Thursday, September 20, 2007
Via Adam Holland: Dutch church to rethink its policy of solidarity with Israel
The warning - coauthored by Dr. Jan van der Graaf, who served for 35 years as general secretary within one of the three churches that make up the PCN, and three other prominent church figures - was an open letter against changing the reference to Israel. It was addressed to Minister Henri Veldhuis, a General Synod member who said the clause made the church adopt a biased view that ignored Israeli actions against Palestinians.
At a speech last month in Utrecht for Friends of Sabeel (a Jerusalem-based Palestinian organization), Veldhuis said the church should commit to a bond with Israel "as people of the Torah" instead of the "Jewish people as an ethnic group." Veldhuis also complained that currently, "the church has a stronger bond with a non-believing Alaskan Jewish person than a Palestinian Christian."
The open letter accused Veldhuis of a slanted and hypocritical approach. "We were astonished by your address before a Palestinian liberation organization that pretends to be promoting reconciliation," it read. "You accused Israel but ignored Hamas's Jew-hating ideology. You overlooked the alarming anti-Semitic upsurge in Arab countries."...
"A group of notables from the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PCN) warned last week that the organization, which has over two million members, is in danger of being "hijacked" by pro-Palestinian activists."
Yep, a lota' this goin' 'round. Large, large swaths of the church are being coopted, this time, in contrast to the 30's, by left leftish oriented political causes, such as they are.
A solitary question is posed to the church: Will those in leadership and opinion forming positions respond with adequate amounts of backbone and equally requisite vision and moral verve, or will they variously fold, retire in apathy, daunted by the complexities and hard work that needs to be done, etc.? Those in the pews are responsible as well, for their own views and who and what they support, but at the heart of it it's the leadership and opinion makers who will cast the die.
"Will those in leadership and opinion forming positions respond with adequate amounts of backbone and equally requisite vision and moral verve ...?"
The answer in the US is clearly a resounding "NO". It is unclear whether the leaders have been co-opted, or whether they are, in fact, pushing this agenda. To my mind, the only one's being co-opted are the members. For me, the question becomes, just how much will members tolerate before they either bolt or demand change. Doing nothing cannot be construed as a moral option.
I broadly agree, Will. Relative to the leadership I was using the term "coopted" in a loose, rather than a strict sense. More strictly understood I'd agree that it's too many in the pews who are, naively and otherwise, allowing themselves to be coopted, while the leadership, at least too many among the leadership, is far more consciously and decisively leading - in the wrong direction.