed in need of improvement if, for two or more
straight years, not enough students overall, or from different subgroups, meet
state performance targets on reading and mathematics exams.

Several analysts expressed surprise at the negative reaction to the question
about breaking down test scores by subgroup, a question whose wording appeared
to be less contentious. They suggested that members of the public would be more
supportive if they understood the rationale for the approach.

The respondents also seemed inclined against using the test scores of students
with disabilities in judging schools, with 57 percent opposed and 39 percent in
favor.

Still, the poll found the public generally optimistic about the law's potential
impact. Fifty-one percent said they thought it would help a great deal or a fair
amount to lift student achievement, compared with 32 percent who said it would
not help very much or not help at all.




Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

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The World According to Mister Rogers-A new book of timeless wisdom
from Fred Rogers has been published by Hyperion Books. It's an
inspiring collection of stories, anecdotes, and insights from the man
who has been a friend to generations of Americans.

Fred Rogers attended both the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the
University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School  of Child Development. He
graduated from the Seminary and was ordained as a Presbyterian
minister in 1963 with a charge to continue his work with children and
families through the mass media.

Here's a glimpse of what's inside:

"Human relationships are primary in all of living. When the gusty
winds blow and shake our lives, if we know that people care about us,
we may bend with the wind, but we won't break."

"The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its
people feeling that they are worthwhile."

"The older I get, the more convinced I am that the space between
communicating human beings can be hallowed ground."

"The greatest gift you ever give is the gift of your honest self."

"In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to
listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our
questions are just as important as our answers."

"There's no 'should' or 'should not' when it comes to having feelings.
They're part of who we are, and their origins are beyond our control.
When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive
choices about what to do with those feelings."

"Some days, doing 'the best we can' may still fall short of what we
would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect -- on any front --
and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect
of ourselves or anyone else."


You may order a copy of the book at:

http://www.misterrogers.org/shopping/default.asp

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
  Knight Ridder/Tribune
  August 26, 2004, Thursday

  SECTION: COMMENTARY

  KR-ACC-NO: K2376

  LENGTH: 753 words

  HEADLINE: Houses of worship save billions in taxes and should stay out
  of politics

  BYLINE: By The Rev. Barry W. Lynn

  BODY:
  WASHINGTON, D.C. _ On any given weekend, millions of Americans attend
  services at churches, synagogues, temples and mosques. People go there
  to worship, to learn about their faith and to enjoy communion with
  like-minded believers.

  It's safe to say, however, that few go to hear which candidates they
  should vote for in upcoming elections.

  Yet some religious leaders insist that handing down lists of
  endorsements is part of their job. In this election year, some are
  even boldly urging churches to evade or defy tax law and jump
  head-first into partisan politics.

  Federal tax law simply does not allow this. Under the Internal Revenue
  Code, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organizations _ including houses of
  worship _ may not endorse or oppose candidates for public office.

  Despite this clear legal mandate, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his
  Religious Right allies are urging evangelical churches to plunge into
  politics. He asserts that the IRS does not enforce the "no
  politicking" rule.

  Of all people, Falwell ought to know how wrong that is. His "Old Time
  Gospel Hour" was found to have engaged in unlawful campaign
  intervention by the IRS in 1993. The ministry's tax exemption was
  revoked for the years 1986 and 1987, and he was required to pay
  $50,000 in back taxes.

  Others have run into similar problems. In 1998, TV preacher Pat
  Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network lost its tax exemption
  retroactively for two years and was required to pay a significant sum
  in back taxes. A church near Binghamton, N.Y., lost is tax-exempt
  status in 1995 and disbanded because it ran newspaper ads telling
  people not to vote for presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992.


  Loss of federal tax exemption is no mere "slap on the wrist" for a
  religious institution. Tax law experts say it may also lead to loss of
  a church's property tax exemption or even put a pastor's ministerial
  housing allowance in jeopardy.

  Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, are free to speak out
  about pressing moral issues and social justice concerns.

  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke in hundreds of churches as he
  advocated for civil rights, but he never abused the role of the church
  by endorsing any candidate from the pulpit. Church resources and
  church personnel may not be used to advance a candidate's campaign.
  It's a small price to pay for the valuable privilege of a tax
  exemption.

  There are profoundly important reasons beyond fear of legal penalties
  why religious leaders should refrain from church-based electioneering.
  The simple fact is, such activity invites controversy into the
  sanctuary. Congregations are sure to be divided when church leaders
  favor one candidate over another.

  Church electioneering also invites sectarian strife into our diverse
  democracy. In some countries, the largest religious denomination
  assumes the power to run the government and subjects everyone to its
  dogma by the force of law. These places are not free, and few
  Americans would want to live in them.

  Yet this is what many in the Religious Right seek.

  In keeping with their fundamentalist doctrines, they want to teach
  their religion in public schools, use tax dollars to subsidize
  religious schools, ban reproductive choice, deny legal equality to
  gays and restrict medical advances through stem-cell research.

  By forging a church-based political machine, they hope to control the
  government. They must not succeed.

  Mergers of church and state always end up hurting religion in the long
  run. Wedded to the machinery of partisan politics, the church
  surrenders its prophetic voice for the promise of favored treatment.
  People quickly detect when a church has sold out to political
  interests _ and they abandon it in droves.

  To abide by the laws of the land and to maintain their independence
  and integrity, America's houses of worship must stay out of partisan
  politics.

  ___

  ABOUT THE WRITER

  The Rev. Barry W. Lynn is executive director of Americans United for
  Separation of Church and State <http://www.au.org>. He is an ordained
  minister in the United Church of Christ and a long-time civil
  liberties attorney. Readers may write him at Americans United, 518 C
  Street NE, Washington, DC 20002.

  This essay is available to Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
  subscribers. Knight Ridder/Tribune did not subsidize the writing of
  this column; the opinions are those of the writers and do not
  necessarily represent the views of Knight Ridder/Tribune or its
  editors.

  ___

  (c) 2004, The Rev. Barry W. Lynn





Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

------------------------------------------

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The report below, is from the Second Session of the Interparliamentary
Conference on Human
Rights and Religious Freedom, which is sponsored annually by the Institute on
Religion and Public Policy.  It was held in Brussels, Belgium.


===============
Parliamentarians Condemn Hatred on the Basis of Religious, Ethnic or
Cultural Identity, Call for Parliaments and Governments to Nurture
Environments of Free Expression and Respect for Human Dignity

Brussels, Belgium - Parliamentarians from dozens of countries descended on
the Capital of Europe from August 5 through August 7 to discuss issues such
as anti-Semitism, religion-based terrorism, laws on religion and
registration, trafficking in persons, AIDs, and other important questions
during the Second Session of the Interparliamentary Conference on Human
Rights and Religious Freedom, which is sponsored annually by the Institute
on Religion and Public Policy.

