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Synod
Resolutions
Resolution 1
Eastern Synod
General Assembly
notes that the present policy of the Training Committee is to allow
only a reduced sabbatical period (two months instead of three) for
ministers who have reached the age of sixty, is concerned that this
conflicts with equal opportunities principles, and asks the Training
Committee to reconsider the policy with a view to allowing the full
sabbatical period
for such ministers.
Proposed: Revd Bill
Mahood
Seconded: Revd Peter
Ball
1
The resolution has been put forward in the belief
that a sabbatical is a time for reflection on the past, taking stock
of the present and preparing for the future. It should be a time that
is enriching for the person and not simply about learning new skills.
2
The work of ministry and the journey of faith do
not cease at retirement. Therefore, a sabbatical during the last five
years of ministry may be of even greater significance in providing the
dimension of preparation for change in one’s pilgrimage.
3
The present rules for CME (Continued Ministerial
Education) seem to reflect a degree of ageism and therefore may
devalue the final years of ministry.
Resolution 2
The National Synod of Scotland 1
General Assembly
endorses the resolution passed by the National Synod of Scotland
accepting and approving the six recommendations of the Scottish Church
Initiative for Union Proposal.
Resolution 3
The National Synod of Scotland 2
General Assembly
endorses the resolution passed by the National Synod Scotland agreeing
that, in the event of any other partner church or churches rejecting
the Scottish Church Initiative for Union Proposal, the United Reformed
Church should proceed in the process with those partners willing to do
so.
1.1
The Scottish Church Initiative for Union Proposal
represents seven years of work (building on 25 years of work done by
the Multilateral Conversation). The partner churches involved have
been the Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the
Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church (before the union of
2000 both the United Reformed Church and the CUS were involved.)
1.2
The remit of the group, at the initial invitation
of the Scottish Episcopal Church, was to prepare a Basis and Plan for
Union. The Proposal offers a model of unity which could, in time,
lead to full union. For the present, it outlines only the general
direction, the possibility of local piloting, the encouragement of a
closer working relationship between the partners, and a commitment to
go on developing the model.
1.3
At its March meeting, the National Synod of
Scotland carefully considered the Scottish Church Initiative for Union
Proposal. The full text, including the six recommendations, appears in
Appendix 1. Each of the recommendations was considered separately and
passed. The responses of the other partners will be known by the time
General Assembly meets.
Resolution 4
The National Synod of Scotland 3
General Assembly
mindful that in recent decades military technology has developed
substantially, that definitions and terminology for various acts of
warfare have been evolving,
and that the
politics of conflict has moved into a new, post‑Cold‑War era,
asks its Church and
Society Committee to explore and prepare a report on the ethics of
warfare
for the twenty‑first
century.
The report should
take account of;
a). an understanding
of terrorism, suicide bombing and state sponsored assassination
b). weapons of
mass‑destruction, including nuclear, chemical, biological and
multi‑kiloton [conventional] bombs
c). weapons which
continue to cause death and suffering in a post‑conflict era, e.g.
land‑mines, unexploded cluster‑bombs, depleted uranium dust.
d). the argument
that a perceived threat is justification for a pre‑emptive attack, or
that “regime change” is a legitimate objective for armed aggression.
e) other matters
germane to the concept and practice of ‘Total War’
In whatever
methodology it adopts the Committee is encouraged to take account of
past General Assembly resolutions and to consult ecumenically and
internationally.”
1.1
In the 1950’s and 1960’s the memory of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki was fresh in the public consciousness.
The morality of nuclear armaments was hotly
debated. Against the background of the cold
war and its nuclear arms race, the political debate centred on
deterrence, but there was a historical perspective, gradually
sidelined in the cold war, which remains relevant to any debate on the
morality of war and weaponry. The concept of ‘Total War’ needs to be
re‑examined along with its implications.
1.2
From post‑mediaeval times to the development of air
warfare and missile technology, armies and navies fought wars at the
behest of governments, and although civilian populations were frequent
casualties, those casualties were seen as collateral damage, and not
themselves the target of the aggression.
Since the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, war was waged
not just against military targets, but centres of population. This war
against a people as opposed to its army or government became known as
‘Total War’. The blitzkrieg and fire‑storming of whole cities was
developed, and the nuclear bomb can be seen as the logical extension
of the notion that civilian populations are legitimate targets,
different only in scale from the blitzkrieg.
