Iraq

By Jan Orr-Harter

The long-awaited GA plenary session on Peacemaking and International Issues came and went, with excellent results, but not quite as we expected the process to go. We'll take the results.

By Jan Orr-Harter

Some of the toughest items were up today, Committee 14 on all issues related to the Middle East.

By Jan Orr-Harter

The committees have all finished their deliberations and have forwarded their proposals to the GA plenary for final votes.

PPF has compiled an analysis of peace related overtures before this year's General Assembly.

Click here to download the Briefing Document

The sensational video "Collatoral Murder" has been circulating widely online, showing U.S. troops in Iraq firing on civilians. Josh Stieber was a member of Bravo Company 2-16 and remembers the incident portrayed in the video.

If you call this a heartless murder, I think that you’re being overly self-righteous. If you question the very nature of the machines that we trap ourselves in and our goals for doing so, then we can learn something from this video.

Providence Presbytery has submitted an overture addressing continued issues in Iraq.

Click here to download the overture (doc)

You are invited to travel on a mission trip to Lebanon and Syria this fall to meet fellow-Presbyterians from Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This venture is organized through the Iraq Partnership Network and the Syria-Lebanon Network of the PC(USA) and is sponsored and facilitated by The Outreach Foundation. The church governing bodies in the region, namely the Assembly of Presbyterian Churches in Iraq and the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon have worked closely with the networks to finalize and bless these plans.

Riding the bus the other day, I was struck by how different worldviews play out in the smallest, as well as largest ways (you decide which is which). In the U.S., you enter the bus from the front, bringing you face to face with the driver and your obligation to pay the fare - maybe there's a machine you drop your coins into; maybe the driver takes your money himself; maybe there's a ticket you've already bought . . . but however it works, the very first thing you do is pay your money. No money, no entrance.

Now don't misunderstand - in Iraq, you must pay as well. But how the transaction takes place is instructive: