c. 2004 Religion News Service
Presbyterians Say Comments In Hezbollah Meeting Were `Reprehensible’
(RNS) Top officials of the Presbyterian Church (USA) now say comments made by members of a church delegation meeting with Hezbollah leaders were “reprehensible” and the controversial visit was “misguided at best.”
Church leaders, reeling from stinging criticism by Jewish groups, said they did not authorize Sunday’s (Oct. 17) visit to a Southern Lebanon refugee camp controlled by Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
During the visit, Ronald Stone, a retired professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, told Hezbollah officials that, “relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.”
“As a church, and as individuals, we know at the core of our souls that terrorism, especially terrorism against civilians, is one clear source of the lack of peace in the Middle East,” said the Thursday (Oct. 21) letter to top Jewish leaders.
Leaders of the Union for Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League called the visit “appalling” and “outrageous,” especially after the Presbyterians’ vote last summer to study financial divestment in companies operating in Israel.
The letter from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase and General Assembly Council Director John Detterick was addressed to Jewish members of a Sept. 28 summit in New York City. At that meeting, church officials did not yield on the divestment controversy, but promised greater dialogue.
The church leaders said once they heard of the visit, they tried to “drop this visit from their plans,” and now consider the visit “misguided at best.”
“We in no way condone the terrorism of groups such as Hezbollah, or of individuals or other actors in the region,” the church leaders said. “Terrorism in all its forms is morally abhorrent and completely inexcusable in our eyes.”
The visit, by members of the church’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, received special funding to allow the panel to conduct its first-ever meeting in the Middle East to assess the situation on the ground.
In an initial response on Wednesday, the three leaders would only say that the visit and members’ statements “do not reflect the official position” of the church on Middle East.
Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said the letter was a “welcomed response” and was pleased to see the Presbyterians finally disassociate themselves from a terrorist group.
“I think the statement clearly reflects that they understand our concerns,” he said. “Are there still plenty of tensions and issues? Of course. Was this an ugly and stupid chapter? Yes. Did the letter address our concerns? Yes.”
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Jews, Mainline Churches, Gather to Forge Shared Agenda
WASHINGTON (RNS) Participants at a 24-hour summit of mainline Protestant and Jewish leaders said tensions between the two groups over Israeli policy did not derail talks but added to a sense of urgency to reach common ground.
David Elcott, the U.S. director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, brought together 18 mainline and Jewish leaders to discuss ways the two faiths could work for peace in the Middle East and on a shared domestic policy agenda at home.
The meeting, which ended Thursday (Oct. 21), came as Jewish groups heavily criticized Presbyterians for proposed financial divestment in Israel and a church delegation that met with Hezbollah leaders during a visit to Lebanon.
Elcott said the strained tensions over Israel did not dampen the meeting, but rather spurred both sides to work harder to “engage each other” and see the volatile Middle East through each other’s eyes.
“No one sought to limit this to a feel-good gathering,” Elcott said after the meeting. “We understood the gravity of why we were gathering and the importance of this moment in the face of religious violence around the world.”
While both sides have worked closely on progressive social causes at home, the Israeli treatment of Palestinians _ and the American churches’ response _ have strained relations in recent years. Elcott said both sides share a commitment to a secure Israel and an independent Palestinian state.
“The world does not need another statement, it needs action,” he said. “So our discussion was in the arena of what actions we can take to move this agenda forward.”
Bishop Christopher Epting, the ecumenical director for the Episcopal Church, said getting both sides to talk to each other is sometimes the biggest challenge. The Washington meeting was a follow-up session to an earlier meeting last spring.
“Recognizing there has been a strain in these relations over the last few years, that’s why we’re meeting, trying to heal that breach,” he said.
Jewish participants included leaders of the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and Reform and Conservative leaders. Churches represented included the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Christian Theologians Critique `National Theology of War’
WASHINGTON (RNS) A coalition of more than 200 Christian theologians and ethicists voiced concern Friday (Oct. 22) over what they called an emerging “national theology of war,” saying the war on terrorism doesn’t take precedence “over ethical and legal norms.”
“A climate in which violence is too easily accepted, and the roles of God, church and nation too easily confused, calls for a new confession of Christ,” said Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, in a statement. “No nation-state may usurp the place of God.”
Lead by the progressive Christian faith and social policy organization Sojourners, theologians from a range of progressive and conservative religious institutions signed a confession in which they “reject the false teaching that a war on terrorism takes precedence over ethical and legal norms.”
“Our allegiance to Christ takes priority over national identity. Whenever Christianity compromises with empire, the gospel of Christ is discredited,” the confession reads.
