Congregations voted to place the Peacemaking Statement of Conscience on the agenda of General Assembly (GA) this summer. The participation rate was 74% (counting "yes," "no," and "abstain" votes), with 38% of congregations voting "yes" and 0.8% voting "no".  The remaining congregations either voted "abstain" or did not vote. This participation rate was substantially greater than the 25% required by the UUA Bylaws. This is the best support we've ever had!

The poll also asked congregations to select social justice topics for the next Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI).  A list of six topics had been nominated UUs throughout the country and congregations were asked to narrow this list down to five.

The results were (congregations voting "yes"):

ENERGY, PEACE, & JUSTICE - 33% (congregations voting "yes")
NATIONAL ECONOMIC REFORM: A MORAL IMPERATIVE - 31%
IMMIGRATION AS A MORAL ISSUE - 31%
ENDING SLAVERY - 29%
REVITALIZING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY - 25 %
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT - 18%

The first five will thus be presented at GA and the top vote getter there will be studied for the next four years as the next CSAI. It looks like a close race.

The Comission on Social Witness thanks all who participated in this poll and encourges congregations to participate in the Association-wide CSAI as well.

John Hooper
Member, UUA Comission on Social Witness

A Worship Committee sponsored service, including readings, an interlude and a sermon from The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair.

Today we welcome our presenter, Ms. Anne Creter, to our pulpit. Ms. Anne Creter, MSW, LCSW, serves as NGO representative to the United Nations for Operation Peace Through Unity and is the Global Alliance UN Liaison. Within the U.S., she has been active in the Department of Peace Campaign.

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The One Chicago, One Nation Online Film Contest is open to individuals throughout the country to share their personal stories, based in or about Chicago, that demonstrate the importance of people of different backgrounds working together for the common good.

Film Submission Opens: Thursday, January 14, 2010

Film Submission Deadline: Friday, April 23, 2010

Vote & Comment: from January 14, 2010 thru April 30, 2010

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On January 28, 2010, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli joined Senators Mike Crapo (ID), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), and Joseph Lieberman (CT) to announce the United States Senate's unanimous passage of Senate Resolution 373, which designates February 2010 as "National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month."

"For the first time, this crime is being commemorated as 'National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month,' instead of a week. This is no small feat," Associate Attorney General Perrelli declared in his remarks. "The Department [of Justice] will use the month of February to raise awareness regarding teen dating violence and to provide opportunities for schools and communities to protect young people."

Resources:

For Associate Attorney General Perrelli's complete remarks, see www.justice.gov/asg/speeches/2010/asg-speech-100128.html.

In two speeches, delivered but a few days apart, President Obama announced a new foreign policy that signals the possibility of a momentous shift in U.S. thinking about the nature of power, the limits of force, and the complexity of building peace and preventing conflict.  In his strategy statement regarding Afghanistan, he redefined the nature and purpose of military engagement in a way that reflects on ongoing paradigm shift within the theory and practice of just war. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he clearly articulated the institutional building blocks for a more just world,  and in so doing,  reflected an ongoing paradigm shift within the theory and practice of strategic peacebuilding.

Sharon Welch is Provost of Meadville Lombard Theological School (Unitarian Universalist) and is a member of the Executive Committee of Global Action to Prevent War.

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Is there such a thing as a 'just war'? In his Nobel speech, was President Obama right to speak in these theological terms about war? He also stated that 'no holy war can ever be a just war.' Do you agree or disagree?

No war is ever wholly just; at an important level, all wars are merely wars. The only war that can ever be completely just is the war that is never fought.

War as it is fought is the organized violence of one nation against another for reasons that are never wholly disclosed, and certainly are more about power than justice. Have there ever been "just wars"? Not completely, no. President Obama acknowledged, in his Nobel speech, that the "concept of just war was rarely observed."

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The New York Times carried a moving  story today about two hospitalized children – an Israeli boy severely wounded by a Hamas rocket, and a Palestinian girl paralyzed by an Israeli missile. I’m glad the editors gave the story the front-page display it deserves.

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For a small group of 40 like-minded individuals who were present at the Ponsonby Mosque in Central Auckland, November 15 was an important day in their lives, soon to become a significant occasion for New Zealand and humankind itself.

That was the day when the New Zealand Chapter of the Charter for Compassion was launched jointly by Aarif Rasheed (of the Rasheed Memorial Trust) and Dave Moskovitz of the New Zealand Jewish Council and the Union for Progressive Judaism, demonstrating the union of minds and hearts.

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