Archive
From March, 2004:
CLN financier Soros attacked
with glue in Ukraine
Billionaire George Soros, chief financier
of the "shadow" political action group that
funds the Clergy Leadership Network,
was attacked with glue in the Ukraine today. Besides spending
millions in the U.S. skirting campaign finance laws, the
Hungarian-born billionaire and his hedge fund
have been blamed for breaking the British Pound in 1992 (and
making 1 billion in one day doing it), starting the Asian financial
crisis of 1997 by attacking the Thai baht (which virtually
destroyed the economies of Thailand and Indonesia) and almost
bankrupting Russia in 1998. It's no wonder that Ukrainians are
skeptical of his political meddling. The
Pittsburgh Tribune Review says it best:
| |
A billionaire philanthropist, he
meddles in politics and now blatantly buys and sells countries. He
has never been elected to office, but easily uses the phrase
"regime change" as an excuse for making even more money.
He is George Soros. The only citizen of the United States who has
his own foreign policy and the power to impose it, according to
his financial vision. |
_________________
Redefining "Pastoral Care"
A
bizarre lawsuit in New Jersey accuses a United Church Christ
pastor, Todd Fennell, of "violating a fiduciary duty" after he
counseled a couple with marital problems. The couple divorced, as did
the pastor, who then married the woman he was counseling. The New
Jersey court threw out the lawsuit because the statute of limitations
had expired.
_________________
Pickering Revisited
Tonight's
"60 Minutes" featured a segment about Charles Pickering,
the federal judge whose record of race relations was criticized by the
U.S. Senate... and our own Executive Minister for Justice and Witness
Ministries, Bernice Powell Jackson.
Jackson
painted Pickering as a racist in her February 2, 2004 "Witness
for Justice" by inaccurately linking Pickering to a racist group. As
we noted last month,
Pickering is actually credited with improving race relations in Mississippi by
a number black civil rights leaders that have worked with him,
including
Charles
Evers (brother of Medgar Evers).
If the historical record isn't enough,
the "60 Minutes" piece (which included Charles Evers) virtually
exonerated him from the accusations that he is a racist or is
sympathetic to racists.
Jackson's false witness is, again,
a part of a pattern of lies and half-truths that
we have documented.
Her tenure as a leader of our denomination also serves as another
example of the lack of ethics and credibility in the leadership of the
United Church of Christ.
_________________
Response to Hamas Threats
From the
UCC Collegium:
| |
As Christians we confess that violence has been met by further
violence, that we have turned from the way of the Cross to the way
of the sword, that God’s intentions are once again denied, that
the vision of just peace remains elusive in a world fascinated by
military might. There can be no joy for us this week, only lament.
Lord, have mercy. |
A response to Palestinians
who
have threatened retaliation against Israel after the assassination
of Sheik Ahmed Yassin,
the leader of terrorist group Hamas? No. This was the UCC Collegium
response to September 11.
And the response of the UCC to the
threatened escalation of violence in Israel... well... there isn't
any. The incredible witness of silence is this: The principles of
"Just Peace" only apply to those with political differences with the
United Church of Christ. (Note to seminarians: This topic is
covered under the course "How to use religion to play politics")
_________________
National Council of Chumps
The National Council of Churches never
misses an opportunity to legitimize the criticism that is regularly
thrown at them. This week, the NCC has issued
their own reflections one year after the war with Iraq began. Of
note:
| |
In Afghanistan, we
defeated the Taliban, only to leave the search for the 9/11
culprits unfinished and the Afghani people without the necessary
infrastructure to rebuild their lives. In Iraq, we defeated Saddam
Hussein, only to plunge the country into chaos and the Iraqi
people into further instability after years of oppression. |
As usual, there is no factual reference to
their rhetoric. After all this isn't about the truth, it's about
politics. Completely contrary to the NCC's statement,
Afghanistan's economy is thriving and the
recent BBC poll gives a very optimistic view of where Iraq is
today.
Of course, no NCC statement would be
complete without the veiled accusation that 9/11 was our own fault by
stating "as we seek a future free of terrorism, it is good to
remember that it is also necessary to remedy the causes of injustice
in the world that breed perpetual destructiveness." Never mind the
fact that the 9/11 terrorists were not victims of injustice, they were
middle-class religious zealots.
There is a massive gap between the NCC
statement and reality, but the facts probably aren't important to
clergy, seminarians and laity looking to them to legitimize their
political beliefs.
_________________
Anti-Semitism Alert
"Churches
for Middle East Peace" (CMEP) should probably be renamed to
Churches for Neo-Anti-Semitism. The group, which the UCC is a member
of, feigns the desire for peace by criticizing Israel's attempts to
secure itself. CMEP's latest
Email Action
Alert criticizes congressional support for Israel's
security fence. If
this was really about peace, wouldn't CMEP condemn the regular suicide
bombings? Is anyone really fooled into believing this is about peace?
