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A Brief Word About Peace

Remarks delivered by Rev. Chuck Currie, incoming Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain at Pacific University, before the 2014 annual symposium of the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium, on April 26, 2014

Unknown-4This coming fall I’ll assume the duties of Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain here at Pacific University. As an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a community activist, I have long standing interests in peacemaking and how we build just communities that sustain peace.

In the mid-1980s, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ voted for our denomination to become a “Just Peace” church. This was seen as an alternative to the Christian model of “Just War” which sanctioned war under some conditions. Just Peace, on the other hand, tried to envision a world without war – a world where just systems of commerce and diplomacy would negate the need for war.

Theologically, Just Peace is predicated on the belief that…

A Just Peace is grounded in God's activity in creation. Creation shows the desire of God to sustain the world and not destroy. The creation anticipates what is to come: the history-long relationship between God and humanity and the coming vision of shalom.

and that…

Just Peace is grounded in covenant relationship. God creates and calls us into covenant, God's gift of friendship: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezekiel 37:26). When God's abiding presence is embraced, human well-being results, or Shalom, which can be translated Just Peace.

The concept of a Just Peace was originally developed within the context of the Cold War and largely within the confines of Christian bodies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. With the end of the Cold War the Just Peace movement largely went dormant. In the last decade, however, new life within the movement has emerged and this time the movement has been reborn as an interfaith enterprise.

Unknown-3Ten organizing principles were developed to advance Just Peace, and have now been expanded to include Christian, Islamic and Jewish perspectives in Interfaith Just Peacemaking, with The Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite as editor:

1. Support nonviolent direct action.

2. Take independent initiatives to reduce threat.

3. Use cooperative conflict resolution.

4. Acknowledge responsibility for conflict and injustice and seek repentance and forgiveness.

5. Advance democracy, human rights, and religious liberty.

6. Foster just and sustainable economic development.

7. Work with emerging cooperative forces in the international system.

8. Strengthen the United Nations and international efforts for cooperation and human rights.

9. Reduce offensive weapons and weapons trade.

10. Encourage grassroots peacemaking groups and voluntary associations.

These principles, which Glen Stassen also first helped to develop, have the potential to help create a more just and peaceful world.

While many Christians are pacifists, with great justification, other Christians have found room within these principles to advocate a responsibility to protect in the event of genocide or other crimes against humanity. I myself advocated limited military intervention in Libya to stop Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his forces from carrying out their clear intent to inflict massive civilian casualties in a vain and hopeless attempt to maintain their grip on power.

My default position is always non-violence. My own belief is that even with the best of intentions that use of violence always falls somewhere in the category of sin.

As much as I am concerned about the larger world, I am also concerned about what happens here at home. From gun violence to domestic violence we live in a society that cries out for peacemakers.

The biggest obstacles to peace in our time include not just power hungry leaders intent on conquest but world citizens paralyzed into inaction when faced with the magnitude that is climate change and a sizeable part of the population that has abandoned reason and logic for absolutes that end dialogue and crumble the common good.

Is there hope in the midst of such difficulties?

As usual, I turn to William Sloane Coffin, the one-time chaplain of Yale University and later the long-time minister of New York City’s Riverside Church. Rev. Coffin told NPR:

"Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart's full of hope, you can be persistent when you can't be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So while I'm not optimistic, I'm always very hopeful."

Thank you for your time today.  

Footnote:  Moments following this presentation I learned of the death today of Glen Stassen. I give thanks to God for his life and offer my prayers for his family. 


The Fierce Urgency Of Easter

The Fierce Urgency Of Easter from The Rev. Chuck Currie on Vimeo.

Easter 2014 Bulletin CoverThe people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church gathered this morning for Easter in Portland.  This was my final joint service with the two congregations before I step down in June and begin my duties full time at Pacific University as the new Director of the Center for Peace and Spirituality and University Chaplain.  This morning was a joyful occasion with diverse people celebrating the life and ministry of Jesus.

Each Easter we are given the opportunity to decide whether or not we will walk in a world of darkness or embrace the light of God which offers a path toward salvation for all people, regardless of faith tradition. We must embrace our calling as people of faith with the same fierce sense of urgency (a phrase often used by Martin Luther King, Jr.) that Jesus embraced his. As Christians, we believe that Jesus is the “the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14),” as told in the Gospel of John. Unlike our early Christian brothers and sisters, however, we recognize that God speaks to all of creation and that there are different paths to truth and the divine. But all truth paths point the same direction Jesus did.

We have inherited, and sometimes help create, a world in peril. In sin, we have participated in cycles of living and commerce that have created a global climate crisis. Too many people each die in war and far too many die and suffer from hunger and poverty. God has called us to work towards the building up of the Kingdom – a place without war, poverty, or bigotry. This message was such a threat to the Roman Empire, which thrived on war and economic systems that benefited the few, that they put Jesus to death. It is a mistake to say that Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died to show us a new world was possible.