His Excellency Abbes el-Jirari, Counselor to His Majesty King Mohammed VI of
Morocco, introduced the convocation with a personal message from His
Majesty.  "It is therefore appropriate that this sort of initiative becomes
the foundational undertaking of an international civilization, where
complementarity between people is substituted for confrontation and where
faith in the paramount necessity of cooperation overcomes the illusion of
self-reliance and autarchy," stated His Majesty in the message presented
ably by Mr. El-Jirari.

The summit was attended by a large number of delegations from Africa, South
Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, whose tremendously important
contributions provided great direction and input to the assembly.

"I could not be more pleased with the outcome of the session," commented
Joseph K. Grieboski, who serves as Secretary General of the
Interparliamentary Conference. "The delegations were very active and engaged
in the proceedings and contributed incalculably.  The large number of
delegations, the global cross-section, and the substance of the discussions
augmented the global policy discussion on these issues to much higher
levels."

The concluding document of the Third Session of the Interparliamentary
Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom, which is available on the
Institute on Religion and Public Policy website at
www.religionandpolicy.org, was discussed and debated by the participants for
some time with great care and concern until finally accepted by consensus.

"We live in an era characterized by aspirations towards diversity and
tolerance but clouded by tragic failures of mutual respect. True religious
freedom is more than mere tolerance," the document stated.  "It constitutes
an embracing of universal human dignity as a consequence of one's religious
convictions.  Every individual has inherent dignity and worth, and the state
is constituted to serve society, not vice versa."

The parliamentarians also concluded that, "Ethnic and religious intolerance
are unacceptable and should not be used as a basis for restricting
citizenship. A civic covenant and the rule of law constitute the only
rational basis for creating a just society*Any cultural and spiritual
invocation of undetermined historic or divine authority as justification for
hatred and rejection of others directly and actively violates universally
proclaimed human rights."

The assembled parliamentarians accepted the generous offer of the delegation
of the Kingdom of Morocco to host the Third Session of the
Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom in 2005.




Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

------------------------------------------

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
washcivil-subscribe-request@... or
washcivil-unsubscribe-request@...

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
washcivil-request@...

The report below, is from the Second Session of the Interparliamentary
Conference on Human
Rights and Religious Freedom, which is sponsored annually by the Institute on
Religion and Public Policy.  It was held in Brussels, Belgium.


===============
Parliamentarians Condemn Hatred on the Basis of Religious, Ethnic or
Cultural Identity, Call for Parliaments and Governments to Nurture
Environments of Free Expression and Respect for Human Dignity

Brussels, Belgium - Parliamentarians from dozens of countries descended on
the Capital of Europe from August 5 through August 7 to discuss issues such
as anti-Semitism, religion-based terrorism, laws on religion and
registration, trafficking in persons, AIDs, and other important questions
during the Second Session of the Interparliamentary Conference on Human
Rights and Religious Freedom, which is sponsored annually by the Institute
on Religion and Public Policy.

His Excellency Abbes el-Jirari, Counselor to His Majesty King Mohammed VI of
Morocco, introduced the convocation with a personal message from His
Majesty.  "It is therefore appropriate that this sort of initiative becomes
the foundational undertaking of an international civilization, where
complementarity between people is substituted for confrontation and where
faith in the paramount necessity of cooperation overcomes the illusion of
self-reliance and autarchy," stated His Majesty in the message presented
ably by Mr. El-Jirari.

The summit was attended by a large number of delegations from Africa, South
Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, whose tremendously important
contributions provided great direction and input to the assembly.

"I could not be more pleased with the outcome of the session," commented
Joseph K. Grieboski, who serves as Secretary General of the
Interparliamentary Conference. "The delegations were very active and engaged
in the proceedings and contributed incalculably.  The large number of
delegations, the global cross-section, and the substance of the discussions
augmented the global policy discussion on these issues to much higher
levels."

The concluding document of the Third Session of the Interparliamentary
Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom, which is available on the
Institute on Religion and Public Policy website at
www.religionandpolicy.org, was discussed and debated by the participants for
some time with great care and concern until finally accepted by consensus.

"We live in an era characterized by aspirations towards diversity and
tolerance but clouded by tragic failures of mutual respect. True religious
freedom is more than mere tolerance," the document stated.  "It constitutes
an embracing of universal human dignity as a consequence of one's religious
convictions.  Every individual has inherent dignity and worth, and the state
is constituted to serve society, not vice versa."

The parliamentarians also concluded that, "Ethnic and religious intolerance
are unacceptable and should not be used as a basis for restricting
citizenship. A civic covenant and the rule of law constitute the only
rational basis for creating a just society*Any cultural and spiritual
invocation of undetermined historic or divine authority as justification for
hatred and rejection of others directly and actively violates universally
proclaimed human rights."

The assembled parliamentarians accepted the generous offer of the delegation
of the Kingdom of Morocco to host the Third Session of the
Interparliamentary Conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom in 2005.




Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

For more information, contact:
Catherine Gordon,
PC(U.S.A.) Washington Office,
110 Maryland Avenue, NE #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755.
Email cgordon@...

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News Release
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
August 26, 2004
=========================

Abortion Procedures Ban Struck Down in New York


Decision Supports RCRC View That The Ban Is Part of a Campaign to Outlaw
Abortion




Today's decision in New York striking down the federal abortion ban ("Partial
Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003") as unconstitutional supports the Religious
Coalition for Reproductive Choice's view that this legislation is part of a
campaign to deny women full and effective reproductive health care.



U.S. District Court Judge Richard C. Casey in Manhattan found the ban
unconstitutional because it does not include an exception to preserve a woman's
life and health. In the view of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Board of Directors, the absence of a health exception makes it clear that the
purpose of this legislation is to undermine the legality of all abortions at any
stage of pregnancy, not to outlaw some procedures.



The law, signed in November, is the first substantial federal legislation
limiting a woman's right to choose an
abortion. A San Francisco judge has already declared the 2003 law
unconstitutional, and a judge in Nebraska is expected to rule soon.



As a coalition of pro-choice faith groups with various positions on abortion,
the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice does not take positions on
specific abortion procedures. We advocate that, as moral agents, women are
entitled to make medical decisions concerning their health and reproductive
lives according to their faith and conscience as well as on factual, sound, safe
and compassionate medical advice.



The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), founded in 1973, is the
interfaith coalition of Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and other
religious and religiously affiliated organizations that support reproductive
choice on religious grounds. ###
================

2003 Statement * PC(USA),  p. 53-54, 512-515
On Offering Moral Counsel to Protect Mothers and Their Babies Late in Pregnancy

[The 215th General Assembly (2003) approved the following statement:]

We affirm the statement of the 214th General Assembly (2002) on post-viability
and late-term abortion with the following revisions:

The church has a responsibility to provide public witness and to offer guidance,
counsel, and support to those who make or interpret laws and public policies
about abortion and problem pregnancies. Pastors have a duty to counsel with and
pray for those who face decisions about problem pregnancies. Congregations have
a duty to pray for and support those who face these choices, to offer support
for women and families to help make unwanted pregnancies less likely to occur,
and to provide practical support for those facing the birth of a child with
medical anomalies, birth after rape or incest, or those who face health,
economic, or other stresses.

