Conference on Peace Held in Princeton
Episcopal News Service. May 6, 1982 [82113]
PRINCETON, N.J. (DPS, May 6) -- In the first meeting of its kind ever held in the Episcopal Church, diocesan peace commission representatives and bishop-appointed diocesan peace officers met here April 16-18.
The conference, sponsored by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, was called in response to both the House of Bishops' 1981 Pastoral Letter and the final report of the Church's Joint Commission on Peace, just released.
Conferees represented every province and 32 dioceses. During a weekend of study, worship and fellowship, they worked together to share the work for peace already underway or planned through diocesan structures, to integrate diocesan peace work with national and international peace activities, to identify and discuss the obstacles to peacemaking, and to plan appropriate next steps.
Resource persons who attended and made presentations to the conference included former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan, Dr. Allan Geyer, director, Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy, and four members of the Joint Commission on Peace which was created by the 1979 General Convention.
At the conclusion of the conference three resolutions were passed unanimously. First, the Presiding Bishop was requested to strongly urge all bishops immediately to involve all the structures of the Church so as to bring the issues of war and peace directly and actively into the central life of the Church, as recommended by the Joint Commission on Peace. Second, the Executive for National Mission in Church and Society was asked to assume responsibility for a similar conference in 1983. Third, the leadership of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and the Episcopal Urban Caucus were asked to collaborate on a General Convention resolution which would create a Fund for Peace within the Church.
The Princeton Peace Conference was organized by the Fellowship and chaired by its chairman, the Rev. John M. Gessell, Professor of Christian Ethics at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn. Gessell said, "Popular sentiment for relief from nuclear terror clearly is increasing around the world. Our challenge as Christians is to recognize the centrality in our faith of Christ's call to us to be peacemakers.
"With our bishops' leadership and the findings of the Joint Commission on Peace, there is faithful and fateful work for peace at hand to involve the talents of each one of us," Gessell added.
Copies of conference minutes and papers will be available, at cost, from the Episcopal Peace Fellowship's national office, Hearst Hall, Room 252, Wisconsin Avenue and Woodley Road, NW, Washington, D.C. 20016, telephone (202) 363-5532.