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(CNSNews.com) - Two American Jewish leaders say they are "disgusted and outraged" by threats of violence made against Presbyterian Churches. In a statement issued Sunday, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called the people who made the threats "thugs" who are "far outside the mainstream of American Jewry." The Presbyterian Church USA recently said it would stop investing in companies that do business with Israel -- an effort, the church says, to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although many Jews see it as...

The Presbyterian Church has stepped up security at its headquarters and advised its churches to be on alert after receiving a letter threatening arson attacks on its churches because of its policies in the Middle East. The handwritten letter was received Wednesday at the church's Louisville headquarters, Jerry L. Van Marter, director of the Presbyterian news service, said Saturday. It had no return address, but it was postmarked from Queens, NY, Van Marter said. The letter threatened to set churches on fire while people were inside in retaliation for "anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes," Van Marter said.

November 14, 2004 — An arson threat was delivered to the Kentucky headquarters of America's Presbyterian Church. Now churches across the country are on high alert. Parishioners at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago are going to receive an unwelcome message today. The pastor will use his sermon to inform the congregation of a threat that was received by the Presbyterian headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky late Friday. The handwritten letter was delivered anonymously and had a Queens, New York postmark. The letter promised arson against Presbyterian churches nationwide in retaliation for their "anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes." The threat had a...

Friday, November 12, 2004Two high-level Presbyterian Church (USA) employees have been fired in the aftermath of their taking part in a controversial meeting with a representative of Hezbollah, a group blamed for murdering hundreds of Americans and Israelis. Kathy Leuckert, deputy executive associate director of the General Assembly Council, and Peter Sulyok, coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, were notified that they were no longer employed by the Presbyterian Church (USA), according to a memo released Thursday morning by John Detterick, the executive director of the General Assembly Council. The Presbyterian News Service broke the story about...

Presbyterians, divestment, and anti-Semitism The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues its campaign against Israel.... What we still have is an example of what Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has forthrightly labeled anti-Semitism.... And that is why I chose the words anti-Semitic to address proposals for the large-scale divestiture of companies doing business in Israel, to address the movement in England to remove Israeli scholars from the editorial boards of scholarly journals, to address the move of Presbyterian churches last summer to divest the stocks of companies that were doing business in Israel with no action whatsoever with respect to the...

According to a memo released this morning, Kathy Lueckert, the deputy executive associate director of the GAC, the governing body of the church’s mission program agency, and the Rev. Peter Sulyok, coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), are no longer employed by the GAC. Lueckert has served the denomination for five years, Sulyok for nearly twelve. Lueckert supervised Sulyok and both were members of an ACSWP fact-finding delegation to the Middle East last month that included a televised meeting with Hezbollah, an organization that is on the U.S. government’s watch list of terrorist groups.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) continues its campaign against Israel.... What we still have is an example of what Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, has forthrightly labeled anti-Semitism...... ...a petition that is available on the Internet (look here, PCUSAers) calling for a special meeting of the General Assembly to repeal the divestment resolution passed at the last Assembly....

Wicca is a pagan religion that combines a number of elements, including earth worship, diversity, radical feminism, shamanism and Druidry. It is thoroughly anti-Christian. Wiccans, a synonym for witches, have had a history of popping up in the PCUSA and causing controversy.

A leader of the Presbyterian Church, USA (which, appropriately enough, abbreviates “PC-USA”) Ronald Stone is nobody’s candidate for the annual brotherhood award of the National Council of Christians and Jews. At a meeting with representatives of Hezbollah in Lebanon last week, Elder Stone fawned on the terrorists while observing that people of the jihad persuasion are far more congenial than those horrible Hebrews. “We treasure the precious words of Hezbollah and your expression of good will toward the American people,” the Presbyterian poobah simpered to his terrorist hosts. Hezbollah demonstrated its good will toward the American people in 1982, when...

An elder in the Presbyterian Church, USA, said during a meeting with a leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah that Muslims are easier to deal with than Jews. The comment was aired on Arab television and recorded by the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project, or MEMRI TV. The meeting with the terrorist – Sheikh Nabil Qauq, the leader of Hezbollah in south Lebanon – occurred Sunday during a visit by a 24-member delegation from the Presbyterian Church, USA. MEMRI has a video clip of part of the meeting on its website. "As an elder of our church,...

Hugging Hezbollah October 22, 2004 With relations between the Jewish and Presbyterian religious communities at their lowest point in decades, it's hard to imagine what could have possessed the Presbyterian Church (USA) to decide this was the right time for a good-will visit with the leadership of Hezbollah. A 24-member delegation from the church met last Sunday in Lebanon with Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, described in press reports as the commander of Hezbollah in South Lebanon. According to The Associated Press, the group was on a fact-finding mission that included tours of sites near the Lebanese-Israeli border. They were briefed on...

