“Let justice roll on like waters.”
AMOS 5:24
About the Justice & Witness Action Network
The Justice & Witness Action Network serves as the primary arm for the UCC Central Atlantic Conference to carry out its mission and agenda for justice and witness ministries. It is a grassroots advocacy network composed of individual members, clergy and churches across the Conference.
The Network educates and engages members in community organizing, grassroots advocacy, prophetic witness and action, and shaping public policy that advances our vision of securing a just and compassionate world for all. Our work is grounded in Central Atlantic Conference and General Synod resolutions, consonant with historic UCC witness, informed by a biblical understanding of justice, prophetic ministry and action, and a set of guiding principles to define our witness.
Campaigns & Initiatives
Faith & Democracy 2024
2024 presents another daunting challenge and defining opportunity in our nation’s history. What’s at stake? The right to vote and fair and free elections. The very foundations of our democracy are in danger.
The ongoing acts of racial injustice and the on-going denial of what really happened on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capital present us with the moral imperative to take action against these growing threats to our democracy. There is no moral cause more urgent right now than protecting and advancing the right to vote and promoting democracy. Every other justice cause is impacted by whether citizens can participate fully, fairly and freely in elections.
Coming together as a people of faith to organize and fight for justice, we can ensure that our nation doesn’t become an authoritarian state and instead moves closer to a true democracy.
Racial Justice Network
We are living in a time that is eerily similar to our nation’s past and raises major questions and concerns about how we got here and where we go from here. Once again America’s original sin of racism and white supremacy is reminding us of the work that has too often been avoided and pushed aside as if it is not present in the very fabric of who we are as a nation, and even the church.
We unequivocally denounce the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. And let’s not ignore the disproportionate impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the health, livelihoods, and lives of people of color.
That’s why we urge you to make a commitment to become antiracist and get involved.
Environmental & Climate Justice Network
Extreme weather and record high temperatures have become the norm. The jury’s in, climate change is real and humanity is responsible. As people of faith we have a responsibility to respond to this reality and take up the work of preserving God’s Garden as our own. Rising sea levels and forest fires, while frightening, are not the whole picture. People of Color in America face the blunt edge of environmental racism and its consequences on a daily basis. It is our call as well to ensure just treatment for these communities, and to work to build a world free of damaging and deadly pollution for all of God’s people.
The UCC pioneered the work of Environmental Justice. In fact, we coined the term “Environmental Racism” decades ago. This work isn’t alien to us, and as the next generation of leaders and concerned people of faith it’s our duty to continue the work of those pioneers like Rev. Ben Chavis Jr. and Rev. Leon White.
Join us in writing the next chapter in the story of our struggle for a just world for all.
Palestine Israel Network
The Palestine Israel Network is an issue-based network that seeks to educate and encourage strategic action for Palestinian human rights, freedom, and equality. We organize among the associations, congregations, and individual congregants within the Conference.
We also leverage our power by engaging in coalition-building with ecumenical, interfaith, and other rights-based allies for greater impact.
Join the movement for Palestinian Human Rights.
Show your support out in the community
We are a justice movement of leaders, clergy and local churches of the Central Atlantic Conference, United Church of Christ building and organizing power to secure a just and compassionate world for all.
Join justice leaders across the Network showing up to an action, a march, a legislative hearing, or going to support a person in need wearing this t-shirt.
"Coming together as a people of faith to organize and fight for justice, we can ensure that our nation doesn’t become an authoritarian state and instead moves closer to a true democracy."
— Rev. Marvin M Silver, Director, Justice & Witness Action Network
Associate Conference Minister, Justice & Witness Ministries, CAC UCC