My prayer this Easter is that we embrace the way that Jesus showed us – and that we find new opportunities in concert with one another to see in Jesus’ death and resurrection those million fragments of light that Walter Wink talked about (and which I mention in the sermon video) and bring them to dark places, even sometimes our own hearts, so that Creation will know God’s light, love and peace forever more. 


White House Easter Prayer Breakfast 2014

 

It was a wonderful honor to attend the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast yesterday morning. Before the breakfast I had the chance to share a brief word with President Obama in the Blue Room about the success of the Affordable Care Act. Health care is a human right and faith communities have worked decades for this moment. Watch President Obama's remarks here.

President Obama has never played politics with his faith. In the East Room for the breakfast were Christians representing orthodox communities, evangelicals, mainline churches, and Roman Catholics. We might not agree on every issue - there are in fact big debates between us - but President Obama is correct that we can find common ground in America despite those differences. Here are some photos from the occasion:

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Easter In Portland 2014




The people of Sunnyside Church and University Park Church invite you to “Easter In Portland” – a special joint worship service of the two congregations, which will be held in Sunnyside Church’s historic Portland sanctuary (3520 SE Yamhill Street) on Sunday, April 20th at 10:30am. An Easter Egg Hunt for children will precede the service at 10am. All are welcome.

Sunnyside Church and University Park Church are progressive and Reconciling Congregations in the United Methodist Church. Preaching that morning will be The Rev. Chuck Currie, a minister in the United Church of Christ, who currently serves as the minister of both congregations in an ecumenical partnership. Rev. Currie is a contributor to The Huffington Post whose ministry has focused on opportunity and hope for those living in poverty, and for the civil rights of all.

University Park Church, located at 4775 N. Lombard, worships Sunday morning at 9:30 am. The congregation is known as a place of radical hospitality and has been a beacon of justice for the LGBTQ community.

Sunnyside Church, where worship is held each Sunday at 11 am (except Easter – when the service will begin at 10:30am ) is the home of the Common Cup Family Shelter, and has long been involved in the fight to end homelessness. The congregation also hosts a community meal program, an affordable day care program, The Y's Roost program for middle school youth, and Camp Fire programs.

Please visit our Facebook page for this service.


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Holy Week & Easter In Portland 2014







Holy Week

Lent is a special season of reflection for people of the Christian faith. These days provide us with space to consider the teachings of Jesus in the spirit of renewal and rebirth.

Please note these special services for Holy Week on your calendar:

Palm Sunday, April 13th | 9:30am at University Park Church (4775 N. Lombard) | 11 am at Sunnyside Church (3520 SE Yamhill) with special guest preacher The Rev. Paul Darling

Good Friday, April 18th | 10am at Rev. Chuck Currie's house (this will be a simple service with Scripture reading)

Easter in Portland, April 20th | 10:30 am joint worship service with the people of University Park Church and Sunnyside Church in Sunnyside Church's historic sanctuary with The Rev. Chuck Currie preaching. Visit our Easter in Portland Facebook page.

All are welcome.

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Meeting Hillary Clinton

Rev.Chuck CurrieThe Hillary Clinton speech last night was a home run. Meeting her and getting an autographed copy of her book for Frances and Katherine was an honor, of course. Her speech focused on Putin and Russia for the first half and then she turned to women's issues. I'll write a blog post sometime in the next couple of weeks with more about 2016 - after I get back from the White House next week. There is still a lot of work to be done before the presidential election. President Obama is on the right track on domestic issues and working hard, it seems, to let diplomacy win out over war with Iran or conflict with Russia. Health care, one of the great moral issues of our time, is finally moving in the right direction with more people getting insured. I'm never satisfied and worry about economic inequality, an issue President Obama is addressing more forcefully in his second term, and the on-going problem of homelessness - particularly student homelessness. But we are better off in so many ways from when Barack Obama first took office. Elections matter. Just look at the Supreme Court if you don't believe that.

In the meantime, you can hear more about Secretary Clinton's visit to Portland from OPB:


Answering Jimmy Carter's call to action

My latest op-ed in The Forest Grove Leader, a publication of The Oregonian:

A national conversation about violence against women has been jump-started by the release of Jimmy Carter's new book "A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power."
We need this discussion and it is needed now. It is timely that Pacific University's Center for Gender Equity is sponsoring an 8 p.m. "Take Back the Night March" on Wednesday, April 16, to protest sexual violence. As President Carter notes in his book, it is estimated that one in five female students are sexually assaulted.

Answering Jimmy Carter's call to action