Presby Establishment Doubles Down on Middle East Study Committee Report

Given the distorted history and theology evident in the report issued by the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Middle East Study Committee (MESC) in March, it would seem reasonable that Presbyterian staffers and elected officials would engage in some soul-searching prior to the denomination’s General Assembly (which began today) where the report will be debated and possibly affirmed.

Nope.

Instead of admitting the report omits crucial facts of history, Presbyterian leaders and peace activists have tried to make it appear that the only way the PC(USA) can demonstrate its commitment to peace in the Middle East and for the well-being of the Palestinian people is if the General Assembly affirms the report, as if good intentions somehow make it unnecessary for Presbyterians to tell the story of the Arab-Israeli conflict with a modicum of integrity.

This strategy was clearly evident in a letter issued to the General Assembly by current PC(USA) Moderator Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow and more than a dozen former moderators of the church on June 15. 2010.

In their letter, the moderators call on the General Assembly to “support and vote in favor” of the MESC report, which among other things endorses the Kairos Document written by Palestinian Christian leaders in late 2009, a document which has been condemned by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) as anti-Semitic and supersessionist.

Oops!

In response to the concerns over the Kairos Document, the moderators state the MESC report “lifts up the Kairos document for study – not approval – so that a collaborative Palestinian Christian voice can be heard. The study team report affirms the emphases in the Kairos document on non-violence and reconciliation and hope.”

Compare the moderator’s description with the actual text of the MESC report, which calls on the General Assembly to approve a recommendation that

Endorses the Kairos Palestine document (“A Moment of Truth”) in its emphasis on hope for liberation, non-violence, love of enemy, and reconciliation; lifts the document up for study and discussion by Presbyterians; and directs the creation of a study guide for the document through the appropriate channel of the General Assembly Mission Council.

How is that not an endorsement of the Kairos Document? Only the most obtuse parsers of the text can deny that by calling on the General Assembly to endorse the Kairos document, the MESC is doing the same thing. Did the moderators read the MESC report? Did they read the letter they signed?

The moderators’ efforts to rehabilitate the MESC report also includes a defense of its theological analysis, which imposes demands on Jews because of their connections to the Hebrew Scriptures but does not make similar demands on Muslims in the Middle East.

The moderators write “The biblical and theological section clearly repudiates any hint of Christian Zionism or supercessionism (sic). What it does do is tie responsibilities for justice, human rights and hospitality to the biblical understanding of land rights.”

With this passage, the moderators are mimicking the report itself, which uses scripture to suggest that the Jewish claim to land is handicapped by obligations that apply to no other state. What would happen if one applied a “biblical understanding of land rights” to say, Germany or the United States?

What the MESC report tried to do is to dress up discriminatory and unreasonable expectations of Israel with scripture and theology to justify these expectations.

And the PC(USA)‘s moderators are assisting in this process.

The willingness of the moderators to sign such a letter indicates that the PC(USA)‘s establishment is getting behind the Middle East Study Committee Report in a big way.

They are doubling down.

One need only look at what happened to the United Church of Christ in the aftermath of its 2005 General Synod to see where the PC(USA) is headed if this doubling-down process continues. The one-sided “Economic Leverage” and “Tear Down the Wall” resolutions approved at this synod were not the prophetic trophies that UCC leaders and peace activists had hoped they would be.

Instead of serving as ringing demonstration of the UCC’s status as a trailblazing peacemaking denomination, these statements became an albatross that hung around the church’s neck for the next two years.

And it wasn’t just the one-sided nature of the resolutions that harmed the church’s credibility. It was the events that took place after the 2005 General Synod. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and things got worse with Hamas’ kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and the rocket attacks from Gaza Strip and Lebanon. In sum, the UCC placed a bet on Hamas behaving responsibly and lost. Delegates may have not known what they were doing when they placed the bet, but that’s what they did.

Consequently, the mood was somber and more reflective at the UCC’s 2007 General Synod. The angry self-righteous certitude that manifested itself at the 2005 General Synod was gone.

The delegates knew something was not right and as a result, they passed a resolution that stated in effect that maybe there were some things the denomination hadn’t taken into account in its 2005 assessment of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The only way they could remove the albatross from their church’s neck was to eat crow.

The PC(USA)‘s 2012 General Assembly may need to do the same thing, but on a much grander scale.

Compared to the resolutions passed at the UCC‘s 2005 General Synod, the report before the PC(USA)‘s current General Assembly is not an albatross, it is a millstone.