The church also affirms the value of children and the importance of nurturing,
protecting, and advocating their well-being. The church, therefore, appreciates
the challenge each woman and family face when issues of personal well-being
arise in the later stages of a pregnancy.

"In life and death, we belong to God." Life is a gift from God. We may not know
exactly when human life begins, and have but an imperfect understanding of God
as the giver of life and of our own human existence, yet we recognize that life
is precious to God, and we should preserve and protect it. We derive our
understanding of human life from Scripture and the Reformed Tradition in light
of science, human experience, and reason guided by the Holy Spirit. Because we
are made in the image of God, human beings are moral agents, endowed by the
Creator with the capacity to make choices. Our Reformed Tradition recognizes
that people do not always make moral choices, and forgiveness is central to our
faith. In the Reformed Tradition, we affirm that God is the only Lord of
conscience¾not the state or the church. As a community, the church challenges
the faithful to exercise their moral agency responsibly.

When an individual woman faces the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy,
the issue is intensely personal, and may manifest itself in ways that do not
reflect public rhetoric, or do not fit neatly into medical, legal, or policy
guidelines. Humans are empowered by the spirit prayerfully to make significant
moral choices, including the choice to continue or end a pregnancy. Human
choices should not be made in a moral vacuum, but must be based on Scripture,
faith, and Christian ethics. For any choice, we are accountable to God; however,
even when we err, God offers to forgive us. While the ending of a pregnancy
after the point of fetal viability is a matter of grave moral concern to us all,
it may be undertaken only in the rarest of circumstances and after prayer and/or
pastoral care and counsel, when necessary to save the life of the woman, to
preserve the woman's health in circumstances of a serious risk to the woman's
health, to avoid fetal suffering as a result of untreatable life threatening
medical anomalies, or in cases of incest or rape. When it is deemed necessary to
end a pregnancy to protect the mother's life or health in the later months of
pregnancy when the baby may be able to live outside the womb, a procedure should
be considered which gives both the mother and the child the opportunity to live.





Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory
Director, Washington Office
Presbyterian Church (USA)
202-543-1126

110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 104
Washington, DC 20002

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"Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the
government listens." -Alastair Farrugia

Beacon for Freedom of Expression
Beacon for Freedom of Expression is an international database on
censorship of books and newspapers, and literature on freedom of
expression, produced by the Norwegian Forum for Freedom of Expression.
Beacon for Freedom of Expression is funded by the Norwegian Ministry
of Culture and Church Affairs, and is one of Norway's gifts to the new
library in Alexandria.
http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/

For those of you who did not receive the Stewardship of Public Life
E-Serve, here is our recent Quarterly Bulletin on the Roadless Area
Conservation Rule.  Access it at:
http://www.pcusa.org/washington/issuenet/enviro-040722.htm

To sign up for SPL E-Serve, through which you will receive a quarterly
bulletin 4 times per year, along with 2 action alerts per year, go to
http://capwiz.com/pcusa/mlm/.

Peace,
Carolynn Race

************************************************************************
Carolynn B. Race
Associate for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Ste. 104
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-543-1126 ext. 3009
Fax:  202-543-7755
Email:  crace@...
www.pcusa.org/washington

For more information, contact:
Carolynn Race,
PC(U.S.A.)Washington Office,
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755.
Email crace@...
--------------------------------

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The Church, Sexual Healing, and Transformation in Christ

The 213th General Assembly (2001) offers the following words of
affirmation and challenge to the individual members, sessions, and
congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as they minister to
those who struggle with transformational issues in the area of their
sexual lives:

We believe, with Scripture, that "God is able to do far more
abundantly than we could ask or think," and that God wills us all to
be a part of the "New Creation" that is possible in Jesus Christ.

We believe that this hope of transformation involves all of life, and
we express our concern over divisions within the church that continue
to be exacerbated by efforts that focus narrowly upon sexuality as the
primary locus for defining purity of life.

We call attention to the action of the 211th General Assembly (1999)
regarding "conversion therapies," an approach related to
"transformational ministries," each of which, in its own way, is
designed, primarily, to bring about a reversal of sexual orientation
and behavior in those who are self-identified as homosexual, and who
express a desire to change:

The 211th General Assembly (1999) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
affirms that the existing policy of inclusiveness welcomes all into
membership of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as we confess our sin
and our need for repentance and God's grace. In order to be consistent
with this policy, no church should insist that gay and lesbian people
need therapy to change to a heterosexual orientation, nor should it
inhibit or discourage those individuals who are unhappy with or
confused about their sexual orientation from seeking therapy they
believe would be helpful . . . affirms that medical treatment,
psychological therapy, and pastoral counseling should be in conformity
with recognized professional standards. (Minutes, 1999, Part I, p. 80)

Previous General Assemblies have noted that there is still no
conclusive evidence clarifying the origin and basis for sexual
orientation, or that "transformational/conversional therapies" or
"transformational ministries" are effective in bringing about lasting
reversals in sexual orientation.

We should not reject the possibility of such change out of hand, but
neither should we be blind to the dangers of offering false hopes.
Given the complex realities surrounding the issue of sexual
orientation, we join previous General Assemblies in declining to
approve as policy a position that would place the General Assembly on
only one side of the ambiguities that remain.

ON A JOURNEY: Meditations on God in daily life

August 26, 2004


Jesus said, "All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who
humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 14.11, from the Gospel for
Sunday)


By Tom Ehrich

My son's middle school soccer team is lining up as I wrestle a load of
post-game drinks and snacks across the field.

"Want some help?" says a mom heading that way.

Once the game begins, one thing becomes clear: this isn't rec league.
No guarantees of playing time, no parent-coach smiling forgiveness, no
cutting up on the sidelines, just a no-nonsense coach and a basic
message: if you hustle, play smart, learn from mistakes and show
stamina, you will play.

The impact is stunning. For the first time in my memory as a soccer
parent, I see team play: passing, strategy, selflessness. On the
bench, reserves follow the game intently. When my son's name is
called, he is ready to make the most of his minutes. Not a single head
turns to notice girls doing look-at-me laps behind the bench . Even
parents sense the higher stakes and restrain themselves.

On the way home from a 4-0 victory, my son talks avidly about the
game. Coach has his attention. He wants more playing time. Before
supper, he goes outside to practice.

This is a well-known scenario, of course, source of a thousand
legends. In my home state, I doubt that many could name the last three
governors, but everyone knows about Bobby Plump and the 1954 Milan
High School basketball champions, when hard work, grit and teamwork
paid off.

