The next day at a meeting of our church’s trustees with a stockbroker, everyone professed the same negative information. I immediately went to the PC(USA) web page, copied Cliff Kirkpatrick’s interpretation of the Assembly’s actions, and distributed it on the following Sunday. Thus far no continuing controversy troubles at least one Richmond congregation.
Yet controversy has raged elsewhere. I learned that a Jewish foundation, having given a $700,000 grant to an ecumenical community development project in another city, withdrew the grant because Presbyterians were partners in the project. There were critical editorials in the Wall Street Journal and The New Republic. Calmer heads have also prevailed. Jewish and Presbyterian leaders in Richmond and elsewhere have reached out to each other for conversation and interpretation.
One criticism leveled against the church is that we were not nuanced or even-handed in considering divestment, which this Assembly recommended against Israel alone. Why, it is asked, did the Assembly not require its MRTI Committee to consider divesting in relation to China, Russia, Iran, and Syria, notorious human rights abusers? After all, Israel is a democracy where Arab citizens serve in the Knesset. A further concern about the Assembly actions is that funding for Avodat Yisrael is interpreted as another indication of a sharp turn toward anti-Semitism by those whom American Jews considered their best friends.
The actions and responses are cause for grave concern. First, the church, speaking corporately, ought to have been keenly aware that quite separate actions arising from different standing committees might be seen as part of a coordinated, new (if innocent) anti-Semitism, which will reshape Jewish/Presbyterian cooperation and dialogue. Second, since the Assembly by overwhelming majorities voted for MRTI to study divestment and to call on Israel to cease building the security wall, there must be many Presbyterians who make a distinction between a resolution from a Christian church, and the national interest of the United States or the nation of Israel. Third, many of these same commissioners surely have strong ideas about what will make for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Finally, how could outsiders ever understand the energy expended and attention paid to “the ordination issue” to the exclusion of almost everything else? Many Richmond and Presbytery of the James colleagues called or sent e-mail to ask: What resolution on divestment?
Acknowledging all this does not relieve the church of new responsibilities as a result of our actions. We must reclaim and then reinterpret to our Jewish brothers and sisters our historic connections to Arab Christians and institutions in the Middle East. These Assembly resolutions have not sprung from radical leftist ideology, but from a long history and partnership with Palestinian and Arab Christians. They have been decades in the making. Theological school and presbytery sponsored trips to Israel and the Middle East have become commonplace. Almost every presbytery has members who have made the journey, met Palestinian Christians, Israeli members of Peace Now, as well as hawks, doves, and everyone in between. Ignorance is not the problem; perspective is the problem. Many of us now make a distinction between anti-Semitism, and opposition to the policies and actions of the nation of Israel. Many Jews do not make that distinction, and are hurt and offended when we do.
There is great irony in the outrage over continued funding for Avodat Yisrael, especially since the pastor of that congregation has condemned the Assembly’s two actions regarding Israel. Historically, Calvinists have been the least anti-Semitic of all Christians. A majority of Presbyterians subscribe to the 1987 document and do not believe we should evangelize Jews. As biblically and theologically educated people we do not fall for extreme fundamentalist teachings, or for dispensationalism, which longs for the conversion of Jews that will signal both the end of history and victory for Christianity.
There are at least two possible outcomes from this international blow-up that offer opportunity for peace in the Middle East and to Jewish/Christian conversation. As dangerous as the divestment matter may be, if our call for the use of power would help to stop the violence – then we will have taken an appropriate risk. What will it take for the democratically governed, free world to say to Israel (another democratically governed, free nation) and to Palestinians: enough? If we have taken the risk, we who are among the least anti-Semitic of churches, might others then follow?
And the prospects for real Jewish/Christian conversation have only deepened. Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, of the Anti-Defamation League has called for renewed dialogue, “but a different kind of dialogue. Not a dialogue that left us walking out of the room patting each other on the back . . . but making us sweat, because ultimately that’s the only thing that’s going to make a difference.”
Now that we have the world’s attention, pray to the God of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam, and of Jesus the Messiah, that we will sweat enough to make a difference.
— O Benjamin Sparks
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