A Church Divided
The 218th Presbyterian General Assembly, held from June 21-28 in
First, the good news. The Assembly soundly defeated a divestment resolution (called Overtures), reinforcing its 2006 decision to move away from the anti-Israel positions that had characterized the divestment measure it passed at its 2004 Assembly. The Presbyterians had been the first mainline American church to get on the divestment bandwagon, and its second step away from extremism is hopefully a bellwether for the path other denominations will take.
Even better news is that the Assembly overwhelmingly passed an Overture -- what other organizations would call a “resolution” -- that directly rebuked the anti-Israel approach the Church had been taking. It called on Presbyterians to recognize the “complexity” of the conflict, to be a voice for both Palestinian and Israeli victims, and to “avoid taking broad stands that simplify a very complex situation into a caricature of reality where one side is clearly at fault and the other side is clearly the victim.”
Now for the bad news. By a vote of 504 to 171 (with 7 abstentions), the Assembly approved the anti-Israel Overture 11-01, whose multiple clauses seem to stand in opposition to Overture 11-06.
The premise of Overture 11-01 contradicts 11-06’s plea for recognition of the complexity of the conflict. It invokes the World War II-era theological declaration that Protestant churches used to resist Nazi efforts to take them over and transposes it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It calls upon the Church to weigh in on details of international policy because “the sovereignty of God thus judges all claim of sovereign nationhood, all boundaries, all exercises of force, and all uses of resources by human beings. The Church is thus called to help discern where the Spirit is working in the world, guided by Scripture and its confessions.”
The Overture goes on to endorse the “Amman Call” passed by the World Council of Churches in June 2007, just three days after the Hamas coup in
Other clauses in 11-01 are equally disturbing. One instructs the Assembly to continue distributing resources about the conflict. Though it doesn’t specify which resources, the Church’s track record is one of notoriously biased sources that distort facts. They include the works of anti-Israel theologians like Gary M. Burge and Palestinian Christian Naim Ateek, one-state solution advocates like Jeff Halper, and divestment activists like Jewish Voice for Peace that offer the added benefit of assuaging any worries about charges of anti-Semitism, since the group’s members erroneously claim to represent a large segment of the American Jewish community. The educational recommendations to teachers made on the Presbyterians’ Israel/Palestine Mission Network promote tendentious, factually distorted materials like the film, “Peace Propaganda and the Promised Land,” which gives pride of place to veteran anti-Israel spokespeople like Noam Chomsky.
Another clause urges Christians to visit “Israel/Palestine,” spend “significant time” in the West Bank and
Finally, clause six skirts around divestment but leaves it looming as a possibility by calling for continued “corporate engagement….with companies supporting or profiting from the occupation of
One speaker at the Committee noted the contradictions between the two Overtures. How could the Presbyterians be a “prophetic voice” if they are even-handed as 11-06 demands and refuse to condemn
How can this apparent contradiction be explained, and what does it bode for the future?
The fact is that the Church is deeply divided about Israeli-Palestinian issues. Anti-Israel forces dominate the Church bureaucracy and leadership, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and its various Middle East related organs, from the Church’s Office of the Middle East and
The 1,000-odd Presbyterian Commissioners and advisory delegates and the other 3,000 Presbyterians who came to
They also seem to be tending toward a pacifism that reverberates with the comfort and safety of
The Assembly itself functions as an almost pure representative democracy. Since 1790, American Presbyterians have been sending delegates to their annual Assembly, where selected delegates are randomly divided into special Committees that vote on what Overtures to recommend to the General Assembly so it can decide the Church’s position on a wide range of issues.
But that very democracy is one of the reasons for the contradictory vote on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Many of the committee members, who are all chosen randomly just months before the Assembly starts, and many of the delegates-at-large simply don’t know much about the conflict and its history. Yet they are asked to make judgments on it that will represent the voice of the 2.2 million-member Presbyterian Church.
They are easy prey for the Church’s anti-Israel bureaucracy. They rely on the bureaucracy for expertise, and see no reason to distrust its input. As with many similar groups that have sprung up in other denominations, the anti-Israel activists dominate key church positions and are well organized. They frame their political agenda in the theological and peace and justice language that resonates with Presbyterians, with Palestinians depicted only as innocent victims of a predatory, land-grabbing power,
Delegates could also be easily saturated by the many events that showcased anti-Israel speakers. The Church brought Israeli-Arab Archbishop of the
Chacour then was featured at a press conference with Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, where he expressed his “wishful” hope for one “secular democratic state where Christians, Jews and Muslims can worship God or not worship God,” and declared that it was necessary to “prove to Israel that every non-Jew is not an enemy.” He also blamed
On Wednesday, delegates were invited to attend a “Peace Breakfast” or an afternoon event at the Israel/Palestine booth to meet Jerusalem-born Mubarak Awad. He is often hailed as the Palestinian Gandhi, even though Awad has condemned Palestinian violence only for tactical, not moral, reasons, and, according to the Princeton student newspaper, told a 2002 audience that “The history of the Jewish religion has contributed to the Israeli-Palestinian problem and
On Wednesday, delegates could also attend a session entitled “Facts on the Ground” put on at a local Presbyterian Church with Awad, and two speakers who share his views, veteran Jewish anti-Israel activist Jeff Halper, and Israeli-Arab American Jonathan Kuttab.
The victory of Committee and Assembly approval of Overture 11-06 also could have passed unnoticed by the delegates at large. The General Assembly News report after the Assembly vote did not even mention 11-06, and instead wrote about 11-01, and about the Assembly’s rejection of a floor amendment to delete 11-01’s clause approving the “Amman Call.”
These Assembly actions occurred within a larger, disconcerting debate.
In 2005, after the divestment resolution had roiled Jewish-Presbyterian relations, the Church set out to prove that it is not anti-Israel and has always supported a two-state solution by issuing a record on its past positions. Unfortunately, those they issued do not indicate much support for the Jewish State. In 1948, as five Arab armies invaded to destroy the newly declared state of
The Assembly apparently had nothing to say—or nothing it now wished to highlight—about the conflicted region until 1967 when Israel, ringed by amassing Arab armies and threats of annihilation, won the ensuing Six Day War. The Church’s 1967 statement was notable for its neutrality and failure to blame the belligerent Arab states. It expressed “deep concern over the unrest and recent conflict in the
If, in 1974, the Church did affirm
In an effort to reverse what seemed to be a pattern of anti-Jewish theology and bias against
It is little wonder, therefore, that Jewish organizations are calling only for cautious optimism about the Church’s latest stated positions on
It is clear that the vast majority of Presbyterians means well and wants to do good. What they need is education about the issues so they can, in good conscience and with knowledge, counter the anti-Israel indoctrination of their leadership. The 2008 General Assembly was a start, and pointed the way to what needs to be done for 2010.