I know that life doesn't always work this way. Hard physical labor is
rarely an avenue to status or financial success. Long hours pay off in
certain fields, like law, but are barely noticed in others, like
teaching. Creativity counts, but sometimes it seems good luck, charm
and inherited wealth count for more.

But I want my son to value hard work, extra effort, earning one's way.
It pleases me when he says: "Coach is harsh but fair. I want to play
my way onto first team." I tell him that those who are handed
everything often end up soft and cruel.

At another teachable moment, I will tell him the rest of the story:
how I was carrying 55 pounds of Gatorade on ice, I could feel my back
giving way, I set the cooler down to rest, I wondered how I would make
it across the field to my destination, I looked around for another
dad, it was a mom who saw my need and offered to help.

Teamwork isn't just a strategy for gaining prizes. Sometimes the load
is too heavy to carry alone. Sometimes the way forward is to ask for
help, even help from surprising sources. Sometimes accepting
inadequacy unlocks the problem. The point is to get the job done, not
to save face.

Jesus tried to help his friends learn mutual dependency. He sent them
out in pairs, he formed them into circles, he taught them to love, not
to be proud; to lose, not to win. In the presence of his disciples, he
chastised the proud for exalting themselves.

From such values comes the genius of teamwork, which isn't necessarily
a winning score, but rather feeling part of something, knowing one has
given and received, trusting the other and seeing oneself as
trustworthy, sensing the profound joy of an enterprise grounded in
fairness and accountability.

I want my son to try hard, to make the most of his effort. And I want
him to be one who sees needs and offers to help. I think the two go
hand in hand.

  "On a Journey" meditations are e-mailed seven days a week to
interested readers. For correspondence write tehrich@....
For subscription information, visit www.onajourney.org.

Note #8463 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:


04376
August 24, 2004

Economic disparities threaten survival of the church, Kirkpatrick says

New WARC president says PC(USA) viewed as strong justice advocate

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE - Global economic disparities are "not just some problem
somewhere but are destroying our churches," said new World Alliance of
Reformed Churches (WARC) president Clifton Kirkpatrick upon his return
from the Alliance's 24th General Council in Accra, Ghana.

	 "That the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer,
and that the global economic system is the fundamental cause, is the
context in which the church is trying to minister all over the world,"
Kirkpatrick said in an Aug. 20 interview with the Presbyterian News
Service and The Presbyterian Outlook. "This issue is at the core of
the problem of trying to proclaim the gospel while the world is being
destroyed."

	 "What was clear in listening to our Presbyterian brothers and sisters
around the world is that if present trends continue, there's not much
future for the world."

	 WARC is the Geneva-based family of Presbyterian, Reformed and
congregational churches representing more than 75 million Christians
in more than 200 denominations.

	 Kirkpatrick said his election as president of the Alliance  - which
was sharply critical of U.S. government economic and trade policies -
represents "appreciation for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for our
standing with and for the poor over many years. There was also
appreciation for our commitment to world mission and justice."

	 Kirkpatrick said the mood of the Council was not anti-U.S., but
"anger and resentment directed against the 'North' for impoverishing
the 'South.' There was no anti-American 'groundswell,' but a firm
conviction that policies must change."

	 The WARC General Council's "message" condemned communism, but also,
Kirkpatrick said, "cautioned against a capitalism that is not
moderated by concern for the economic, social and political welfare of
all people."

	 Kirkpatrick spoke movingly about visiting the "slave castles" in
Accra, which was a hub of the North American slave trade. "To visit
the slave dungeons, where slaves were held while awaiting shipment
across the Atlantic, and to see that the Reformed church sat atop them
was heartbreaking," he said. "To know that the church didn't stand up
for those oppressed then created a sense of urgency for us now."

	 Although it faces many challenges, Kirkpatrick said WARC "is probably
the healthiest organization in the ecumenical movement." A vast
majority of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches in the world are
WARC members, a particularly healthy sign given that "splintering is
characteristic of Reformed churches throughout history."

	 One issue threatening the PC(USA) but not WARC unity is
homosexuality. It was discussed in Accra, but Kirkpatrick said only
one action was taken - to affirm the human rights of all persons,
regardless of sexual orientation.

	 "Of course we acknowledged that churches are in very different
places. But we took no action on ordination or ministry," Kirkpatrick
said.  "And we made two commitments: that we would be open to hear
each other, and that this is not our most important priority and will
not be a church-dividing issue."

	 Like all ecumenical organizations, WARC struggles financially. It has
historically been dependent upon European churches for the bulk of its
funding, and changing tax laws for churches in Germany "have major
implications for WARC," Kirkpatrick said. "I'm particularly struck,"
he added, "by the growth of African churches' contributions."

	 Kirkpatrick said he experienced in Accra "a growing recognition that
if we're going to accomplish anything, we need to renew our churches."
  He pointed to the growing number of partnerships between PC(USA)
presbyteries and congregations and overseas partners, which he said
have "proven effectiveness as sources of spiritual renewal." He said
he would like to build such partnership programs into WARC.

	 The value of such cross-cultural sharing became clear to Kirkpatrick
through the daily Bible study groups that were part of the Council.
"My group was filled with people from the poorest places on earth -
Bangladesh, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon
Islands, the Philippines - and we studied the Book of Ruth. We looked
at the story as 'getting along' in another system, but for them this
was their system. The Bible really comes alive as we learn about these
other situations. Their perspective is so biblical, and so
uncomfortable for us, and so moving for all of us.

	 "If everyone could be in Bible study with folk from these places,
we'd see a global transformation."

	 Presbyterians can't do everything, Kirkpatrick conceded, "but we can
find ways to live more simply, to exercise better stewardship, to
resist consumerism and to work together to change the world. Me? I've
been thinking about trading in my 10-year-old Honda. Now I'm going to
drive that thing until it flat dies."

	 Many Presbyterians and their churches participate in hunger walks and
Habitat for Humanity house-building, purchase "equal exchange" and
other fair-trade products, and work for justice in many ways,
Kirkpatrick said. "Keep doing it."

Note #8464 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:


04377
August 24, 2004

So you wanna be a star?

Reality TV show looking for adventuresome Presbyterians

by Jerry L. Van Marter

HOLLYWOOD - The Learning Channel (TLC) is looking for everyday
Presbyterians who want to fake it for season three of its
award-winning TV
reality series "Faking It."

	 The show's casting producer, Shana Kemp, describes the opportunity
this way: "Do you ever wish you had taken a different path? Do you
fantasize about your dream job? Do you ever wonder who you would be if
you had
a different career? Would you like to be given the opportunity of a
lifetime? Here is your chance..."

	 Kemp is looking for Presbyterian pastors, Sunday school teachers or
other church workers who are interested in spending a month learning
another skill well enough to fool a panel of expert judges. During the
month of intensive training, top practitioners, famous in their field,
mentor the fakers and try their best to help them succeed.

