Response to UCC President John Thomas from The Simon Wiesenthal Center

UCC Truths ^ | July 20 2006 | SWC

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Dear President Thomas, We appreciate the clarity of your “Pastoral Letter to Palestinian Friends and Partners.” You have made the sides abundantly clear. On one side are Israel, the United States, the G8, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. All of these faulted the unprovoked murderous cross-border attacks and kidnappings by Hezbollah that have led to suffering of the citizens of both Israel and Lebanon. On the other side are Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, the UCC and John Thomas, who see things differently. We also understand why your remarks during this week of death and misery addresses only the suffering of your Palestinian friends. History teaches that silence is admittance and your silence over innocent Jewish victims speaks volumes.

We would have thought that your hostility against the Jewish state in the past would have been tempered by developments of the past year, even before the Hezbollah attacks. Israel’s painful dismantling of her Gaza communities; the Palestinian response in directing hundreds of Kassams into civilian populations within Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders, and then electing a Hamas government; the rabid hatemongering of Iran’s Ahmadinejad (which you yourself noted and reacted against) - any of these might have provided you with an opportunity to add some new words in your lexicon, like balance and responsibility. Instead, you piously advise Israel to lay bare her Jewish, Christian and Moslem citizens to continuous murderous attacks by demanding the removal of the anti-terrorism separation barrier without ever even offering a suggestion of an alternative. You mourn the degradation of Palestinian buildings, but ignore the deliberate targeting of civilians in Israel, including the two Israeli Arab children killed this week by a Hezbollah rocket. You have nothing to say about the hundreds upon hundreds of Kassams and Katyushas that continue to rain down upon Israel’s cities and towns, in the latest attempt to eradicate the Jewish State.

Why now? Perhaps you provide cover for Hezbollah in order to justify your previous behavior. Not too many Americans have had the opportunity of face to face meetings with Hezbollah, but when you first encountered them, as you wrote in your travel diary in 2003, you did so with an attitude of bemusement that they were in the audience. Most Americans, we think, would have bolted in distaste from those who killed hundreds of Marines in Beirut. Has Che Guevara replaced G-d in your theology, so that no "underdog" can ever be called evil, no matter what his actions or moral platform? And why have you abandoned your Christian coreligionists in Lebanon! Can you not see what even Arab heads of state and a UN resolution have noted: that the people of Lebanon are being used as human sandbags by Hezbollah and their masters in Syria and Iran?

At least you are honest. You used to rail about the pressure from the “pro-Israel lobby.” You’ve dropped the code language. It’s Jews you’re talking about, as you admit in your current letter. Your irritation is puzzling, though. You have done a near perfect job keeping those pesky Jews from your offices, and from your convention floor when resolutions about the fate of Israelis came up. If we didn’t know better, we would think you simply don’t like outside interference and pressure. But you have no problem with the pressure from organizations like Sabeel and Al-Awda, both of whom reject the legitimacy of a Jewish state, and both of whom have either partnered with the UCC, or have been listed as a resource. And you don’t mind twisting a few arms yourself, do you? Remember the infamous “midnight meeting” at your General Synod in 2005, when you didn’t like the committee recommendation to the floor, so you substituted your own language, without anyone realizing it and had delegates adopt a resolution different from what they thought they were approving?

Most confusing, perhaps, is what your bias and hostility have to do with Christianity and Christian love. Mercifully, you are not the only Christian role model around. We hope that Jews and Christians alike will not confuse your convoluted thinking with the genuine regard and concern we have seen in other circles, ranging from the Evangelical Right to our very good friends in the Reformed traditions, such as those who successfully led the battle at the recent Presbyterian General Assembly to rewrite policies on divestment and the security fence that were unfair and unbalanced.

In Israel, united in its determination to end the scourge of missiles in the hands of terrorists, people nonetheless stop to read, think, and debate about the calamitous effects of war on people on the other side of the border, particularly civilians. In the midst of their trying circumstances, with two million Israelis in the north hunkering down in shelters, they find room to commiserate with others. Here in America, leaders of other church groups, including those who differ politically with Israel’s decisions, responded to the losses of both Israelis and Lebanese. We strongly suspect that peace will only become possible when both sides at least acknowledge the pain and suffering of the other, even as they pursue their separate agendas. Failure to evidence that mutuality of pain was a missed opportunity for you to teach others what undoubtedly is in the hearts of many of the rank and file of the UCC.

We hope and pray that the good will and good sense that serves as the basis for Christian-Jewish relations in America will continue to prevail, and that one day you too may know the blessings of its spirit.

-The Simon Wiesenthal Center

[Presbyterian Reporter]

The Simon Wiesenthal Center stops just short of calling Thomas an anti-semite.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

ping

UCC Truths has a comment website located at:
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[randita]

The past 10 days have served to prove whom the real allies of Israel are -- and the liberal left is not among them.

[lightman]

This is the same sect which last July 4 declared its independence from orthodox Christianity and its historic sexual ethics by voting to endorse the gaysbian "Marriage Equality" nonesense.

Several dozen congregations have already left. More are in the process of leaving.

[Reddy]

bump

[Salem]

"Has Che Guevara replaced G-d in your theology, so that no "underdog" can ever be called evil, no matter what his actions or moral platform?"

In Thomas' case, YEAH, pretty much.

---

Zec 12:6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.





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Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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" ... It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world."—FReeper Retief
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."
The Nature Of Bruce ~

[MRobert]

My husband has actually met John Thomas. He ssid you certainly did not get a warm feeling from the guy. He seemed to have a rather cold personality.

[ApplegateRanch]

Isn't "divestiture" simply selling YOUR shares to a different owner?

This leads to three scenarios:

A) They are sold to an unwitting Brother, thus causing him to stumble. Heaven Forbid!

B) They are sold to a non-believer, thus allowing him to propser in his unbelief. Heaven forbid!

C) They are KEPT, rather than divested, and all the proceeds are dedicated to FIGHT the percieved evil. Satan pays for his own downfall. Heaven smiles.

Be wiser than the serpent.

[facedown]

The "United Church of Christ" is an affiliate of the "National Council of Churches". Just another communist front group.

[Islander2]

You are so right. We are one of the congregations that got fed up with the John Thomas line. Puna Congregational Christian Church in Kea'au, Hawaii on the Big Island.
Mahalo

[happygrl]

He seemed to have a rather cold personality

Reptilian-like ?