PC(USA) divestment plan: dealing with “ripples of reaction”

LOUISVILLE — The first wave has hit hard — intense criticism of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for considering selective divestment in some companies doing business in Israel, as a way to protest Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people.

But now the PC(USA) is trying to figure out where to go from here, deciding not just when and whether to divest, but also searching for ways to deal with the ripples of reaction.

Church leaders are trying first to explain what the assembly has done so that people really understand — there has been a boatload of misunderstanding (“So many people are operating on the basis of what they think we did, not what we did,” said Manley Olson, a General Assembly Council member from Minnesota.)

But they also want to cultivate support from the ecumenical community in the divestment effort — there are signs that may be starting to happen — and to renew discussions with Jewish leaders in a way that acknowledges the deep pain and sense of betrayal the divestment issue has caused the Jewish community, but which also doesn’t dilute the Presbyterian commitment to justice for the Palestinians or duck the hard issues embedded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Sept. 25, at the close of its meeting in Louisville, the General Assembly Council voted to send a pastoral letter to all Presbyterian churches explaining what has happened. In some communities, Presbyterian pastors and others from local churches have been approached by local rabbis or Jewish groups and asked to have face-to-face meetings to discuss the dispute. Council member Zane Buxton from Colorado said he hopes the letter might “dial down a little bit the anxiety within our congregations.”

And Susan Andrews, a former General Assembly moderator who’s a pastor in Maryland, said “we as Presbyterians have two very deep commitments at stake in this whole issue. One is our passion for justice in the Middle East, particularly in terms of the occupation of the Palestinian people and the justice issues involved with that. We also have a passionate and deep and affectionate relationship with our Jewish brothers and sisters, which they have cherished for a long time and I think we have too.”

In the upcoming dialogues that top Presbyterian leaders have scheduled with national Jewish leaders, “I would hope we would not pit those two deep convictions against one another but be able to figure out a way to continue to affirm both of those deep convictions and commitments and not water down either one,” Andrews said. “That’s a pretty hard balance, but I believe with the power of the Holy Spirit and prayer and listening . . . it is possible to do that, and we can be a new kind of prophetic voice.”

The assembly voted in June, in what has turned out to be an extremely controversial action, to initiate “a process of phased, selective divestment in multi-national corporations doing business in Israel.” The Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee, which meets in November, will begin to develop criteria for what companies to consider; will attempt to discuss the issue with firms that meet those criteria; will perhaps file shareholders’ resolutions; and only if those approaches fail will recommend divesture.

Any divestment would have to be approved by the General Assembly, which doesn’t meet again until 2006.

Despite the intense criticism of the assembly’s divestment action, Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who directs the Mission Responsibility Through Investment program, said he’s heard from his counterparts in other denominations that they “wish that their bodies had had the courage to step forward on this issue, and I think some will step forward on this issue in the next couple of years.”

There already have been voices, for example, from the international Anglican community encouraging that to happen.

Clifton Kirkpatrick, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, told a council committee that he’s willing to send the pastoral letter and hopes it would express “the essence of why do we care about this” and “why there has been this passion in our church for the well-being of Palestinians” and for peace in the Middle East, so the divestment decision is put in context, “rather than appearing to be qualifying” or backing away from what the General Assembly has done.

Kirkpatrick echoed that sense in his response to 15 members of the U.S. Congress, who wrote a letter Sept. 13 stating that they were “terribly distressed,” as the assembly’s action regarding divestment is “penalizing Israel for acting in its own self-defense” and is “irresponsible, counterproductive and morally bankrupt.”

Kirkpatrick wrote back that “I very much regret your disappointment, but in all candor, must also communicate with you that I am terribly distressed in the failure of the U.S. Congress to seek a peaceful resolution to this conflict that would both protect the right of Israel to live in peace with secure borders and the rights of Palestinians to statehood and an end of the occupation of their territory. Perhaps if the U.S. Congress had been more forthright in seeking such a just solution for Israel and Palestine, it would not have been necessary for our General Assembly to take this further action to achieve our long-term commitment for peace and well-being for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

But there also are voices encouraging the PC(USA) to listen carefully to what Jewish leaders are saying — to understand, for example, the vulnerability they could feel if a broad Christian condemnation of Israel’s policies began to be heard.

“We as a Presbyterian church need to take this opportunity to really listen to why it is this divestment issue has occasioned such negative reaction in the Jewish community,” Cynthia Campbell, president of McCormick Theological Seminary, told the council. “And, supporting our longstanding commitment to the rights of Palestinians and to the search for peace and justice in the Middle East, the divestment strategy is a strategy that has I think unnecessarily moved in a direction that alienates us from people that we need very seriously to be in a relationship with.”

McCormick encouraged local congregations “to sit and listen to their Jewish neighbors” and to read available materials, to “listen to a wide range of voices.’

Top PC(USA) leaders also will meet privately in New York on Sept. 28 with leaders of the Reform and Conservative branches of American Judaism. And there is a meeting scheduled for October — arranged, ironically, before the Presbyterian divestment decision was made — that will involve even broader representation, including leaders of Jewish groups such as the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, along with representatives of a number of Christian denominations, including Presbyterians, Episcopalians, United Methodists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Churches of Christ and Disciples of Christ, to talk about peace in the Middle East.

Although Jews and Presbyterians have a long history of interfaith discussions, the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations “has often been taken off the dialogue table because it’s too difficult to deal with,” said Jay Rock, coordinator of the PC(USA)’s Interfaith Relations Office. The Sept. 28 meeting, while difficult, will be “a positive opportunity for us to clarify the justice concerns for us in taking this action.”

There also has been discussion, at least quietly, about whether the Presbyterian Foundation and the Board of Pensions are willing to go along with considering divestment.

The PC(USA) has more than $7.5 billion in investments through the Presbyterian Foundation and the Board of Pensions, and some of that is invested in multinational companies doing work in the Middle Israel, Somplatsky-Jarman said.

And the Board of Pensions website had posted a statement on its website regarding the assembly’s divestment vote saying that it must, under the law, “act for the sole and exclusive benefit” of participants in the Board of Pensions plan.

Rob Maggs, from the Board of Pensions, said in an interview that he hopes Mission Responsibility Through Investment will stick with the principles regarding divestment adopted by the 1984 General Assembly, which he said have “worked well for 20 years in this area.”

Maggs said that “when there is an apparent conflict between the decision of fiduciaries and the will of the church, it’s important that there be a way to try to avoid the conflict . . . Applying the criteria goes a long way to providing a rational basis for the fiduciary to fulfill its duty of care, prudent investing, and its duty of loyalty, making sure the funds are available to pay the benefits to the current and future participants” in the pension plan.

“We want to be good colleagues,” Maggs said. “We want to support the General Assembly. We also have to hold to the legal standards that surround our responsibility. So this process is a way to resolve what otherwise on its face be a conflict.”

Regarding the Presbyterian Foundation, Kirkpatrick said in an interview that, “I’m confident that they will help shape this through MRTI . . . and will also follow the assembly’s position.”