	 "Faking It" is looking for candidates who have always wanted to be one
of the following but do not have any prior experience:

	 Catwalk model (female)
	 Interior designer (female)
	 Swimwear model (female)
	 Las Vegas casino hostess (female)
	 Biker chick (female)
	 Fashion designer (female)
	 Personal trainer to the stars (male)
	 Flair bartender (male)
	 Stand-up comic (male)
	 Martial artist (male)

	 "At the heart of the show," Kemp says, "is the journey the fakers take
into an unknown world and the relationships that develop between the
fakers and their mentors."

	 Kemp asks interested Presbyterians to e-mail a JPEG photo of
themselves and a short paragraph that provides the following
information: name,
gender, age, weight and height, address, job, which job from the list
they want to fake it as and why, and their availability to take a month
away from their job/life at short notice.

	 Candidates must be 21-35 years of age. Travel, accommodations, per
diem expenses and minimum wage will be paid.

	 In the subject line of your e-mail, please put the following
information, in the following order: YOUR OCCUPATION(S), AGE, STATE. (For
example: Nurse, 35, Texas or Plumber, 42, Kansas, etc.)

	 E-mail to Shana Kemp at shana.kemp@....

	 Information about the series "Faking It" can be found on the Web site
http://rdfmedia.com/reality/FakingIt.asp or on the TLC Web site,
http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/fakingit/fakingit.html.

From the Associated Press.  For more details, go to www.census.gov.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 26, 2004
Ranks of Poverty and Uninsured Rose in 2003, Census Reports
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:36 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans living in poverty increased by
1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4
million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. While not
unexpected, it was a double dose of bad economic news during a tight
re-election campaign for President Bush.

Approximately 35.8 million people lived below the poverty line in 2003, or
about 12.5 percent of the population, according to the bureau. That was up
from 34.5 million, or 12.1 percent in 2002.

The rise was more dramatic for children. There were 12.9 million living in
poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18 population. That was an
increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when 16.7 percent of all children were
in poverty.

The Census Bureau's definition of poverty varies by the size of the
household. For instance, the threshold for a family of four was $18,810,
while for two people it was $12,015.

Nearly 45 million people lacked health insurance, or 15.6 percent of the
population. That was up from 43.5 million in 2002, or 15.2 percent, but was
a smaller increase than in the two previous years.

Meanwhile, the median household income, when adjusted for inflation,
remained basically flat last year at $43,318. Whites, blacks and Asians saw
no noticeable change, but income fell 2.6 percent for Hispanics to $32,997.
Whites had the highest income at $47,777.

Even before release of the data, some Democrats claimed the Bush
administration was trying to play down bad news by releasing the reports
about a month earlier than usual. They normally are released separately in
late September -- one report on poverty and income, the other on insurance.

Putting out the numbers at the same time and not so close to Election Day
``invite charges of spinning the data for political purposes,'' said Rep.
Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.

Census Director Louis Kincannon -- a Bush appointee -- denied politics
played any role in moving up the release date. The move, announced earlier
this year, was done to coordinate the numbers with the release of other
data.

``There has been no influence or pressure from the (Bush) campaign,''
Kincannon said Wednesday.

Official national poverty estimates, as well as most government data on
income and health insurance, come from the bureau's Current Population
Survey.

This year the bureau is simultaneously releasing data from the broader
American Community Survey, which also includes income and poverty numbers
but cannot be statistically compared with the other survey.

The figures were sure to generate attention regardless of when they were
released since they typically serve as a report card of sorts for an
administration's socio-economic policies.

Partisan debate figures to be more heated now, when the economy and health
care are big issues in the tight presidential election race between Bush
and Democratic challenger John Kerry.

Since job growth was slow until the second half of 2003 and wages were
relatively stagnant, it was likely the report would show an increase in the
number of people in poverty, said Sheldon Danzinger, co-director of the
National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan.

William O'Hare, a researcher with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private
children's advocacy group, expected increases in the number of kids in
poverty and without health insurance. He called the changes in the way data
is being released ``bothersome.''

``It makes me wonder whether this statistical agency is being politicized
in some way,'' said O'Hare, who has studied the poverty and health
insurance data for over two decades.

^------

On the Net:

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/


************************************************************************
Carolynn B. Race
Associate for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Ste. 104
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-543-1126 ext. 3009
Fax:  202-543-7755
Email:  crace@...
www.pcusa.org/washington

For more information, contact:
Carolynn Race,
PC(U.S.A) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755
Email crace@...


----------------------------------------------------------
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The New York Times
August 26, 2004
White House Shifts Its Focus on Climate
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

In a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the
science of climate change, a new report to Congress focuses on federal
research indicating that emissions of carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases are the only likely explanation for global warming over
the last three decades.

In delivering the report to Congress yesterday, an administration official,
Dr. James R Mahoney, said it reflected "the best possible scientific
information" on climate change. Previously, President Bush and other
officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and
consequences of warming as a reason for rejecting binding restrictions on
heat-trapping gases.

The report is among those submitted regularly to Congress as a summary of
recent and planned federal research on shifting global conditions of all
sorts. It also says the accumulating emissions pose newly identified risks
to farmers, citing studies showing that carbon dioxide promotes the growth
of invasive weeds far more than it stimulates crops and that it reduces the
nutritional value of some rangeland grasses.

American and international panels of experts concluded as early as 2001
that smokestack and tailpipe discharges of heat-trapping gases were the
most likely cause of recent global warming. But the White House had
disputed those conclusions.

The last time the administration issued a document suggesting that global
warming had a human cause and posed big risks was in June 2002, in a
submission to the United Nations under a climate treaty. President Bush
distanced himself from it, saying it was something "put out by the
bureaucracy."

That may be harder to do this time. The new report, online at
www.climatescience.gov, is accompanied by a letter signed by Mr. Bush's
secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser.

The White House declined yesterday to explain the change in emphasis,
referring reporters to Dr. Mahoney, assistant secretary of commerce for
oceans and atmosphere and the director of government climate research.

In an interview, he said the report was mainly an update on the overall
climate research program and was not intended to be a conclusive "state of
the science'' summary of the administration's thinking. A series of 21
reports are promised on particular issues in coming years, he said, and the
studies on climate models, agriculture and other subjects mentioned in the
new report are "significant but not definitive.''

Still, the report was disputed by some groups, aligned with industry, that
oppose restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions and have attacked science
pointing to dangerous human-caused warming as flawed.

Myron Ebell of the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute said the
report was "another indication that the administration continues to be
incoherent in its global warming policies."

At the same time, the report did not please environmental groups, which
have repeatedly criticized Mr. Bush for opposing efforts to require
restrictions on the gases linked to global warming, though he has gradually
come around to the position that warming is at least partly caused by
emissions.

"The Bush administration on the one hand isn't doing anything about the
problem, but on the other hand can't deny the growing science behind global
warming," said Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation.

The studies in the report that point to a human cause for recent warming
all involved supercomputer simulations of climate, which have increased in
power over the last several years.

