Snyder describes the amount of U.S. gun violence as 'obscene'
by Mike Ferguson
Presbyterian News Service
SAN JOSE, June 23, 2008 — An overture to address the
tragedy of America’s gun violence will go before the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly.
The Social Justice Issues Committee approved the overture,
made by the Presbytery of National Capital, Monday night,
June 23.
The Rev. Catherine Snyder, a Presbyterian campus minister
at tragedy-stricken Virginia Tech University, told the
committee that it’s “obscene the amount of gun violence
this nation tolerates.”
After the mass murders at the campus April 16, 2007, Snyder
said she heard from many people that it could happen
anywhere. “My sisters and brothers, they are right. It
could happen anywhere, because we are so crazy about our
guns. The madness must stop, and Christians should be at
the forefront.”
The Rev. Jim Atwood, a retired minister from the Presbytery
of National Capital, said advocates aren’t asking for an
expensive policy study, but an “educational, comprehensive
study by scholars and leaders who know this issue.” The
study will cost about 1.5 cents per Presbyterian and will,
he said, “address what I believe is the biggest spiritual
issue in the country.”
The committee approved overtures that would:
* Request that the full Assembly celebrate the ministry of
the mission “Living Waters for the World” and view a video
describing the ministry;
* Create a team to study the church’s policies on public
education on the issues of desegregation, affirmative
action, faith-based initiatives and the No Child Left
Behind law;
* Instruct Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
[www.pcusa.org/pda] to continue the work of nurturing
partnership with the presbyteries affected by the storms of
2005;
* Direct that a program body of the General Assembly
Council continue to monitor and mediate problems between
labor and management at the Smithfield Packing Plant in Tar
Heel, NC, the world’s largest pork processing facility. The
program body will report back to the General Assembly
Council in 2009, which would in turn report to the 219th
General Assembly (2010);
* Approve the report, “Lift Every Voice: Democracy, Voting
Rights and Electoral Reform,” which would work to increase
voter participation, support full voting rights for the
600,000 residents of the District of Columbia currently
unrepresented in the Congress, provide for greater
accountability and responsibility through a national
minimum standard for voting equipment and renew and broaden
democratic practice by, in part, shortening the campaign
season.
