Archive
From August, 2005:
August 29, 2005
Letter from General Synod Moderator
raises more questions than answers about UCC Divestment resolution
Rev. Dr. Norman Jackson,
the moderator of the plenary session that voted on the divestment
resolution, has responded to Mike
Downs critical letter questioning the legality of the
controversial divestment resolution passed last month at General
Synod.
In the
letter, Jackson states that he believes that the substitute
motion on the resolution (that included divestment language),
according to Robert's Rules, was "probably allowed". In the letter,
however, he raises a question about a Standing Rule on giving
appropriate notice on proposed resolutions:
| |
However, there is a Standing Rule which raises a
question more regarding its ambiguity in relationship to
substitute motions than anything else. It reads: “(d)
Copies of each Resolution or Other Formal Motion and the
recommendation pertaining to it must be distributed to
delegates at least one-half day before action can be
taken. The referent here is New Business, but I
believe there is sufficient ambiguity in this statement
to suggest a major Substitute Motion may be out of order
under any circumstances if it comes from the floor.
I encourage the Executive Council to clarify that prior
to GS 26, since it appears resolutions will be presented
there. [Emphasis is from the letter] |
One of the major
concerns about the last minute resolution is that the
General Synod was not given time to properly evaluate the
it.
Even more
startling about the letter is Jackson's own reflection about
what happened at General Synod:
| |
...I accept on face value
your description of how you experienced the activities that
produced the substitute. In many ways, that troubles me more
than any parliamentary question. I served on the General
Synod Committee on Structure and one of our underlying hopes
was to construct a structure in which unilateral actions as
you described would be left behind. During my brief tenure
as OCIS Interim Director I experienced XX much
differently than when I was Executive Associate to the
President. The collaborative stance had become embedded
in the life of XX, and provided a base to move into the
new structure. Had something like you described happened
when I was in the president’s office, all hell would
have broken loose at the next XX meeting – occasionally,
hell didn’t need such an opening. |
Jackson has
served as an assistant to a UCC President, presided as
Conference Minister of two UCC Conferences and has been a
professor at UTS and Eden.
Click here for complete
letter
_______________
August 19, 2005
John Thomas responds to Pensions
Boards letter...
UPDATED 8/21
"I will not
apologize"
In a July 8 letter to
conference ministers, John Thomas conceded that he had participated
in the late night discussions to reword the "economic leverage"
resolution to include divestment language at the UCC General Synod
last month. From the letter:
| |
...we were made aware
immediately following the release of the Committee's report
that a number of delegates were very unhappy with the
recommended action. They approached staff and collegium
members for advice as they began work on amendments. In
response to this, Bennie Whiten and I were involved in the
"late night discussions." We were accompanied by key staff
resourcing this issue: Peter Makari and Lydia Veliko. Bennie
and I are voting delegates to the Synod. The four of us have
leadership responsibility on an issue of enormous
sensitivity in terms of our global partnerships and our
interfaith relationships. We participated for two reasons:
First, we concurred with the delegates who believed the
committee's recommendation was severely flawed and would be
injurious to our relationships with Palestinian partners. In
addition, we felt it would send the wrong signal to the
Jewish community. |
John Thomas'
"leadership responsibility" as justification for helping
overturn the committee resolution is absurd. Prior to
General Synod, a number of groups asked John Thomas to
exercise his leadership and offer his opinion on the
proposed divestment resolutions as he did with the "Gay
Marriage" resolution. He did not. His participation in the
late night drafting of a new resolution, without the benefit
of representation from the Pension Board and the committee,
was not leadership, it was cowardice. Rather than face
objections from internal and external groups that could be
directly impacted by the resolution, Thomas chose instead to
surround himself with denomination cheerleaders who, like
children, had a tantrum when they did not get their way in
the committee meeting.
The impact of
his actions are devastating for the congregational polity of
our denomination. Regardless of your opinion on divestment,
a precedent has now been set that if the national office
doesn't like a proposed General Synod resolution, they will
simply rewrite it and make it their own. We have also lost
the ability to claim that we are not a patriarchal church
guided by a centralized infrastructure - clearly we are now.
For that matter,
why don't we just anoint John Thomas as Pope?
(8/21 Update:
Maybe that last sentence was unfair to the Pope since
he seems to be willing to meet with
and hear Jewish concerns)
Click here to
read whole letter
_______________
August 19, 2005
Presbyterian Leader: Presbyterian
Church is unfair in targeting Israel for divestment
The same thing could be said about
the United Church of Christ - from
Rebecca
Kuiken in the
San Jose Mercury News:
| |
Our sense of timing is off.
Just when Israel is departing from Gaza, our denomination
announced which companies it has targeted for possible
divestment. How ironic: Israel is leaving one of the
occupied territories lock, stock and barrel, and we reward
it with threats of punishment.
