“We may have to say goodbye to some long-treasured programs that no longer serve the needs of the church,” said Matt Schramm of Michigan, a council member, during the council’s recent meeting in Louisville.
And that’s not all. Presbyterians are gearing up for a General Assembly this summer that already feels like a hub airport on Thanksgiving weekend — wall-to-wall action. Both the General Assembly Mission Council and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) met in Louisville the last week of February, talking about everything from middle governing bodies to the Middle East.
Here’s some of the business they dealt with.
New commission. The backdrop for this proposal is a growing sense that middle governing bodies — the denomination’s presbyteries and synods — are struggling, trying to find their way in a financially precarious time. And some Presbyterians are frustrated that the General Assembly has too much work to do in too short a time; they long for some creative discussion about how things might be done better.
So COGA is proposing that the 2010 General Assembly authorize the creation of a General Assembly Commission on Middle Governing Bodies. The idea is to create a 21-member commission to consider the mission and function of middle governing bodies, and develop models to show how presbyteries and synods can operate well in a changing context.
One possibility is that such a commission, which could have power to make decisions between the every-other-year assemblies, could reduce the amount of work the assembly itself has to deal with, said Gradye Parsons, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk.
“We have some presbyteries that are doing some really fantastic stuff,” he said. “We have some that are really floundering.” Some are having transitions in leadership, some are running out of money, some because of internal political disputes “are on the road to destruction or something close to it.”
The proposal calls for the commission to be appointed by the moderators of the 218th and 219th General Assemblies (the assemblies from 2008 and 2010), in consultation with the General Assembly Nominating Committee.
The report to the assembly states that “no significant study of middle governing bodies has taken place for the past four decades,” and that “the General Assembly has received numerous overtures, reports, and other concerns about the life and health of the middle governing body system. The limited time of the General Assembly does not allow for a focused and thoughtful approach to the future of middle governing bodies.”
Investments. The Council voted 24-9 to approve a recommendation that the General Assembly denounce Caterpillar Inc. for continuing to profit from “non-peaceful” use of its bulldozers and other equipment in Israel.
Brian Ellison, a minister from Missouri and chair of the denomination’s Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI), said attempts to negotiate with Caterpillar in recent years have not brought “any changes in policy” and that “things are worse now than they were two years ago.”
Caterpillar continues to sell bulldozers and other equipment that are being used to demolish homes of Palestinians and to build the separation barrier between Jerusalem and the West Bank, Ellison told the council’s Justice Committee.
“For many years, Caterpillar declined to meet” with MRTI or with other ecumenical groups working on issues of socially-responsible investing, Ellison said – in part because legal action was pending involving the death of Rachel Corrie, a young American woman who died in 2003, struck by a bulldozer operated by the Israel Defense Forces while protesting a home demolition.
Eventually, Caterpillar officials did meet twice with MRTI, he said. But “they have not acknowledged responsibility for the end use of their products,” Ellison said. The company’s position is “they sell tractors. What people do with them is not their responsibility.”
The decision on the MRTI recommendations is one of a series of measures being considered by the PC(USA) that are drawing attention from Jewish groups. Close attention is being paid to the report of the General Assembly’s Middle East study group – a report that, even before it was complete, drew rebuke from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which posted an alert stating that “adoption of this poisonous document by the Presbyterian Church will be nothing short of a declaration of war on Israel and her supporters.”
The council also voted to send to the assembly two theological reports — one called “Christians and Jews: People of God,” and the other “Toward An Understanding of Christian-Muslim Relations.” The council is recommending that the assembly approve both papers “for study and reflection.”
The papers both resulted from consultations and were intended to be theological in nature and not tied to the political disputes in the Middle East, said Joseph Small, director of the PC(USA)’s Theology Worship and Education ministries.
Some council members argued against approving the MRTI recommendation – pointing out that some Presbyterians in the Presbytery of Great Rivers, located in central Illinois near Caterpillar’s corporate headquarters, had sent a letter stating that such an action could cause difficulty for people employed by Caterpillar and could have “devastating consequences” for local congregations.
“Caterpillar, Inc. is a valued and valuable member of the Peoria, Illinois, community,” states the letter, on which the presbytery did not formally vote. It also states that “in one of our largest and fastest growing churches in Peoria, 30 per cent of the members are currently employed by Caterpillar or its subsidiaries. The other two large PC(USA) congregations in Peoria would reflect the same kind of numbers.”
