Map of POJ Churches

Land Acknowledgment & Information

• The Presbytery of the James spans a wide range of lands across what is now central Virginia. The POJ office building is situated on lands that were once home to the Powhatan and Youghtanund peoples. We humbly acknowledge that “We have participated actively and passively throughout our history in discriminatory behavior directed against indigenous peoples. We have stood by while they were killed and their lands taken, while the story of their participation in the history of our country was distorted and suppressed.” (GA 222 Overture 11-17)
• An action of the 222nd (2016) General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) officially repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, an official papal action in the 15th century that declared that Christians had a divine right to conquer any non-Christians and claim their land as our own. This was the action that emboldened European colonizers to push indigenous people off their land and begin a process of genocide that reduced the number of Native Americans on the North American continent from 250 million people at the time of Columbus to 250,000 people at the end of the Revolutionary War. (see PCUSA Doctrine of Discovery webpage).
• The 223rd (2018) General Assembly built on the work of the previous assembly and took action that requires national PC(USA) agencies to begin meetings with land acknowledgment and, where possible, to seek the greeting and welcome of the Indigenous peoples currently living on the land. Presbyteries and congregations are also encouraged to adopt the same practice.