PPF Statement on North Korea and Charlottesville

We are called to be makers of peace even and perhaps most especially in a world of hatred and violence, bombastic rhetoric, and overwhelming vitriol. As followers of the One we call Christ, we know and believe that justice cannot be created through violence and domination but through courageous acts of love. We also recognize our own complicity as citizens of a nation who relies upon and worships military might as the means for our will and our goals to be known and made real, often in the name of “security.” We are a people in need of historical memories of the sins of racism and militarism in our own history and the resulting death, destruction, and horror which they have engendered in places like Charlottesville and also in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Therefore, we the members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Activist Council, resolve the following:

1.  We denounce the sin of white supremacy, and many of us confess our complicity in the racism and white supremacy of our society;

2. We recognize and give thanks for those willing to serve in the protective forces of our communities at all levels, from local police to members of the military, even as we also acknowledge that we have used them in the past and present to preserve unjust relationships, oppressive political regimes, economic oppression, and empire;

3.  We remember the awful destructiveness which nuclear weapons visited upon the women, children, and men of Japan 72 years ago and pray daily that such weapons never be used again;

4.  We call upon the government of the United States and its leaders to open immediate negotiations with the government of North Korea and invite other parties (China, South Korea, Japan, etc.) to participate in such talks that the people of the Korean peninsula and the world can live in peace and remove the threat of nuclear annihilation;

5.  We call upon leaders of governments at every level to remove statues and other reminders of the Civil War Confederate Governments from public spaces and either destroy them or place them in institutions where they can be remembered in proper context and not seen as glorifications of slavery and our country’s racist past;

6.  And we ask God’s forgiveness and continued mercy as we seek to participate in the building of God’s kingdom of justice and true peace for all.