With the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA scheduled to convene in June for the first time since the 2004 GA passed a notorious anti-Israel divestment resolution, supporters and detractors of divestment are discussing whether the Church’s decision was anti-Semitic, or – somehow - anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. Curiously, despite the storm caused by the divestment vote, most Presbyterians remain unaware of the extent to which the PCUSA leadership has involved itself in old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism.

The anti-Semitic alliances undertaken by the national church are particularly surprising in light of the well-known open-minded and unbiased attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Presbyterians.

One of the resolutions passed at the 2004 General Assembly included a list of recommended theological “resources.” The most troubling “resource” on the list is the Sabeel Center for Liberation Theology. Presbyterians are familiar with liberation theology, an approach that emerged after the Second Vatican Council, focusing on Jesus as liberator of the poor and oppressed.

As political theory, it is often characterized by opponents as “might makes wrong,” positing, as it does, that the wealthy and the powerful are definitionally unjust, and that any claim made by the poor is necessarily just. Sabeel blends this theology with Replacement Theology, in which God rescinds His covenant with the children of Israel, replacing the Jews with Christians (rather than adding a New and more universal Covenant or Testament between God and the Church to the enduring Covenant between God and the Jewish people)...