Archive

From July, 2004:

UCC issues disingenuous "Action Alert" on Sudan

July 28, 2004 - The United Church of Christ issued an action alert today asking  "the President to work with the U.N. and the international community to break the stranglehold of the militias and provide immediate humanitarian relief and refugee assistance."

Seeing how the U.S. has led the world in trying to address the crisis in Sudan, the Action Alert is meaningless and disingenuous. Instead, the UCC should be lobbying world leaders (that still oppose action on Sudan) to support the proposed U.N. resolution.

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Clergy Leadership Network Director hired by DNC

July 27, 2004 - Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson, director of the Clergy Leadership network, has been hired by the Democratic National Committee as a "senior adviser for religious outreach".

Peterson leaves the Clergy Leadership Network with a huge debt. According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Clergy Leadership Network has raised a total of $69,170 while spending $113,738.

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Congress Passes Resolution on Sudan

July 27, 2004 - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution declaring the crisis in Sudan "genocide" as pressure mounts for the U.N. to pass a U.S. sponsored resolution on Sudan. According to the AP, a vote is expected this week in the U.N.

The United Church of Christ has been virtually silent on the genocide in Sudan and has yet to issue an "action alert" on the greatest humanitarian crisis since the slaughter in Rwanda.

Makes you wonder if "God's Still Speaking" is just a bumper sticker slogan.

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Quote of the Day

July 25, 2004 - "Governments are not supposed to be making their decision on religious ideas"

-Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and United Church of Christ minister

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More "Pathetic Witness"

July 22, 2004 - "Justice and Witness Ministries" of the United Church of Christ is about to release an Action Alert that virtual mirror's the National Council of Churches. A draft of the UCC action alert is here.

Today's Washington Post editorial sharply contradicts the UCC action alert:

The United States has drafted a resolution, but council members such as China, Pakistan and Brazil value the principle of sovereignty more highly than the human purpose that sovereignty is meant to serve: a stable international order that allows people to live in peace. Other council members, notably France, do not oppose a resolution but show little enthusiasm for it either, thereby making inertia a key ally of the resolution's opponents. As Mr. Annan knows, the United Nations will be marginal to global security if it can't respond to clear catastrophes such as Darfur. If countries -- such as France -- that frequently scold the United States for unilateralism want the United Nations to be taken seriously, they need to push the Security Council toward sanctions and humanitarian intervention.

Please, read the UCC draft, read Dexter Van Zile's "United Church of Christ's Prophetic Silence on Sudan" and then read the full Washington Post editorial. If you want to make a difference, email "Justice and Witness Ministries" and the national office and ask that they draft a different action alert that appropriately focuses on the U.N. and France.

Please email the following:

jwm@ucc.org - Justice and Witness Ministries

JPAnet@ucc.org - Justice and Peace Action Network

dom@disciples.org - Global Ministries

thomasj@ucc.org - John Thomas, UCC General Minister and President

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Edgar blames "church budgets" for Sudan apathy

July 21, 2004 - Robert Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, basically concedes they have been too consumed with Iraq and Israel to give the genocide in Sudan the attention it needs. From the Christian Science Monitor:

"Our eyes have been primarily on trying to stop war in Iraq and work for peace between Israelis and Palestinians," says the Rev. Bob Edgar, who opted for arrest at the Sudan Embassy last week in his role as general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "The attention span of the Christian community was waning, not because we didn't care, but because resources were limited" due in part, he said, to dwindling church budgets.

Church budgets? What a cop out. How would any amount of money make the Christian community care more about an obvious humanitarian crises?

Edgar has been completely ineffective as a religious leader on the crisis in Sudan. His melodramatic arrest at the Sudan Embassy didn't draw any attention to the crises and the resolution from the National Council of Churches two months ago was as weak as it's leader.

Edgar needs to cut the political charade and be direct - the National Council of Churches should accept the recommendations of Human Rights Watch and push for it's recommended actions.

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Faithful America's Phony Sudan Campaign

July 19, 2004 - Faithful America, another politically motivated action group with connections to the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches, has issued a release calling for U.S. action on the genocide in Sudan. The presumption in the release is that there is action that the U.S. is not taking... which is absolutely untrue. The United States has stood alone in asking the U.N. to adopt stricter resolutions against Sudan. Human Rights Watch has also made recommendations to the U.N. that eclipse the efforts of the U.S. by calling on the U.N. to hold the leaders of Sudan personally responsible for the genocide.

If the true goal is to end genocide, Faithful America should be petitioning the U.N. - not the United States... but that probably wouldn't serve their political agenda.