_________________
Iraq: One Year Later
While debating the war has almost become
sport in the U.S., it's interesting to see what Iraqi's actually
think.
A recent poll of Iraqi's by Oxford Research International of
Oxford, England for the BBC, revealed some interesting opinions. The
poll found:
49% of those survey think the invasion was
right while 39% think it was wrong
57% think life is better now than under
Saddam, 19% think it's worse and 23% think it's the same
71% think things will be better in a year
while 6% said it would be worse
The results will no doubt be missed by the
leadership of the United Church of Christ who
blamed sanctions,
not Saddam Hussein, for the poor conditions in Iraq prior to the war.
_________________
11th Commandment: Thou shall
strike
It's always interesting to see how our
denomination defines faith. In Washington D.C., a group of
clergy is urging their congregations to respect a pending strike
by the United Food and Commercial Workers. According to Rev. Graylan
Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, "Part
of our spirit of religious collectivism requires us to stand with our
neighbors."
Interesting... but what about acting in
good faith? According to Harry Burton, lead negotiator for Safeway and
Giant, "The clergymen have not talked with us. If they would like
to have a dialogue, we would be pleased to speak with them and explain
this nonunion competition problem."
Update 4/2/2004:
Read Rev. Graylan
Hagler's response.
_________________
The Clergy Leadership Network
and Faith
Jordan Ballor of the Acton Institute
examines the theological challenge of the Clergy Leadership Network (CLN).
This could also be true of the UCC:
| |
Christians of all
political inclinations should be able to agree with the CLN’s
conclusions about the importance of faith in public life. As the
group says: “religious faith provides the lens through which
public life is viewed and consequently engaged. Faith will not
allow us to be bystanders.” The difficulty arises when God’s will
is simply and easily equated with the platform of a particular
party. The express partisanship of the Clergy Leadership Network
undermines the inherent complexities involved in Christian
political affiliation.
The church is witness to this higher reality. As theologian
Wolfhart Pannenberg writes, “This means ipso facto, by the very
existence of the church and in the living of its liturgical life,
a challenging of the claims of every political and judicial order,
whether monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, to embody the
form of social life that is ultimately in keeping with human
destiny.” To this end, individual Christians, and to an even
greater extent Christian institutions, should not identify so
closely with any secular agenda that they lose their autonomy and
abdicate their prophetic responsibility. An extreme and
frightening example of such abdication is the German state
church’s complicity in Hitler’s grab for power in Nazi Germany and
the Holocaust. |
No one should be deceived- the Clergy
Leadership Network is not about religion at all... it is about
politics. They are funded by a secular, partisan billionaire, not by
clergy. Their message doesn't advocate a prophetic witness, just
recycled political rhetoric.
_________________
UCC Blog
Chuck Currie has a blog about the UCC and his personal life. While
there is probably some disagreement between the messages of our sites,
it is worth seeing. I've invited Chuck to contribute his own
commentary to this site which will be posted unedited.
_________________
Church destroyed by fire
"We are not destroyed. God didn't do
this or will this. It was not divine will. Maybe it was a loose wire
that caused this, but God will rewire us. God transcends any
building."
That was the message the Rev. Thomas
Benz, an associate minister for the United Church of Christ in
southeastern Wisconsin, gave to more than 400 members of the
fire-ravaged Redeemer United Church of Christ who attended services
Sunday afternoon at nearby Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church.
More at
the
Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel...
_________________
The UCC and Anti-semitism
While a number of clergy in the UCC have
been outspoken about their concern of anti-semitism in the movie, "The
Passion of the Christ," few if any clergy have voiced similar concern
about the appearance of anti-semitism in UCC political communications
that unabashedly criticize Israel. Some Jews are taking notice. From
Arutz
Sheva:
| |
Most spokesmen of the mainstream
Protestant and Roman Catholic churches seem not to appreciate the
place that allegiance to Israel has at the center of Jewish
self-understanding. In an official statement of 1990, the United
Church of Christ of the U.S.A. we read: "We do not see consensus
in the United Church of Christ... on the covenantal significance
of the State of Israel." This same United Church document refers
throughout to "the State of Israel-Palestine." When Jews look for
an affirmative commitment to the survival of Israel, they find
instead expressions of commitment to the other side: "We stand in
solidarity with Palestinians as they cry for justice as the
dispossessed," says a recent official Presbyterian statement. With
increasing frequency, Jews hear leading voices of the official
churches announcing that the decision to permit Israel to come to
birth in the first place was "unjust" and should be reconsidered.
|
And to conclude:
| |
Jews are right to ask: if it is true
that Protestants and Catholics cannot yet accept that the Jewish
state is a state having at least the same "legitimacy" as the
homelands of the Italians, the Greeks and the Turks. Is this
because Protestants and Catholics cannot accept that Jews have the
same right to call themselves a people? And if so, from what does
this refusal follow? Is this neo-anti-Zionism not a genteel
reincarnation of the old anti-Semitism? |
_________________
Budget Woes
The latest edition of UC News
identifies the
need for new budget cuts for the national office:
| |
Because of
troubling financial realities, national UCC leaders will act to
cut an estimated $2 million from the 2005 budgets of its four
covenanted ministries—on top of nearly $3.2 million in cuts that
have occurred during the past three years. |
The article explains why the cuts are
needed:
| |
The deep cuts are
the result of a $1.5 million, one-year decline in gifts to Our
Church's Wider Mission (OCWM), according to year-end 2003 figures.
