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PeaceChurch - Issues
Act
Learn
Reflect
Prepare
Introduction
Capital Punishment and Restorative Justice - Introduction

The passage used for reflection was taken from
Luke 19:1-10.

He entered Jericho and was passing through it.  A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.  When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’  So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.   All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’  Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’

The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
On November 18th, 2007 PeaceChurch held its first official meeting at Churches of Christ Wembley Downs.

At a previous planning meeting the observation was made that we need to not only talk about peace and non-violence, but we also needed to act.  In order to act appropriately we also need to learn about issues.

One issue which had recently arisen was that of Capital Punishment.  Senator Robert McClelland of the Australian Federal Opposition (Australian Labor Party) made a statement in which he indicated that if elected, a Labour government would join with a number of other nations in a coallition against Capital Punishment, wih a view to pressuring other nations to end the practice of Capital Punishment. McClelland was immediatly ridiculed by the then Howard Government, which accused him of insensitivity, given that it was the week of the anniversary of the Bali Bombing in which over 200 people, including 88 Australians, were killed in October 2002. Being in the final weeks before a federal election, Kevin Rudd also spoke out against his Senator, and the issue virtually disappeared from the radar.

It was decided at our planing meeting that we would reserch the issue and determine some action that could be taken as a response to our first PeaceChurch issue.  Following this meeting, the issue of Restorative Justice arose, and it was felt that this should be combined with Capital Puishment as the subjects of our first official meeting.

As a wholistic approach it was decided that our meetings and on-line discussions should follow an approach which involved some inward personal reflection, together with learning and action.

It is the intention of this section of our website to present some of the resulting material from that first PeaceChurch meeting.