Friday, April 25, 2008
The United Methodist Church is meeting in Fort Worth, Texas this weekend, and our friend Jon Haber got a piece published in the local paper that's appearing just today: Doing harm in pursuit of virtue
Divestment can hurt regional peace, interfaith dialogue and intra-church fellowship.
More than a thousand delegates representing the 10 million strong United Methodist Church are gathered in Fort Worth, with divestment once again on the organization's agenda.
Although the situation in Darfur has very recently appeared on the church's radar, divestment from Israel has received the most attention from activists who have been instrumental in getting divestment resolutions considered by a number of mainline Protestant churches since 2004.
General Conference delegates have been asked to carefully consider a number of petitions, including one from the New England Conference that has drawn up a list of divestment targets. These include familiar names like Caterpillar (the United Methodists held $5,163,587 at the time of the most recent annual report) and some novel additions like Blockbuster Video (which runs video kiosks in disputed towns around Jerusalem -- church investment, $208,595).
This list was the work of eight clergy and lay members of the New England group, which spent more than two years carefully reviewing the church portfolio for Middle Eastern investments of questionable moral value.
Despite all of this effort, this committee seems to have missed a number of items that a 10-minute review of the 1,000 stocks owned by the Methodists' Domestic Stock Fund (DSF) and International Stock Fund (ISF) would reveal.
Most notably, five companies -- Italy's ENI, France's BNP and Total, Germany's Siemens and India's Oil and Natural Gas -- have been identified by organizations such as the Sudan Divestment Taskforce and the Center for Security Policy as investors in states responsible for terrorism, repression and severe human rights abuses.
The leading French Bank BNP (United Methodist holdings: $4,731,182) has financed more than $2 billion in projects in Iran and was probed by British intelligence in 2004 on grounds of misuse of funds in the U.N. oil-for-food program.
European oil giants ENI (church holdings: $15,995,578) and Total (holdings: $22,262,680) have substantial development projects in Iran and Libya (with the French Total company also having been involved with projects with Syria, Sudan and Saddam Hussein's Iraq).
Iran and Syria also are customers of Siemens (church holdings: $8,995,752), which is contributing to the construction of the world's largest diesel power station in Khartoum, home to a regime responsible for more than 2 million deaths in south Sudan and Darfur. Sudan is also an important investment for India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (church holdings: $2,118,504), which has spent the last several years buying up the assets of Western energy companies that have divested from that country because of the situation in Darfur.
When divestment came to a vote at the Presbyterian's 2006 national convention, this campaign -- similar to the Methodists' -- was being pushed by a coalition of church leaders and activists inside and outside of the organization. Members, given the chance to speak on the issue for the first time and recognizing the destructive impact of divestment on Middle Eastern peace, interfaith dialogue and fellowship within the church itself, voted down divestment resolutions by an overwhelming majority, 483 to 28.
One hopes that those representing the people occupying the pews will show similar good judgment in Fort Worth and heed the First General Rule set forth by Methodist founder John Wesley "by doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind," even when such harm is presented under the guise of virtue.
As a lifelong Methodist, there is an awful lot that I don't like about my church, and some of the liberal doggeral is very much a part of that. However, I've known so many that sit in the pews that believe that the message of John Wesley still rings true to a conservative, that I've stayed despite the oh-so-very liberal leadership in the church.
Sometimes though, when I read what goes on in the General Conference I gotta wonder: "Where do they get these folk?"
I'm sure it's like most of the Mainline denominations -- the problems are at the top, and the closer you get to the pews, the more "normal" things become.
Those in the pews can, to an appreciable degree, be excused from most considerations of culpability when it comes to the actions of the ecclesial and even much of the lay leadership. Most of what that ecclesial and lay leadership does in their often "liberal," social/political mode - and that's the only mode I'm seeking to address - concerns relatively benign actions, some of it little more than tepid symbolism.
However, the fact remains that that leadership does represent the people in the pews. That representation is qualified by the fact that leadership in most mainline church environments effectively isolates or shields itself from very much criticism from the pews. I.e. there is a de facto and even a more formal hierarchical quality that is almost impenetrable (that's an exaggeration, but not much of one). Minimally it can be said the leadership in question does not make itself accessible to many in the pews when it comes to such issues. Some of that is understandable as it stems from practical needs, including some fully warranted hierarchical needs. (E.g., leadership is needed, formal and otherwise, and more genuine forms of authority in some areas is fully warranted.)
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the leadership in question does represent those in the pews and when a certain tipping point or scale is reached (for example when a critical, extra-ecclesial, social/political issue is being advanced in a misbegotten manner, in a manner that has sufficient import) those in the pews become culpable to some degree as well. At that point it is incumbent for those in the pews to 1) ensure they are properly informed in terms of all the relevant dimensions of the issue and 2) find a way to make their voices heard with sufficient leverage.
I realize this will sound presumptuous or even officious, but this is not intended as a harsh or facile or too-quick judgement. This is a general comment only and each situation requires that the particulars of the situation be fully and thoughtfully considered prior to initiating any action. Otoh, if a naivete or quietism is adopted out of apathy, resignation, moral and intellectual laziness, etc. - and still assuming the situation is of sufficient and critical import - then a very real culpability is obtained by those in the pews. There are problems that need to be avoided, certainly (e.g., ideologically and politically based enthusiasms, reactionary attitudes), but those problems do not negate the fact that apathy, resignation, laziness, etc. also need to be avoided.
Imo the various divestment initiatives all fall within this "tipping point" scenario, but that is my opinion only as pertains to a certain, more specific set of considerations.
Michael - You make good points regarding the culpability of members for the odious actions of their leaders. In the case of the mainline churches, however, I tend to urge people to be a bit more generous, given the bizarre hierarchies in which church decisions get made. Going back to the Presbyterians again, they have enough of a democratic structure that members were finally allowed to have a voice, a voice they used to overwhelmingly vote down divestment in 2006 (and add condemnation of suicide bombing as well).
The Methodists are struggling with the same issues as the Presbyterians (a distant leadership aligned more to outsiders than their own members). And, to tell you the truth, I still can't make hide nor hair or their governing and decision-making structures. That said, if divestment loses this week in Texas the way it did (big) two years ago with PCUSA, that points out to me that the pews might be our best source of allies in the long-running fight to overturn the dismal situation that currently gets worse the higher you go in the organization.
Jon,
I agree with what you have to say. (I also see I might have edited my comment considerably.) Each situation needs to be met on its own terms and with a view to its particulars; mine was intended as general commentary and was intentionally invested with something of a rhetorical edge as well. Otoh, even as general commentary it contains more than merely a grain of truth.
And please don't take my reply as criticism. You rightly point out that we should not always fall back on the premise that it is the top leadership leading an institution astray. Sometimes that is the case (as it clearly was with the Presbyterians). At the same time, sometimes leaders are actually reflecting (or even following) the will of the "masses".
I can't say with certainty what the dynamics are in the Methodist Church, although I hope that we have as many friends in their pews as we do with the other churches who have shown divestment the door.