Posted on 03/09/2005 5:30:27 AM PST by SJackson
The Presbyterian Church USA may have voted to begin a process of divestment from firms dealing with Israel, but there are many Presbyterians who are not happy about the move, says Rev. William Harter, minister of the Presbyterian Church of Falling Spring in Chambersberg, Pennsylvania.
Harter, co-convener of Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish and Christian Relations, was in Israel last week as the leader of a group of Presbyterian ministers and lay people who had come under the auspices of the American-Israel Friendship League.
His group, which is active in working toward positive relationships with Jews, is currently circulating a petition on its Web site (www.pcjcr.org) calling on the Church's General Assembly Council to postpone any further action on the divestment issue until the next meeting of the assembly next year.
Harter points out that most church members were unaware of the decision, and that of those who do know about it, most oppose it. According to a report by the Presbyterian News Service last month, 61 percent of church members and 51 percent of church elders were unaware of the decision.
Of those who were aware, the report said, 42 percent of the members and 46 percent of the elders disapproved, while only 28 percent of the members and 30 percent of the elders were in favor.
However, among ministers, 48 percent approved and 43 percent disapproved. The story was far different among the "specialized clergy" who are not pastors of congregations. Among these people, who make up the church bureaucracy, a whopping 64 percent favored divestment, while only 24 percent were unhappy about it.
This seems to confirm what Jewish leaders in interfaith relations have argued for many years; that the majority of American Protestants support Israel, but a hard core of those active in church administrative bodies work to promote an anti-Israel agenda.
According to Harter, although the issue of divestment was posted on the church Web site, many of those concerned about Israel had not realized it would come up. He and others active in issues relating to Jews were involved in another issue: the funding of a Jewish messianic congregation. "Many people who would have focused on (the divestment) issue were in another room in another building," he says.
FOR THE record, the General Assembly also approved the allocation to the Messianic Jews. It also passed resolutions against Christian Zionism and Israel's security fence. It was unusual for four controversial resolutions relating to Jews and the Middle East to come up at one General Assembly meeting, but Harter does not believe this means that the church leadership is anti-Jewish.
"I don't think it's a trend. They all started at the local level and the church leadership responded," he says of the four resolutions. The divestment initiative also appeared to take the American Jewish community by surprise. Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granator, interfaith director for the ADL, says that a year ago he and others knew less about the Protestants. Now he is speaking at Protestant churches and at their meetings. This week he is lecturing at a Presbyterian seminary in Austin, Texas.
"And I'm not the only one. The American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Reform Movement, they are all involved," he says.
Many Protestant leaders, he says, don't understand why Jews are so attached to a "particular piece of land." At the same time, they have links, dating from 19th-century missions, to the Middle East.
"They have a personal affinity with their Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine," Bretton-Granator says.
Harter admits that the Presbyterians have historically had very close contacts in the Middle East and particularly among the Palestinians. "We are very trusted in the Palestinian community," he notes. But he adds that this is a strength they should build upon to bring Israelis and Palestinians together through communal enterprises, dialogue groups and youth activities, particularly at a time when there is renewed optimism on both sides.
"Events have superseded this action and we are now enmeshed in a position that is no longer germane to being authentic peacemakers and which continues to make enormous tension between the Presbyterian Church and the Jewish community," he says.
Meanwhile, some Jews see the mainline Protestant churches as the enemy of Israel and the evangelical churches as Israel's friends. But Harter stresses the mainline Protestant churches are not monolithic and include Left and Right, liberal and conservative, on political as well as religious issues. He defines his own church as moderately evangelical and says churches such as his tend to support a strong Israel and, at the same time, a peace process that fulfills Palestinian national aspirations.
Bretton-Granator is clearly uncomfortable about the evangelical support. Like many, he is wary about support which might be dependent on a theological view which sees the return of the Jews to their land as the first step in their accepting Christianity.
