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Saturday, April 2, 2005

An emailer points out that on the same day that a fourth Christian area was bombed in Beirut, the Presbyterian Church USA reconsidered the firing of two officials who met with Hezbollah.

ACSWP trip to Middles East, Staff dismissals discussed by GAC; Committee asks reconsideration

LOUISVILLE – Should a Presbyterian delegation that went to the Middle East last fall have met with leaders of Hezbollah? And should two of the denomination’s national staff members who went on the trip have lost their jobs because of that meeting?

The General Assembly Council got right to the brink of discussing that on March 31 – and then went into closed session.

Earlier, the chairperson of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), Nile Harper, had presented a report which said in part that when the PC(USA) dismissed Peter Sulyok, who had been the advisory committee’s coordinator, that dismissal “was carried out without a just cause or appropriate due process.”

Kathy Lueckert, the council’s deputy executive director, also lost her job in the fallout from the Hezbollah meeting.

The advisory committee encouraged the council to reconsider its personnel policies, which allowed the council’s executive director, John Detterick, to end Lueckert and Sulyok’s employment by “unilateral action,” according to the report...

A glimpse into the PCUSA's scales of justice:

...Two Presbyterians who made the 15-day fact-finding trip in October described some of what they’d seen and experienced – including the difficulty caused to the Palestinian people by Israel’s construction of a security barrier that’s intended to reduce suicide bombings but also is separating some Palestinians from their land, jobs and community...

On one side, inconvenience - sometimes serious, I'll grant - and on the other, people desperate to prevent themselves from being murdered in their beds and on their buses. And where does PCUSA choose to throw their weight? There really shouldn't be any surprise that people of good will are less than impressed with PCUSA's sense of priorities.

[continued in the extended entry]


...Edwards responded that Hezbollah – which the U.S. State Department has listed as a terrorist organization – also is “a significant voice” in Lebanese politics, and the advisory committee made a point of meeting with religious and political leaders all through the region. The political strength of Hezbollah was evidenced by a powerful demonstration in March, in which hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah’s Shiite supporters poured onto the streets of Beirut in support of Hezbollah’s connections with Syria.

“We went to listen to significant voices and Hezbollah is a significant voice in Lebanon,” Edwards told the council. Edwards said Sheikh Nabil Qauq of Hezbollah “gave a very warm welcome in the name of the God of Abraham, the God of Jesus, the God of Muhammad,” and quoted from Scripture several times during the meeting at a former detention camp in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a significant voice. They're also the guys with the guns - and the guys who support the occupying power.

When the sheik was asked his advice about the upcoming U.S. presidential election, he asked that all television cameras and tape recorders be turned off, Edwards said. Then the sheik looked at the Presbyterians and said “he would ask that we would go home and read our Bibles, that we would pray, and as we got ready to vote that we would remember on the judgment day Jesus Christ would ask us if we had voted for justice,” Edwards explained...

Taking solemn lessons in justice from Hezbollah. Surreal.

It makes it real difficult to rebut accusations of anti-Semitism and a skewed application of justice when you go visiting Fascist Jew-hating terror groups...and praising them:

After that, one of the Presbyterians, Ronald Stone, a retired professor from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, made a comment that was widely broadcast on Arab television and that many Presbyterians wish he had never said – telling the Hezbollah representatives that “as an elder of our church, I’d like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.”

A few weeks before that, Edwards said, Stone had participated in a stressful discussion with Jewish representatives who disagreed with the General Assembly’s decision last summer to begin a process of selective, phased divestment in some companies doing business in Israel, and some of whom had called the PC(USA) anti-Semitic. Edwards called Stone’s remarks “an honest statement but a very politically naive statement” that was widely broadcast in Lebanon on the evening news...

Ah, those uncomfortable truths. Yes, the Islamofascists are so much easier to deal with. You know those Jews.

That evening, back in Beirut, the people the delegation spoke with “were very pleased that we had gone to see Hezbollah,” and considered it “a great gesture” to building bridges of understanding, Edwards said...

I bet it was. It's easy to get along with Hezbollah when you ask nothing of them, and in effect are on their side. Might it occur to the PCUSA to take a fresh look at who's actually causing the suffering of their fellow Dhimmi Christians there in the Middle East? How many bombs will it take?

Update: Judith has a lengthy and useful roundup on the divestment issue here.

3 Comments

I am a Presbyterian, and everything you point out in this post is accurate. I would, however, mention one other thing. MANY rank and file members of the denomination oppose this policy and see it for the hypocritical and anti-Jewish stance that it is. Many Presbyterians are also unaware of either the action of the 216th General Assembly or the visit with Hizbollah. Sadly, some of these will be persuaded by the biased information provided by the current national denominational leadership.

Thank you for your note. I assure you I am cognizant of the fact that what we have is a sort of political elite that's running things without the knowledge or instruction of the rank and file. I've tried to name the "PC(USA)" rather than "Presbyterians" to differentiate the political entity from the religious practitioners - although I'm sure I've stuck that in, too, as a sort of wake-up call. i.e. The top brass is speaking for you folks, you better wake up to it!

Interesting site you have.

Thanks for the response.

Your point is well taken. They are speaking for us -- albeit against our wills in some cases.

There is a strong tendency to focus attention locally and ignore the national leadership -- it just isn't regarded as relevant. I'm hoping the extremity of this political stance will help open the eyes of others in the denomination -- it certainly did in my case. At this point, both internal and external pressure to rescind this action can only help.

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