The letter states that “if the PC(USA) divests from Caterpillar, they are considering ‘divesting’ from the denomination.”
Ellison said MRTI has met several times with representatives from Great Rivers presbytery, and “I appreciate very much the concern about the connectional nature of the church.”
But “there actually are far more presbyteries who will be agitated and disturbed by our failing to take a step,” he said.
Newark Presbytery, for example, has submitted an overture asking the 2010 General Assembly to begin the process of divesting from Caterpillar, and not to reinvest unless MRTI “is fully satisfied that Caterpillar, Inc. no longer engages in the selling of equipment to Israel that is used to build illegal Israeli settlements, construct walls that illegally encroach upon Palestinian lands, cutting Palestinians off from their own property and natural resources, destroy Palestinian life and property, and otherwise continue to support the occupation of Palestinian territories.”
The overture states that denouncing Caterpillar won’t change the company’s corporate behavior. “Now that corporate engagement is no longer a realistic option, the only option left is divestment,” it states in the rationale. “It is no longer a question about how long we can wait, but rather, whether we will do the right thing, or even anything at all.”
There is considerable history involving the PC(USA) and divestment in companies doing business in Israel. In 2004, the General Assembly was hit with a blast of controversy when it voted to have the PC(USA) begin the process of phased, selective divestiture in five companies – Motorola, Citigroup, ITT Industries, United Technologies, and Caterpillar.
In 2006, the assembly passed a statement that the denomination’s investments in Israel-Palestine be invested “in only peaceful pursuits,” and saying that MRTI should use a process of corporate engagement to achieve that.
In June 2007, satisfied with the progress, MRTI removed Citigroup from the focus list for corporate engagement. It recently added Hewlett-Packard to the list—equipment it produces is used at checkpoints along the separation barrier, Ellison said—and MRTI has continuing engagement with Motorola, ITT, United Technologies, and Hewlett-Packard, Ellison said. The techniques of engagement include sending letters, holding meetings, filing shareholder resolutions, and working ecumenically, he said.
Council member Clark Cowden, executive presbyter of San Diego Presbytery, said he doubted that the PC(USA)’s action would convince Caterpillar to see things differently. “I think it will deteriorate the relationship,” Cowden said, and “the brunt of this will be felt by one presbytery.”
But Roger Gench, a council member from Washington, D.C., said the MRTI recommendation could push Presbyterians to take a closer look at their own personal investments.
“This is a very profound witness to members of the Presbyterian church that we have responsibilities,” Gench said. “We all ought to be sensitized” to the way our personal investments are connected to companies “whose products are used for purposes of violence and war. … That’s part of our Christian responsibility.”
Linda Valentine. The council voted unanimously to re-elect Linda Valentine — a lawyer with business experience and a Presbyterian elder — to another four-year term as executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council. The assembly will be asked in July to confirm that re-election.
Per capita. Both COGA and the council passed a new per capita budget for 2011 and 2012 that the General Assembly must also approve in July. That budget calls for increases of 20 cents per active member in each of the next two years – rising from $6.15 per member in 2010 to $6.35 in 2011 and $6.55 in 2012.
That would bring a per capita expenditure budget of $13.7 million in 2011 and of just over $14 million in 2012.
Mission budget. The council revised down the PC(USA)’s mission budget for 2010 — reducing it by $7.3 million, from $101 million to $93.8 million. That reflects more than $4 million less than had been expected in current revenue, and also about $3 million less drawn from reserves.
Overall, that leaves the following picture:
» For this year, a mission budget of $93.8 million.
» For 2011, just $78.5 million — a drop of more than $15 million.
» And for 2012, a mission budget of $76.2 million.
The council also approved a set of “Guiding Principles for Planning Decisions,” which will be used to guide the denomination’s national staff as it prepares a proposal for the 2011 and 2012 budgets. Among those principles:
» “Focus on ministries that can only be done at the national level, then on what can be done at the national level. Stop those ministries that can best be done by other parts of the church.”
» “Avoid duplication within our own ministries.”
» And “operate according to fiscally sustainable principles in a commitment to live within our means and in alignment with funding trends.”