The latest analysis, done at the National Center for Atmospheric Research
in Boulder, Colo., found that natural shifts in the output of the sun and
other factors were responsible for the warming from 1900 to 1950, but could
not explain the sharp and continuing rise since 1970.

The report's section on agriculture focused on several studies in which
fields and grasslands were exposed to doubled concentrations of carbon
dioxide, with growth patterns in plants shifting in ways that could harm
yields.

In such conditions, it said, plots of shortgrass prairie in northeastern
Colorado contained less of the nutrient nitrogen, and their grasses were
less digestible than those that grew with no extra carbon dioxide.

"In another experiment, increased CO2 stimulated the growth of five of the
most important species of invasive weeds, more than any other plant species
yet studied," the report said. "This suggests that some weeds could become
bigger problems as CO2 increases."

************************************************************************
Carolynn B. Race
Associate for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Ste. 104
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-543-1126 ext. 3009
Fax:  202-543-7755
Email:  crace@...
www.pcusa.org/washington

For more information, contact:
Carolynn Race,
PC(U.S.A.)Washington Office,
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755.
Email crace@...
--------------------------------

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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
wrote the following Op-Ed in today's Washington Post:

washingtonpost.com
How to Heal Health Care
By Bill Frist and Hillary Clinton
Wednesday, August 25, 2004; Page A17

At a time when much of our public discussion is riddled with disagreement,
there is an emerging bipartisan consensus in one vitally important area:
that the challenges facing U.S. health care require major, transformative
change. Some steps are already underway. Recently the Department of Health
and Human Services announced a 10-year plan to build a new health
information infrastructure. And while there is no consensus yet on all the
changes needed, we both agree that in a new system, innovations stimulated
by information technology will improve care, lower costs, improve quality
and empower consumers.

Today our care is often afflicted by systemic error and dramatic
inefficiencies. According to a recent Rand Corp. study, even patients with
the best available coverage receive recommended care, on average, only 55
percent of the time. Costs continue to escalate far in excess of inflation.
Health care providers are paid for episodes of care when a patient is sick
or injured, rather than for ensuring that patients are healthy. In other
words, patients pay to be covered by a plan or seen by a doctor, not
necessarily to receive effective, high-quality treatment. Care is too often
oriented toward acute, episodic illnesses of the past -- not the chronic
diseases that plague us now. Competition occurs among plans, networks and
payers. It often does not sort out the best preventive, diagnostic and
treatment strategies.

Moreover, our current health care sector suffers from profound
technological inconsistencies. We lead the world in medical breakthroughs
using some of the most advanced technologies ever developed. But at the
same time, doctors and nurses struggle under mounds of paperwork, providers
lose time trying to manage data and the latest research takes years to
reach medical practices. By using advances in information technology, we
can put the right information in the hands of doctors and patients at the
right time. We can empower patients, health care providers and health care
purchasers to make better choices.

Businesses in other sectors have embraced the information revolution to cut
costs and improve productivity. They use information technologies not as an
end but as a means to improve and innovate. It's time we realize the full
potential of the information revolution to improve the quality of the
health care system as well.

The success of U.S. health care depends on patients' taking charge of their
care and becoming active participants in it. Information and access to it
will be paramount. Consumers and patients do not have enough information to
make good choices. They need this information, including access to their
own health records, and the tools to make better choices, manage their care
more effectively and communicate more efficiently with their health care
providers. At the same time, we must ensure the privacy of the systems, or
they will undermine the trust they are designed to create.

We must also cultivate competition: Consumers need to know which doctors or
care settings heal patients faster and better. Consumers need relevant
information about providers' experiences and outcomes.

We need to create standards of quality measurement so consumers can shop
for good health care. More than a decade ago, the state of New York
launched a revolutionary program of public reporting on heart bypass
surgery. Last year the New York Chamber of Commerce built on this effort by
sponsoring the first statewide hospital report card.

Finally, consumers need information about the price of care. They must be
able to compare health care pricing -- with information that is readily,
publicly available.

Certainly, government has a job to do with leadership and federal
investment in health information technology and quality standards. For
instance, we need interoperability standards so systems can communicate
with each other, privacy protections, targeted investment and payment
systems that reward quality care. The executive branch has taken a number
of steps; all agree we need to do more.

The marketplace also has an important role. Consumers must demand quality
health care and the tools to provide it, such as pricing and performance
information powered by robust information technologies. If these things are
done, we believe the quality of care we receive in this country can be
radically improved.



************************************************************************
Carolynn B. Race
Associate for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Ste. 104
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-543-1126 ext. 3009
Fax:  202-543-7755
Email:  crace@...
www.pcusa.org/washington

For more information, contact:
Carolynn Race, Domestic Health Issues
Catherine Gordon, International Health Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, #104
Washington, DC 20002
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755
Email crace@...
Email cgordon@...
www.pcusa.org/washington
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Below please find the first few paragraphs of an article from today's New
York Times, "EPA Says Mercury Taints Fish Across U.S."  To view the
complete article, go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/25fish.html.  (You may have to
register for free to view the article.)

This year's PC(USA) General Assembly passed a resolution, "On Opposing the
Change in Requirements of Emission From Smoke Stack Industries."  The
resolution is below.

1.  Declare our opposition to the change in requirements of emission from
smoke stack industries, changes instituted by the Environmental Protection
Agency on August 27, 2003, in the New Source Review permitting requirements
for emissions from power plants and manufacturing facilities. 'The new
rules would allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries, and
industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install new
antipollution devices' (New York Times, August 22, 2003, by Katherine Q.
Seeley).

2.  Petition the president of the United States to draft rules that would
further reduce tailpipe emissions by increasing the fuel efficiency of new
automobiles.

3.  Petition the major manufacturers of vehicles to accelerate the use of
existing technologies that would increase fuel efficiency and to develop
new technologies that would achieve further gains.

4.  Request the Stated Clerk to communicate this action to the president of
the United States and the administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency and the appropriate members of Congress. The communication should
include the impact that smoke stack and tailpipe emissions is having on the
health of our most vulnerable populations and on our environment due to
acid rain, smog, increased ozone levels, and emissions of mercury and heavy
metals.

(To look up other resolutions passed at this year's Assembly, go to
http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/ and click on "PresbyTel GA Tracker.")

EPA Says Mercury Taints Fish Across U.S.
The New York Times
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 - The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said
on Tuesday that fish in virtually all of the nation's lakes and rivers were
contaminated with mercury, a highly toxic metal that poses health risks for
pregnant women and young children.

Michael O. Leavitt, the E.P.A. administrator, drew his conclusion from the
agency's latest annual survey of fish advisories, which showed that 48
states - all but Wyoming and Alaska - issued warnings about mercury last
year. That compared with 44 states in 1993, when the surveys were first
conducted.