"The evangelicals go to Israel and they are heroes there, but we have to be careful about them. We have to know more about our evangelical friends, just as we have to know more about the Protestants."
If there is a lesson in all of this for Israel's leaders and the leaders of the American Jewish community, it is that we can take nothing for granted. Our friends of yesterday may not be our friends today, and our friends of today might not be our friends tomorrow. Meanwhile, may God bless and protect the William Harters of our age.
The writer, a freelance journalist, was formerly the Post's religious affairs correspondent.
We are protestant and when I told me dad what was going on in the church, he didn't believe me. Now he is furious. I will send him this, maybe he can force the issue in the church and see where the people representing him stand. We have been supporters of God's people ever since I can remember.
Ping!
A revealing statement, with a lot of truth, exposing their spiritual and theological bankruptcy.
If you'd like to be on or off this
Christian Supporters of Israel ping list,
please FR mail me. ~
MikeFromFR ~
There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~
Conscience and Dividends:
Churches and the Multinationals
By Thomas C. Oden
Washington, D.C., Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1985. 169 pp. $15.00 ($9.00 paper).
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jan1986/v42-4-booknotes6.htm
One hesitates to disagree with so widely appreciated a commentator as Martin E. Marty. But in this case, I do. In the foreword, Marty describes this book by Drew University theologian, Thomas Oden, as a "judicious mixture of commitment, moral reasoning, and hard-headed factual analysis." The book's purpose is "an empirical and ethical evaluation of the adequacy and effectiveness of church statements and actions toward multinationals."
Oden concludes that the corporate responsibility efforts of the churches need to be reconceived. Here are, his reasons: church members are far more favorable to multinationals than official church pronouncements; church agencies are not responsible representatives of their churches; church funds should not advance state-controlled economies, but encourage market economies compatible with Judeo-Christian ethics; missionaries who provide information "to American churches on social issues must be tested to ascertain the reliability of their sources and political orientation"; persons with Marxist ideology must not "foist these assumptions off on the churches as Christian"; Christians must be attentive to real guilt for actual social injustice, but not be manipulated by those who use guilt as an instrument of political strategy; delegated church representatives must not represent the consciences of others without consulting them; church leaders should not manipulate the media; social activism through shareholder action is less effective than Christian workers and managers working within corporations.
These conclusions are the familiar litany of wrongs regularly described by Ernest Lefever's Ethics and Public Policy Center which published the book. Considerable documentation accompanies this analysis, but issues and evidence are used selectively. Regarding the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the denomination which I know firsthand as staff for an agency and which is often referred to in the book, some evidence is accurate, some inaccurate, some misleading, and altogether the conclusions unconvincing. The book takes a romantic view of the multinational corporation. Various critiques of them- are substantially rejected, again, unconvincingly.
The churches still badly need ethical analyses which are not polemical, but ask difficult questions and help us think and act strategically and faithfully. This one misses the mark.
Belle Miller McMaster
General Assembly Mission Board, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Atlanta, Ga.
Just as my church contribution comes from the lowest level, that of the individual contributor.
This decision to divest in Israel has effected my level of giving to the PCUSA. I'm not making a big deal out of it; I'm simply giving less.
Amen to that!
I am a Christian and am strongly pro-Isreal. I love the Jewish people and have great respect for them. The Pres. church should read their Bible more often and they would find that as a Christian we are grafted into the nation of Isreal.
"The average members aren't polled as to their opinion; this vote comes from the national level."
Is this a religion or a union?
I'm not sure I understand your point. This entire problem started when the PCUSA ignored the very Bible that they purport to teach. I do NOT look upon the church as a democracy or a union where every member has a vote. I understand that the elected officials of the PCUSA have the right to make judgements for me. But in this case, they are departing from Biblical guidelines, and from this comes my resentment towards the highhandedness of their decision. It comes down to the arrogance and stupidity of the governing elders of the PCUSA.
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