The “social creed” played an important role in the public witness of the Presbyterian Church in the early 20th century and still speaks to some current situations. Richard Murdoch, a minister from Hudson River Presbytery and one of the writers of the resolution, explained that the 1908 creed was a classic statement about the vision of the kingdom of God coming on earth. Many of the advocated items took years to implement, for example it was forty-one years after this creed that the minimum wage was instituted in this country.
The resolution also asks that the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy initiate a “survey of key Christian principles….in addressing major and likely future concerns, such as the lack of health insurance for 44 million Americans, the outsourcing of jobs to countries without human rights or environmental safeguards, and the impact of growing economic inequality …”
— Rosalind Banbury-Hamm