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Truth and Honesty

July 17, 2004 - The Christian Science Monitor has a great article on truth and honesty... with a retired UCC pastor holding the church partially responsible:

Given their mission to improve human character, religious institutions might be best positioned to restore the virtue of honesty, but they, too, face an uphill climb. According to the Rev. Jack Good, the church's own truth-telling crisis runs deeper than the sexual abuse scandal that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church and forced bishops to explain why they kept quiet about known predatory priests. "People who come to church on Sunday don't see a people willing to confront conflict or tough issues or what biblical scholarship says about the Bible," says Good, a retired pastor in the United Church of Christ and author of "The Dishonest Church." "The church is setting a bad example 'on truth-telling,' and I think a case can be made that it reverberates through all of society."

Blatant dishonesty is a problem in the United Church of Christ as well. The new "Winners and Losers" document from the UCC, which describes the economic gaps in society and how those gaps are reflected in the federal budget, is built on incomplete information that was intentionally left out of the report. Read more about the document here.

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UCC church accused of discrimination

July 16, 2004 - First Congregational Church of Woodbridge, NJ is being accused of discrimination after a predominately gay church, the Metropolitan Community Church of Christ the Liberator, was not allowed to rent space in the church. First Congregational Church publicly listed space in the church as being available for rent.

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Edgar Arrested

July 15, 2004 - National Council of Churches President Robert Edgar was arrested as planned on Wednesday outside of the Sudanese embassy during a protest against the Sudanese genocide. If the point of Edgar's arrest was to bring attention to the tragedy in Sudan, it failed - no news sources carried the story. If a tree falls and nobody hears it, does the tree make a noise?

As mentioned on July 12th, the NCC has done a terrible job of engaging the crisis in Sudan.

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The UCC offers 'Pathetic Witness' on Sudan Crisis

July 13, 2004 - The United Church of Christ has responded to the crisis in Sudan.

The response?

Pray, give money, give money and give money. (Seriously, this isn't a joke)

I guess you know there's a problem when a secular organization like Human Rights Watch offers a more prophetic witness.

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NCC President to be arrested Wednesday

July 12, 2004 - A group called "Christian Solidarity International" issued a press release today claiming that National Council of Churches President Robert Edgar is planning on being arrested on Wednesday when the group protests against the genocide of black Sudanese at the Sudanese embassy.

While dramatic and headline catching, the real crime is that the National Council of Churches and Edgar have offered little constructive action that might end the oppression. As mentioned here in May, the National Council of Churches adopted a resolution calling for "urgent action" which absurdly "called upon the international community and non-governmental organizations to investigate and monitor reports of crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan."

What on earth is there to "monitor"? Human Rights Watch and many other organizations have documented the crimes extensively.

The National Council of Churches and Robert Edgar should cut out the melodrama and start working on practical solutions like:

- Working with Muslim counterparts to jointly develop communications targeted to the Sudanese government and the United Nations

- Passing a resolution immediately that supports Human Rights Watch call to the U.N. to impose sanctions on Sudanese government officials and the  militias

- Provide humanitarian assistance and support to the voluntary return and effective reintegration of Dafurian refugees and displaced persons into their home communities.

Everyone else should read Dexter Van Zile's "UCC’s Prophetic Voice Silent on Sudan" and ask where our voice is?

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Dismantling 'The 'da Vinci Code'

July 8, 2004 - Mark Burrows, a United Church of Christ historian at Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts sets the record straight on the "da Vinci Code". A great read from Christian Century.

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Quote of the Day

July 5, 2004 - "Let's stop worrying about how many people come to our churches, and start living a life of justice."

Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches

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SPECIAL REPORT

UCC’s Prophetic Voice Silent on Sudan

by Dexter Van Zile

One decade after close to a million people were killed in Rwanda as the rest of the world did nothing but watch and offer empty apologies afterwards, another episode of genocide is taking place in nearby Sudan. The whole world knows about the killings, which have been going on for close to two decades, but only now are people starting to consider what will be necessary to put a stop to the massacres, which undermine confidence in the notion that Islam is a religion of peace and that jihad is merely a personal striving for truth as religious progressives in the U.S. are wont to assert.

Up until Colin Powell’s recent visit to Sudan during which he pressured the regime in Khartoum to allow access to relief workers, the issue stayed below the radar screen of the people who would normally condemn the killings because of an inconvenient fact: They are perpetrated by Muslim Arabs, a group liberals religious and non-religious liberals in the U.S. are quick to align themselves with for two reasons. Muslim Arabs who are accused of terror-related crimes serve as powerful symbols in the progressives’ putative effort to protect civil liberties. Secondly, in the international arena, Arabs in the Middle East serve as potent symbol in the left’s opposition to alleged American imperialism. There is another inconvenient aspect to the issue for religious progressives in the U.S. Condemning the ethnic cleansing in Sudan could encourage the use of force, which has been anathema to them in recent years. One group which remains notably absent from the fight over Sudan is the United Church of Christ, a denomination which likes to portray itself as part of the moral and ethical bedrock of the U.S.

Read the full report

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