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, Wallis was asked if the confession is meant as a critique of President Bush and the war in Iraq and an endorsement of Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry in the presidential election. Wallis said it was not an endorsement, but that the confession is important because of the upcoming election.
“These issues are relevant now because political choices are being made,” Wallis said.
Theologians from Duke Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Calvin College, and Hope College are among the signatories of the confession, according to Wallis.
The confession follows a national newspaper advertising campaign by Sojourners that displayed a large headline reading “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.”
_ Itir Yakar
Poll Shows Support in Iraq for Electing Religious Leaders
(RNS) A new poll has found that a small majority of Iraqis support a separation between religion and government. But in results that have not been made public, but reported by the Washington Post, the same poll shows a significant percentage of Iraqis backing leaders from explicitly Islamic parties or groups when elections are held in January.
The poll was financed by the U.S. government and conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit organization that receives federal grants to garner public opinion in Iraq. The poll consisted of 2,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in late September and early October by an Iraqi polling firm.
Pollsters interviewed Iraqis from various ethnic and religious groups, and the poll’s margin of error was plus-or-minus 2.5 percent.
Just over half of those surveyed agreed with the statement, “Religion and government should respect each other by not impeding on the rights, roles and responsibilities of the other,” while an additional 37 percent said, “Religion has a special role to play in the government.”
Sixty-eight percent of those who said religion has a role to play in government identified that role as, “Government officials should publicly embrace and employ religion in carrying out their duties.”
In results not made public by IRI, The Washington Post reported Friday (Oct. 22) that the poll showed Abdel Aziz Hakim, who leads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, garnering 80 percent name recognition among Iraqis and 51 percent support for his presence in a new government.
According to the Post, 47 percent favored U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi for a seat in the new parliament and only 13 percent said they thought Allawi has been “very effective” since taking office, down from 30 percent in July. Forty-six percent backed rebel Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr for a seat.
Citing anonymous sources, The Post reported that “within the Bush administration, a victory by Iraq’s religious parties is viewed as the worst-case scenario.”
When asked about the Post’s front-page story, IRI declined comment. A spokesman told Religion News Service the organization does not publicly release “horserace” data because it would interfere with work to “assist political action and civil society groups.”
In results that were made public, the poll found that 40 percent of Iraqis would be “more inclined” to vote for a candidate or list of candidates if endorsed by a cleric or religious organization. Eighty-five percent of those polled expressed their intention to vote in the January elections.
Bush has made repeated references during the campaign to an Iraq election in January and the administration has given no indication it intends to delay the vote.
_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi
Jewish Leaders Ask for Prayer for Sharon’s Safety
JERUSALEM (RNS) Leaders of the Conservative movement in the U.S. and Israel have called on Conservative Jews around the world to say a special prayer for the well-being of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during Shabbat services Saturday (Oct. 23).
The leadership of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Masorti Movement in Israel issued their joint statement Wednesday, in response to reports that Sharon is receiving death threats from Jewish extremists.
Several prominent Israeli rabbis, including the heads of some religious seminaries where soldiers combine Torah study with their mandatory military service, have ordered their students and other adherents not to take part in the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Sharon’s plan to evacuate all settlers from Gaza next summer has met with great resistance _ until now peaceful _ from the settlers and their supporters.
Fearful that such rabbinical decrees could weaken the Israeli army and even cause a civil war in Israel, several other Israeli rabbis said this week that soldiers must obey orders, even if it means the evacuation of settlements.
The movement’s statement “challenges the call of ultra-Orthodox rabbis to institute “death rituals,” intended to bring an end to the life of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon” and calls upon “every Jew in Conservative/Masorti synagogues throughout the world to offer a special prayer for the health and well-being of the Israeli leader.”
The statement notes that Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who in the mid-1990s relinquished territory to the Palestinians in return for a promise of peace under the Oslo Accords, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist nine years ago next week.
Rabbi James Lebeau, director of the United Synagogue Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, said that the leadership felt compelled to issue the call for prayer “after we heard statements about threats to Sharon. We felt that as an organization we had to react. If rabbis don’t set the moral tone in the country, if they don’t respond to this type of heresy, they are not true religious leaders.”
_ Michele Chabin
Quote of the Day: Washington Post sportswriter Thomas Boswell
(RNS) “In the constant attempt to pronounce the latest remarkable event of the day as the greatest in the annals of everything, is it possible to weigh the sports equivalent of a miracle?”
_ Thomas Boswell of The Washington Post, commenting on the Boston Red Sox advancement to the World Series after trailing the New York Yankees 3-0 in their seven-game playoff series.
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