In addition, income projections for 2004 and 2005 forecast even
less revenue, perhaps to the tune of $500,000. |
Oddly enough, in spite of a budget crisis,
Conference Ministers and the Covenanted Ministries' boards of
directors will be meeting in Atlanta for 4 days in April to discuss
what cuts will be made. Many companies with constrained budgets often
use "net meetings" and "conference calls" in lieu of travel to save
money.
It might also be useful if the national
office made financial information accessible on the UCC website so
that folks "outside the box" might be able to contribute suggestions.
The last OCWM budget
information available on the UCC website dates back to 2002 - and
even that report is simply a budget without year-end accounting
statements. More information might lead to more suggestions - and more
financial support for OCWM. Without it, why should anyone (or
conference) respond to a request for more money?
_________________
Bought and paid for
Actually, they are bought and paid for...
almost
all of their fund raising came from a single source: Billionaire
George Soros'
"Americans
Coming Together" - a shadow advocacy group that skirts campaign
finance laws by funneling soft money to IRS classified "527's"
like the Clergy Leadership Network.
_________________
Witness for Spin
Bernice Powell Jackson's never-ending
spin-doctoring continues again this week with her weekly rant titled
"More Pain,
No Gain". She's made it clear that she doesn't support the
President - which is fine - everyone could probably identify policies
the President has enacted that they would disagree with and even offer
a prophetic voice of disagreement. The problem is that Jackson
recycles political rhetoric under the guise of prophetic witness
without citing sources for her information. This week is no different
and we have a full breakdown of
this week's spin.
_________________
National Council of Churches
irrelevant?
Fr.
Johannes L. Jacobse, a Greek Orthodox priest, scorches the National
Council of Churches in a
new article. A few of his points:
| |
Organizations like the NCC mask their
political views in the vocabulary of the Christian tradition,
making it appear that left wing politics is synonymous with
Christian moral teaching. It's a well-crafted rhetorical ploy that
allows the NCC to stake out the moral high ground and paint their
conservative critics as uncaring and unsympathetic reactionaries
who stand at the fringes - even outside - the Christian tradition. |
And he
goes on, historically demonstrating how the NCC has consistently been
on the wrong side of history:
| |
Like so many of their ideological soul
mates, the NCC really believed it was on the right side of
history. But the fall of Communism took them completely by
surprise and in short order the time arrived to account for past
sins. During a moment of unusual honesty and candor in 1993, the
Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former General Secretary of the NCC,
confessed, "We did not understand the depth of the suffering of
Christians under communism. And we failed to really cry out under
the communist oppression."
This clarity did not last long. Recently the NCC displayed the
same callous indifference to the brutality of the North Korean and
Cuban regimes it previously showed toward the Soviet Union. It
proves that the NCC's love affair with Stalinism is alive and
well.
In June 2003, the NCC called for the United States to pledge to a
"non-aggression pact" and the eventual normalization of relations
with North Korea. The NCC demanded "increased trade, commerce, and
investment," and a new infusion of humanitarian aid in the form of
goods, medicine and medical equipment, and agricultural
technologies.
At least the NCC displayed a minimal awareness of the massive
suffering taking place in North Korea. No mention was made
however, that the totalitarian policies of the North Korean
government was the cause. It was silent about the Korean Gulags,
of the millions dead by starvation, and of the shattered economy
that directs all spending into the North Korean military machine.
Moral condemnation was reserved for the United States alone. In
February, the world learned that 50,000 people were imprisoned in
Camp 22 -- North Korea's largest concentration camp -- where
horrific chemical weapons experiments were conducted on
prisoners. Many in the North Korean Gulag are Christians, a group
hated by dictator Kim Jong-il.
The same scenario played out in Cuba during an NCC visit in
January. The NCC roundly condemned America for the economic
embargo on Cuba. No mention was made of Castro's stranglehold on
the Cuban economy. His jailing of dissidents earned only a mild
scolding, forgotten as soon as it was said.
The facts are that since 2001, Havana has been buying American
grain, food, and medicine on a cash and carry basis. Today Cuba is
flat broke, a condition that makes Cuban default on any debt
inevitable. |
_________________
Questions?
Comments? Email:
UCCtruths@yahoo.com
