The committee develops policy statements, resolutions, and other reports on topics referred to it by previous GAs. It refined, but did not complete, papers on public education, HIV/AIDS, the theology of compensation in the church, gun violence, human rights, and a study on the nature and value of human life.
Because ACSWP protocols bar quoting from documents until they are in final form, this story is based on committee conversations.
HIV/AIDS
The report on HIV/AIDS is being written in response to two overtures to the 218th General Assembly (2008). According to Kezia Ellison, clinical research assistant at Harvard School of Public Health and the founder and president of Educating Teens about HIV/AIDS, Inc., who participated by phone, the new report “focuses on the dynamics of power and how they affect … underlying issues or determinant issues, such as poverty, discrimination, stigmatization, human rights, and gender inequality” in many parts of the world.
“HIV itself is not the problem, it’s a virus,” Ellison, chair of the eight-member writing team, said. “Society’s ills are the problem. There are structural things that need to be comprehensively addressed. Multi-faceted approaches that address power and resource allocation are essential.”
Joy Raatz, who leads Presbyterian World Mission’s HIV initiative, agreed. “People may have the ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs), but if they don’t have clean water or if they don’t have food, the issue becomes much more complex.”
For the church, Raatz said, “Theology is very important — they see death daily. The theology we use needs to be pastoral, supportive, and meet people at their place of need.”
The committee’s work was complicated by the emergence of a minority report from the writing team. Though the two versions vary little in content, the minority report begins by explaining why such a report is needed, highlighting changes in demographics as a primary reason.
Public education
The 2008 Assembly directed ACSWP to study the churches on public education in relationship to the issues of desegregation, affirmative action, faith-based initiatives, home-schooling, charter schools, and the federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation.
“We have looked at the history of public education, demographic trends (that) are changing dramatically, school-assignment decisions (in Seattle and Louisville) by the U.S. Supreme Court, the emphasis on testing in “No Child Left Behind” that shows much racial and socio-economic bias, teacher training and the pedagogy of teaching that places more emphasis on teaching methodology than on knowledge of the subject matter,” said ACSWP member Christine Darden.
She said their research shows, among other things, that:
» Home-schooled students do better on standardized tests;
» Charter schools get mixed success: about 20 percent demonstrate better academic achievement but about 30 percent show worse results;
» Federally funded faith-based educational programs continue to be plagued by proselytization along with education; and
» Unequal funding patterns and teacher certification standards across the country.
The 20 recommendations in the report, Darden said, seek to equalize funding for public schools, hold charter schools to the same accountability standards as public schools, reaffirm education as a right and the PC(USA)’s commitment to public education, support legislation that addresses “opportunity gaps,” calls on the U.S. government to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and support a constitutional amendment that affirms access to a quality public education as a basic human right.
Gun violence
While previous General Assembly attempts have focused on controversial gun “control” measures, the current study reflects the 2008 GA’s charge to “articulate a Reformed theology of proactive constructive nonviolence way of life and tactical methods for bringing God’s justice and peace to our communities and around the world.”
The chair of the writing team, Brian Miller, has lived gun violence in a very personal way — his brother, an FBI agent in Washington, D.C., was killed when a man walked into his office and opened fire with a machine pistol, also killing two others. On that day, Miller quit his business and became a full-time crusader to reduce gun violence.
Organizations he has aided in Philadelphia and New Jersey have pressed gun shops and dealers to endorse a code of conduct that keeps guns out of the hands of violent offenders. Gun dealers who refuse are subject to demonstrations in front of their shops.
Recommending direct action like this offers an approach to gun violence that is new to ACSWP and the PC(USA), said coordinator Chris Iosso. It “references direct action” (such as Miller’s), Iosso added, “without basing the whole paper on it.”
Theology of compensation
The 2008 Assembly directed ACSWP to update the denomination’s 1983 report on the subject, asking it “to provide theological guidance to church and society with regard particularly to the impact of secular market assumptions on the compensation practices of the PC(USA).”
Deborah Fortel, chair of the writing team, said the document is “not a plan, but a theological analysis” of compensation in the church. The 1983 compensation guidelines, she said, “have been implemented only in part.”
Over the last 30 years, the PC(USA) and its predecessor denominations have variously established guidelines for the ratio between the highest and lowest salary in any given entity (a presbytery or a General Assembly entity, for example) of 3:1, 4:1 and the current 5:1, approved when the 1995 General Assembly adopted “God’s Work in Our Hands.”
The Presbyterian Foundation and the Board of Pensions, she told the committee, “have pay scales significantly beyond the salaries of any other employees in the denomination.” The General Assembly Mission Council (GAMC) also does not adhere to the 5:1 ratio between highest and lowest salaries, she added.
Fortel said the report commends Presbyterian World Mission and the Office of the General Assembly for maintaining a 5:1 compensation ratio, and the Board of Pensions for basing pensions for retired church workers on the church-wide median salary, which increases compensation for those who earned less during their working years.