America's mainline protestant churches are in trouble. One sign is shrinking membership. Another is turning their political policymaking over to fringe leftists whose deepest instinct is to blame America and pummel Israel whenever possible. The latest disgrace is the Presbyterian Church's plan for selective divestment in Israel--ending the church's investment in multinational companies that the church believes bear particular responsibility for the sufferings of the Palestinian people. For example, the Presbyterians say they may divest themselves of Caterpillar stock, because bulldozers made by that company are used to level Palestinian homes in Israel's antiterrorism campaign. Of course, these bulldozers can...

The “religious left” has always troubled me. They seem to be focused on things that are unscriptural and unspiritual. Their world view is hardly that of the conservative, Bible-believing Christian. In the early days of my ministry I would now and then minister in these churches—at least those bold enough to invite a pro-Bible prophecy, pro-Israel speaker. I give that remnant credit! However, there were never more than two or three in attendance at my classes even though the church membership was in the thousands. Conclusion: I was not tracking with these people who wanted to hear about poverty, the...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A worship service held Wednesday afternoon at the General Assembly Council meeting included readings from the Bible, the Koran and reflections from Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase on the time he spent in Colombia. *** The reading of the Koran was by Dr. Aslam Khaki, a Muslim from Pakistan. The worship service followed a presentation on the Interfaith Listening Teams, which are made up of 10 teams, each including a Muslim and a Christian who travel in the U.S. and speak at churches, schools and other events. ***

Pro-Israel Groups Chastise PC(USA) for Divestiture Plan By Jim Brown The head of a coalition of 200 pro-Israel groups says the Presbyterian Church (USA) appears to care more about the inconvenience of Palestinian terrorists than the destroyed lives of their Jewish victims. Delegates to the PC(USA)'s General Assembly recently voted overwhelmingly to consider divesting itself from companies that do business with Israel. They also condemned the Jewish nation for building a security fence designed to protect civilians from Palestinian terrorists. Those actions by the PC(USA) have prompted the National Unity Coalition for Israel to start a letter-writing campaign to the...

Dershowitz On Presbyterian Anti-Israel Decision 18:19 Aug 10, '04 / 23 Av 5764 The Presbyterian Church (USA) resolved last month to condemn Israel's anti-terror partition/wall, to continue to fund the Avodat Yisrael church in Philadelphia that engages in missionary work towards Jews, and to divest from companies that do business with Israel. Excerpts from an article in the Los Angeles Times by Law Prof. Alan Dershowitz in response to the Presbyterian Church's anti-Israel decisions: "The Presbyterian Church (USA) has committed a grievous sin. The General Assembly of that church has voted to divest from only one country in the world....

The Presbyterian Church (USA) sins against human rights Alan M. Dershowitz 8/8/04 The Presbyterian Church (USA) has committed a grievous sin. The General Assembly of that church has voted to divest from only one country in the world. No, it was not China, which has occupied Tibet for half a century and continues to deny basic human rights to its own citizens. No, it was not Iran, which threatens nuclear holocaust, executes dissenters and denies religious freedom to Christians and Jews. No, it was not North Korea, Libya, Russia, Sudan, Cuba or Belarus. It was -- you guessed it --...

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has committed a grievous sin. The General Assembly of that church has voted to divest from only one country in the world. No, it was not China, which has occupied Tibet for half a century and continues to deny basic human rights to its own citizens. No, it was not Iran, which threatens nuclear holocaust, executes dissenters and denies religious freedom to Christians and Jews. No, it was not North Korea, Libya, Russia, Sudan, Cuba or Belarus. It was -- you guessed it -- Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and America's most reliable...

By the overwhelming vote of 431-62, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently adopted a resolution calling for a divestment campaign from corporations doing business with Israel. Thus a major American religious denomination, whose American roots date back to the Rev. John Witherspoon, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, has called divine authority into service for a biased attack on Israel in the name of peace. In contrast to the action taken by the Presbyterian Church this month, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that one-sided criticism of Israel can at times be so grotesque...

Friday, July 30, 2004 Petition condemns church for 'hatred' of IsraelMainline Presbyterians largest group to divest from Jewish state Posted: July 30, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com An online petition signed by more than 2,000 people protests the Presbyterian Church USA general assembly's decision to side with Palestinian Arabs and against Israel, choosing to divest from the Jewish state as it did only with apartheid South Africa With the decision, approved in a 431-62 vote at the 216th annual general assembly of the PCUSA, the denomination is believed to be the largest organization or institution to join the divestment campaign against...