This is short-sighted and adds to the perception that we
have lost any pretense of impartiality. The church's policy
papers on divestment are no longer balanced. Misreading or
simplistically truncating decades of Middle East history by
stating that Israel's occupation of the West Bank ``has
proven to be the root of evil acts committed against
innocent people on both sides of the conflict,'' is simply
wrong. Terrorism against Israelis existed for years before
the occupation.
I, like many peacemakers and clergy, Jews, Christians and
Muslims, am deeply critical of actions taking place in the
occupied territories. But I share the concern, expressed by
Rabbis for Human Rights, which tirelessly defends
Palestinians, that the Presbyterian position is ``inaccurate
and inadequate to explain the situation in all its tragic
moral complexity.''
I am opposed to divestment out of an overriding concern that
our Presbyterian house is not in order when it comes to
issues of anti-Semitism. Christianity has a deplorable track
record on relationships with Muslims and Jews. Most
Christians alive today have not participated in this
history, yet it is a legacy that persists in its capacity to
fuel memory, fear and reactivity. Our divestment policy
ignores this. |
Click here for complete
editorial
August 14, 2005
Boston Globe Editorial: Divestment's
Downside
From
the
Boston Globe:
| |
The Presbyterian action
appears to be part of a worrisome trend. The United Church
of Christ voted to consider various forms of economic
leverage in the Mideast conflict last month. The Episcopal
Church has begun a study on ''what corporate actions might
be appropriate." The World Council of Churches last February
encouraged its member churches to apply economic pressure.
These churches ought to heed the example of M. Thomas Shaw,
Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts and a supporter of
Palestinian rights. He rejects divestment, especially now,
when Israel is pulling out of Gaza and Palestinians have
chosen moderate leadership. ''Because the economies of
Israel and Palestine are so closely intertwined, divestment
is actually counterproductive for the Palestinian people,"
he said in a May statement. |
Click here for complete
editorial
_______________
August 13, 2005
Bob Edgar: We aren't political, we're
like Jesus
Bob Edgar, head of the National
Council of Churches, continued to delude himself this week by
claiming that the NCC's work isn't political,
it's just God's work:
| |
“There are those
who try to dilute our witness and mislead our friends by
suggesting that the National Council of Churches is a
partisan, left-leaning organization,” said Rev. Edgar. “But
you know who it is that calls us to pursue peace, fight
poverty and injustice, and care for the earth. It is the
Prince of Peace who each day of his life showed his bias for
the poor and prayed to the Creator who gave us this
beautiful world,” he said. |
Stop laughing -
he's serious.
I don't know who
is "diluting our witness"... everything written in this
space has pretty much dismissed Edgar altogether. Edgar has
taken the NCC over the political edge ever since he took
over for Joan Campbell Brown who nearly bankrupted the
National Council of Churches. Edgar sold the NCC out by
accepting contributions from radical groups like MoveOn.
Edgar is probably also feeling a little defensive since he
was caught with his hands in the political cookie jar by
sending out a politically loaded fundraising letter.
From the American Spectator:
| |
THE LETTER FROM EDGAR is
formulaic, as most such fundraising letters are. It
identifies the enemy (conservatives who are derided as
"fundamentalists") and offers the politics of the NCC as the
savior. It also emerges out of the context of the NCC's near
financial collapse. When Edgar became NCC general secretary
in 2000, the NCC was millions of dollars over budget. To
survive, the NCC trimmed its spending from nearly $10
million to just over $6 million. Its staff has also fallen
from over 100 persons to fewer than 40.
Under Edgar, giving from the NCC's 36 member communions has
declined by about one third, to less than $2 million a year.
Edgar has shifted to reliance on foundation income and
direct mail, which together provide more than what is
received from churches. Groups like MoveOn.org, the Sierra
Club, the Tides Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, along with liberal celebrity donors such as Ben Cohen,
Peter Yarrow and Vanessa Redgrave, have contributed heavily
to the NCC's anti-war advocacy, among other political
causes.
Actual church members are becoming less and less important
to the NCC's survival. Secular foundations and non-religious
celebrity donors are more important. With the consequent
polemical demands of direct mail aimed at a mostly secular
audience, Edgar's rhetoric inevitably will veer even further
left and away from any pretense of importance attached to
promoting Christianity. |
Edgar is simply a liar.
He is clearly political and his charade as an agent of the Lord is
as phony as a late night television faith healer.
_______________
August 3, 2005
Christianity Today: Pilgrims' Mixed
Progress
From
Christianity Today (which seems to know a divestment resolution
when it sees one):
| |
For most evangelicals in the
United Church of Christ (UCC), it was two steps backward and
one step forward at July's national synod meeting in
Atlanta. While the 1.3 million member liberal denomination
passed controversial resolutions endorsing homosexual
marriage and supporting divestment of funds involving
Israel, it also passed a resolution affirming the person and
work of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. However, the body
refused to add the affirmation to ordination vows. |
Click here for complete article
_______________
Questions?
Comments? Email:
UCCtruths@yahoo.com