The latest survey also shows that 19 states, including New York, have now
put all their lakes and rivers under a statewide advisory for fish
consumption. But Mr. Leavitt said that the widespread presence of mercury
reflected a surge in monitoring - not an increase in emissions - as part of
growing state efforts to warn local anglers about the fish they are
catching. Last year, states issued 3,094 advisories for toxic substances,
compared with 1,233 in 1993.



************************************************************************
Carolynn B. Race
Associate for Domestic Poverty & Environmental Issues
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Ste. 104
Washington, DC 20002
Phone:  202-543-1126 ext. 3009
Fax:  202-543-7755
Email:  crace@...
www.pcusa.org/washington

For more information, contact:
Carolynn Race,
PC(U.S.A.)Washington Office,
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, #104,
Washington, DC 20002.
202-543-1126, fax 202-543-7755.
Email crace@...
--------------------------------

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washecology-subscribe-request@... or
washecology-unsubscribe-request@...

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A Brief Statement of Faith


In life and death we belong to God.
   Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
      The love of God,
        And the communion of the Holy Spirit,
   we trust in the one triune God, the Holy One of Israel,
      whom alone we worship and serve.

We trust in Jesus Christ,
      Fully human, fully God.
   Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
      preaching good news to the poor
        and release to the captives,
      teaching by word and deed
        and blessing the children,
      healing the sick
        and binding up the brokenhearted,
      eating with outcasts,
      forgiving sinners,
      and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.
   Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,
   Jesus was crucified,
      suffering the depths of human pain
      and giving his life for the sins of the world.
   God raised Jesus from the dead,
      vindicating his sinless life,
      breaking the power of sin and evil,
      delivering us from death to life eternal.

We trust in God,
      whom Jesus called Abba, Father.
   In sovereign love God created the world good
      and makes everyone equally in God's image
        male and female, of every race and people,
      to live as one community.
   But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator.
      Ignoring God's commandments,
      we violate the image of God in others and ourselves,
      accept lies as truth,
      exploit neighbor and nature,
      and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
      We deserve God's condemnation.
   Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
      In everlasting love,
        the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people
           to bless all families of the earth.
      Hearing their cry,
        God delivered the children of israel
           from the house of bondage.
      Loving us still,
        God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant.
      Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,
      like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home,
        God is faithful still.

We trust in God the Holy Spirit,
      everywhere the giver and renewer of life.
   The Spirit justifies us by grace through faith,
      sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor,
      and binds us together with all believers
      in the one body of Christ, the church.
   The same Spirit
      who inspired the prophets and apostles
      rules our faith and life in Christ through Scripture,
      engages us through the Word proclaimed,
      claims us in the waters of baptism,
      feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation,
      and calls women and men to all ministries of the church.
   In a broken and fearful world
   the Spirit gives us courage
      to pray without ceasing,
      to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
      to unmask idolatries in church and culture,
      to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
      and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
   In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit,
      we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks
        and to live holy and joyful lives,
      even as we watch for God's new heaven and new earth,
        praying, Come, Lord Jesus!

With believers in every time and place,
   we rejoice that nothing in life or in death
   can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Updating the Witherspoon web site on 8/23/04


Back from a few days away.  Sorry for the long silence!

These items have been added to www.witherspoonsociety.org on August
23, 2004


MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS, AND JEWS JOIN TOGETHER IN URGING ACTION FOR
PEACE

Amid all the allegations of anti-Semitism being hurled at the
Presbyterian Church as if it is the only group urging reason and
restraint for peace in Israel/Palestine, we hear a joint call for
peace from Jews, Muslims and Christians. They recognize how violence
is connected in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, terrorist groups, and more -
and call for a "Nonviolent Coalition" that will welcome all to their
tent as Abraham did, "to share his food and water with travelers from
anywhere."

You can also follow an on-going discussion of charges that the
Presbyterian General Assembly took actions that are anti-Semitic.


IRAQI SOCCER COACH AGREES WITH IRAQI PASTOR:  IRAQ IS WORSE OFF TODAY

Pastor Younan Shiba, ecumenical delegate at the 2004 General Assembly
from the Assyrian Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Iraq, was asked
directly in a plenary session whether Iraq is better off today than
before the American invasion. His stunningly simple answer: "No, we
are worse off."

It's interesting to hear confirmation of this view from Iraq's soccer
coach at the Olympics. He said his team should not be used as a
symbol of freedom, since it is still torn by daily violence, and is
still under foreign occupation.

With these words he took issue with a campaign commercial for
President George W. Bush, in which the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan
appear, and a narrator says: "At this Olympics there will be two more
free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."

Coach Adnan Hamad, whose team has surprised observers by reaching the
soccer semifinals, added: "You cannot speak about a team that
represents freedom. We do not have freedom in Iraq, we have an
occupying force. This is one of our most miserable times. ... Freedom
is just a word for the media. We are living in hard times, under
occupation."


THE REFERENDUM IN VENEZUELA:  DEMOCRACY WINS OVER US POWER

The August 15 referendum on the presidency of Hugo Chávez appears to
be a crucial victory for a president who has sided with the poor
majority of his people over against the wealthy and the US powers
that have stood with them.

Alejandro Kirk, a Senior Fellow at The Oakland Institute, offers an
eyewitness analysis of the vote and the ensuing insistence by former
president Jimmy Carter and the secretary general of the Organization
of American States, backed by many other observers, that the vote was
legitimate and not a "fraud" as claimed by many on the right.



FROM THE PRESBYTERIAN WASHINGTON OFFICE:
ADVOCACY DAYS - MARCH 2005
Mark your calendars!
2005 Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice
Make All Things New
March 11-14, 2005
Washington, DC



doug king

The Once and Future Church School: Three Trends in Christian Education
By Dr. Roger Nishioka,
Associate professor of Christian Education at Columbia Theological
Seminary in Decatur, Georgia

Given at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church General Assembly Christian
Education Dinner June 24, 2003:
"Good evening, friends. I am so honored by the invitation of Claudette
Pickle to be with you this evening. I do bring you greetings from your
sisters and brothers in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in
particular from Columbia Theological Seminary where I am privileged to
serve on the faculty. For just a few minutes, I want to talk with you
about where we have been and where we might be going."

The title of this brief conversation is "The Once and Future Church
School: Trends in Christian Education." I use this title,
intentionally reflecting the series titled the "Once and Future
Church" by Loren Mead of the Alban Institute because I believe how
Mead looks at the church and how we in Christian education look at the
church school has some similarities.

In the first book in his series, Mead discusses the passing of
paradigms, using the term paradigm as Thomas Kuhn does, to mean
"worldview." Mean argues that historically we Americans have moved out
of the Christendom paradigm when the church clearly was a source of
power in the culture and now we are in a new age, post-Christendom,
when the culture is perhaps hostile to the church but more likely, in
my research, indifferent. Most people are not mad at us. Most people
just don't think we matter much.

