THANKS!

In response to a nation-wide call by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., religious and civic leaders from across the country gathered at Brown Chapel of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama on March 15, 1965 to memorialize two recently fallen heroes of the civil rights movement. The first was twenty-six-year-old African American Jimmie Lee Jackson, a deacon at St. James Baptist Church in Marion, Alabama. He was shot twice in the stomach in late February and died shortly thereafter. The second was thirty-eight-year-old James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister, who was severely beaten outside a suspected Ku Klux Klan gathering place in early March. He died two days later from wounds he sustained from that brutal beating. The tragic deaths of these two ministers spurred a national outcry. Distinguished leaders from various faiths and civil rights sympathizers poured into Selma's Brown Chapel for the memorial service awaiting its featured eulogist, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Among the dignitaries who arrived in Selma that day was His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. Why did Archbishop Iakovos travel to this remote southern city at one of the most volatile moments in our nation's history?

EAD 2015 - Breaking the Chains: Mass Incarceration & Systems of Exploitation

Come to Washington, DC, April 17-20, 2015, for the 13th Annual National Gathering of Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice titled, "Breaking the Chains:  Mass Incarceration and Systems of Exploitation."  

 

Join over 1,000 Christian advocates in building a movement to shake the foundations of systems of human exploitation (Acts 16:16-40), including a prison-industrial system that incarcerates millions of people in the U.S. and abroad.  A world that incarcerates so many and allows some to profit from the exploitation of slave, trafficked and forced labor remains far from the "beloved community" which we are all called to seek.

 

The U.S. makes up only five percent of the world's population yet holds nearly a quarter of the world's prisoners.  Still, "imprisonment" is a worldwide problem and takes various forms, as everywhere people around the world remain trapped in detention centers, prisons, factories and drug wars that bind and dehumanize individuals for political or economic profit.

 

Lamentations asks, "When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one's case is subverted - does the Lord not see it?" (Lam. 3:34-36)  Do we?

 

More information 

The 2015 PW Churchwide Gathering will be held June 18-21, 2015 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Make plans to join us! Registration for the event is just $395 (less than in 2012!), with hotel rooms at the Hyatt Regency at $169 per night (up to four guests per room). Registration will open January 15, 2015.

The theme of the Gathering is "One Body, One Spirit," based on 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. As always, workshops, plenary sessions, worship, mission opportunities and all Gathering programming will explore the theme in the context of a diverse, faithful sisterhood.   

Are you ready to start planning your Gathering experience? The Gathering registration booklet mailed with the November/December 2014 issue of Horizons, but is also now available for download!

Use this resource to plan your arrival, worship, shopping, education, relaxation and inspiration during the 2015 Gathering. Plenary speakers will inspire you to live out your faith in new ways. Educational opportunities (workshops, forums and mission tours) will stretch your understanding and engagement with the world. Time with your Presbyterian sisters will remind you of the power of women committed to creating a more just world for everyone. In short, it's an incredible event that should not be missed!