1.3
Terrorism, which appeared to rise in the Twentieth
Century, perceives as legitimate the targeting of civilian
populations. Public abhorrence of it derives
from its ‘innocent’ targets as opposed to ‘military’ ones.
In the context of Total War the question needs to
be asked whether it is any more or any less evil than attacks on
civilian populations by other means. Are
there some moral differences in destroying a city’s population by
carpet bombing, by nuclear bombing or by poisoning the water supply?
1.4
After the Korean War in which nuclear weapons were
not used, the arms race created huge over‑capacity in the stockpiles
of nuclear weaponry held by both the East and the West.
Eventually a number of Strategic Arms Limitation
Treaties and Nuclear Non‑proliferation Agreements were signed.
At the same time as stalemate had developed in the
Nuclear balance of terror between the Super Powers, proxy conflicts
using conventional weapons were fought between governments and their
opponents in various countries where the East and the West were vying
for influence. The United States’ use of
chemical weapons such as Napalm and Agent Orange in the Vietnam War
raised again the question of indiscriminate weapons and the exposure
of a civilian population to their effects.
Although some powers signed treaties limiting or banning the
development of chemical and biological weapons no one was sure how
well these treaties were kept or how verifiable were the assurances
given. It was also argued that defence
against such weapons is dependent upon a measure of research and
development work on the weapons themselves.
1.5
The aftermath of the Cold War’s proxy conflicts
left swathes of countryside in the old war zones on different
continents seeded with countless land mines, which have continued to
kill and maim civilians ever since, often women and children.
The on‑going humanitarian cost, the indiscriminate
nature of the weapon and the extent to which it was used, have led to
public outcry and indeed the creation of a treaty against the use of
land mines. Already concerns have been raised that unexploded cluster
bombs in Afghanistan are a similar indiscriminate hazard to the
civilian population in the post conflict era.
The destructive capacity of the U.S. ‘Daisy‑cutter’
Bomb used against the Taliban in Afghanistan has raised concerns that
it too is an indiscriminate weapon.
1.6
In the Gulf War, Britain and America used armour‑piercing
shells tipped with depleted uranium and this was intended as a
precise, tactical weapon. It has been
calculated however that as a consequence three hundred tons of
depleted uranium dust have been left in Iraq, and the incidence there
of childhood cancers and leukaemia has multiplied many fold.
Descriptions of the aftermath resemble the
predicted aftermath of a ‘dirty bomb’ [terrorist device with
conventional explosive used to spread radioactive contamination].
1.7
It seems appropriate that the church should look
afresh at the morality of warfare in the twenty‑first century ‑
revisit the implications of ‘Total War’ and examine the consequences
of weapons whose effect is indiscriminate.
International Law has said that the only justification for war is in
response to an attack that has been made. The present U.S.
administration seems to believe it would be justified in carrying out
a pre‑emptive strike against a perceived threat of attack from another
country. It has also introduced ‘regime change’ as an objective in any
war against Iraq. [The unilateral invasion
of Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989) as well as intervention in El
Salvador and Nicaragua (throughout the 1980’s) suggests that the
concept is older than the phrase.] The time seems right for the church
to consider and evaluate these new developments in the thinking of the
world’s only super power.
1.8
Many questions, ethical, legal and theological, are
raised by the practice of ‘Total War’. In a Twenty‑first Century
democracy, where the government should be accountable to the
electorate, is an electorate ultimately responsible for the military
policies of its Government? If so, can that responsibility for
military policy, which didn’t exist in the nineteenth century, justify
‘Total War’ [in a way that was not previously justified]?
What implications are here for our attitude to
terrorism? Does ‘terrorism’ need to be
redefined? Are land mines, cluster bombs, or
tons of depleted uranium dust ‘weapons of mass destruction’, and
should definition of this term be left only to politicians and
journalists? The Church urgently needs to
think afresh about the theology and ethics of warfare and weaponry in
the 21st century.
1.9
The Synod of Scotland agrees to put forward to the
General Assembly of the United Reformed Church the above resolution.
Resolution 5
Yorkshire Synod
General Assembly
asks its officers, through the Churches Main Committee, to open
discussions with appropriate government agencies with a view to:
i) obtaining
adequate assistance with the extra costs or securing a more equitable
distribution of the grant aid already made available for the
maintenance of historical church buildings and
ii) securing a
relaxation of the regulations surrounding the granting of “change of
use” for redundant places of worship.
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