To be sure, most Americans still believe themselves to be spiritual
people. Consistently, the percentage of persons who believe there is a
God hovers between 93 to 97 percent. But the percentage of regular
church goers has plummeted. Many see the church as unnecessary. We are
irrelevant. And in the midst of this, you see, our response, more
often than not, is to keep on "playing" church as we have been
reflecting that syllogism that we "worship at our work, we work at our
play, and we play at our worship" to mean that we take the wrong
things far too seriously. To keep on playing church or worshiping as
we have been, setting up our church school programs, discussing
overtures to the General Assembly, passing reports and papers and
statements, not that this does not matter—I still believe in some way
that it does, but in the midst of a change in worldviews, in
paradigms, the problem with a strategy of "if it ain't broke…." You
know it. The problem is that sometimes it's broken and we are so
consumed with doing the same old thing that we deceive ourselves into
believing that it still works because it works for the dwindling few
who are still around. After all, "denial" is not just a river in
Egypt. Some of us still believe our people are listening to us when
they have long since moved on to other voices.

Our words are so much like the sound of the teacher in the Charlie
Brown cartoons. Waah-waah-waah-waah?

Church school worked when we had teachers, mostly women, who stayed at
home and were happy to volunteer. Church school worked when Sunday
mornings were free because Saturdays were not yet consumed by catch up
work and running errands and doing all the things you could not get
done during the weekday.

There is no question that we need to educate—teach the Bible,
theology, why we do what we do, to our children and youth and
adults—now more than ever. But more and more I am convinced how we do
it is has to be different in these days. Father Patrick Brennan who
teaches at Loyola University in Chicago says "There will be two
churches in the future—a dwindling church with an aging, dying
structure, and a mission church, reaching out to people." Which will
you be?

In looking at the future of Christian education, I want to identify
three trends. I could discuss many more but I just want to talk about
three. Remember that trends are not the same as fads. Fads tend to be
short-lived, often constructed by outsiders so they are impressed upon
the population by fashion designers or entertainment program
executives. Fads also tend to contradict previous fads so if one fad
is long hair, the next one is short hair and so on. In contrast,
trends have a long life. They have a long life because they are not
artificially constructed. They are more organic. They emerge from the
general population rather than being imposed by outsiders. Trends also
build on previous trends—they impact the world for years to come.

Tribal education to immigrant education

C. Jeffrey Woods, in his book titled Congregational Megatrends, talks
about the future. When discussing education, he says we in the church
must shift from tribal education to immigrant education. This is not
easy to do. You see, tribal education makes the assumption that we all
grew up together and we all know these biblical stories and we all
know these hymns and these traditions. Do you know the number one
question parents of young children have when they walk into a church?
In my research, the number one question for parents of infants and
young children when they walk into a new church setting is: Where are
the bathrooms. I have been thinking about that as I visit
congregations preaching and teaching. How hard is it to find the
bathrooms in your building as soon as you enter? Well, if you are part
of the tribe, then you know where the bathrooms are. Oh, you're an
immigrant. Did you think you were welcome here? You're not. I have
told my students that the word "familiar" is not a bad word but used
alone, it is tribal. I have told them to expect immigrants, people who
are searching for the good news of Jesus Christ and may not have grown
up in the Cumberland tradition.

Experience over knowledge

Second, education in the future is more focused on experience than
knowledge. This is not easy especially for Cumberland Presbyterians
who are proud of our knowledge. A friend of mine is chaplain at
MacAlester college in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. She says that
every Sunday morning during the school year she goes into the dorms
and wakes up her students. She makes them get up and go to church. She
has corralled churches from the area to come to the campus and provide
rides for those who need it and lunch for free afterward. Lucy says
every Sunday afternoon she watches these young adults come back to
campus and she is dismayed. They are dragging themselves back. She
says you know, the problem is these young people are yearning for an
experience of Jesus Christ and what you faithfully deliver every
Sunday in worship and church school is your knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Well, they tell me, I don't need more knowledge about Jesus. I get
knowledge. I am in classes Monday through Friday at one of the more
rigorous church-related liberal arts colleges in the United States. I
get plenty of knowledge. What I want is an experience of God. How we
teach experientially is different from how we teach knowledge—being
able to know the right things.

Duty and responsibility vs. what is in it for me

Third, I am convinced there is a generational battle going on in our
churches and it affects everything we do. The generational battle is a
battle over hermeneutics—a fancy word for interpretation. This is a
battle over two opposing ways of viewing God, the church,
relationships, the world, you name it. I term this a battle between
some people who are bound by duty and responsibility and some people
who are bound by a whole different question: what is in it for me? One
of my former students is now serving as an associate pastor in a
Presbyterian congregation outside of Birmingham, Alabama. He called me
one Thursday morning and told me there is going to be a fight. He
described his Wednesday night suppers at his church. Two world
views—duty and responsibility vs. what's in it for me. Who comes
early? Duty and responsibility folks. What do they do? Set up tables
and chairs and set out plates and silverware and cups and start the
coffee and pour the sweetened tea. Who comes late? What's in it for me
types. Who does not RSVP? What's in it for me types. They eat and then
what do they do? They do not clean up. Instead, they have the nerve to
sit there and talk. Where are their plates and cups and things?
Sitting right in front of them. What have the duty and responsibility
people been doing? Cleaning up. It's the whole Mary and Martha story
all over again. This young associate pastor told me that he is afraid
there is going to be a fight between these two opposing hermeneutics.
In fact, one of the duty and responsibility persons told him that he
is going to propose that when people make a reservation ahead of time,
they get a number and only persons who have a number should be allowed
to eat. The problem is, what did Jesus tell Martha when she
complained? He told her that Mary had made the better choice. This is
a tough story for Cumberland Presbyterians—many of whom are duty and
responsibility people.

Where we have been is not where we are going.

Tribal education to immigrant education.

Experience over knowledge.

Duty and responsibility vs. what's in it for me.

We are living and teaching and preaching in different days. And the
good news in all this is that this is Christ's church. So as you teach
and preach and sing and work and pray and play and study…where we have
been is not where we are going. But surely the Lord is at work in our
midst. And we must be attentive.

The session of Grace Presbyterian Church of Sacramento has invited the
Committee on Ministry (COM) of the Presbytery of Sacramento to lead
"Listening Sessions" with the members (active and inactive) and
friends of the congregation.

The COM feels that at this point in the life of Grace Presbyterian
Church,it would be helpful to hear from all of us about the excitement
and /or concerns that we may have regarding our congregation.

Members of COM will lead these small group discussions and elders from
session will take notes. We will establish small groups of 10 to 15
persons. The "Listening Sessions" will last one (1) hour. They will be
held after worship on Sunday, September 12, 2004 at 10:15 A.M. Please
contact the pastor, clerk of session or one of the elders currently on
session to sign up so that we know you will be present.

We hope that each of you will participate in these "Listening
Sessions." The session of Grace and the Committee on Ministry needs to
hear from you!

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