Archive

From December, 2004:

NO GENOCIDE?

January 31, 2005 - Tomorrow, the United Nations will report that it's investigation into the atrocities in Sudan do not constitute genocide but did find “serious violations” of international law, which should be referred to the International Criminal Court according to the Financial Times.

Once again, history is proving the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches wrong. In April last year, we noted Bernice Powell Jackson's charge that "little seems to be happening on behalf of these African people in Dafur" despite the fact that the United States was virtually alone at the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission April meetings in Geneva calling for immediate action on Sudan. At the time, the UCC web site sparsely mentioned the problems in Sudan and relegated the crisis to a footnote of global problems.

In May, we reported how the National Council of Churches passed a resolution on Sudan which "called upon the international community and non-governmental organizations to investigate and monitor reports of crimes against humanity being committed in Sudan" - two weeks after the U.N. Human Rights Commission already voted to "investigate and monitor" the already obvious disaster.

Early in July, Dexter Van Zile wrote about the United Church of Christ's Prophetic Silence on Sudan for UCCtruths and detailed some of the possible reasons for our denomination's inaction on Sudan. The UCC then offered a disaster response to the crisis in Sudan, which at the time, offered only these suggestions for a response: Pray, give money, give money and give money. It wasn't soon later that NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar was arrested in front of the Sudanese embassy protesting the genocide in Sudan, despite the fact that the NCC had done little and accomplished nothing that would have actually helped the black Sudanese - like petitioning the U.N. for real action on Sudan.

Then the UCC and the NCC took a different tact - they began to target the President of the United States on Sudan, despite the fact that this government was one of the few taking the issue seriously. From the Washington Post editorial on July 21, 2004:

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.

With other members of the U.N. as the clear barriers to action on Sudan, The United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches launched campaigns against President Bush on Sudan during the election season ~ instead of focusing on the U.N. The UCC issued an Action Alert late in July that focused on the President claiming "the Bush Administration has refused to designate the Sudanese crisis as one of genocide". No mention was made about the failure of the U.N. to make the same declaration. At the same time, FaithfulAmerica.org, the political action arm of the National Council of Churches, called on the U.S. to act on Sudan while also ignoring the United Nations.

With tomorrow's release of the report on Sudan, the U.N.'s failure is also our failure. Instead of pursuing justice for black Sudanese by pressuring the United Nations, our denomination and the National Council of Churches chose to politicize the issue during the campaign season. How pitiful it is for us to have missed this opportunity to make a difference.

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National Council of Churches

Blames U.S. for Islamic Extremism

January 30, 2005 - Thank goodness for Bob Edgar and the National Council of Churches... things were getting slow around here.

The National Council of Churches is on yet another Middle-east tour meeting with their favorite terrorist sympathizers and anti-semites. On their blog about the trip, the NCC gloats about meeting with Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi. According to the blog, the meeting was covered in the Egyptian Gazette (ironically, the Anti-Defamation League claims the paper promotes anti-semitism):

	"'Peace is fundamental to Islam, which condemns all sorts of aggression and terrorism,' Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, told a visiting American religious delegation yesterday. "Sheikh Tantawi regretted that certain people attempt to associate Jihad (holy war) with terrorism.
	"He told the 11-member delegation, representing the US National Council of Churches, that Islam allows Jihad in defence of one's life, honour, property and homeland, as well as for restoring one's usurped rights or for the sake of justice. "However, Islam denounces terrorism because it is an aggression on human life and people's rights and homelands, Sheikh Tantawi told the delegation, led by NCC President Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr.

Can't you feel the love? Unfortunately, the Sheikh has as much credibility as the National Council of Churches. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):

"The great Imam of Al­Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, demanded that the Palestinian people, of all factions, intensify the martyrdom operations [i.e. suicide attacks] against the Zionist enemy, and described the martyrdom operations as the highest form of Jihad operations. He says that the young people executing them have sold Allah the most precious thing of all." "[Sheikh Tantawi] emphasized that every martyrdom operation against any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land and cause the cruel Israeli aggression to retreat…"

MEMRI also quotes the Sheikh in a different report:

Al-Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the highest-ranking cleric in the Sunni Muslim world, called the Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs."

Of course, the National Council of Churches fails to mention that the Sheikh has encouraged terrorism. Instead, NCC General Minister Robert Edgar claims that Christians in the Middle East blame the U.S. "as the main reason for Islamic extremism" in his latest blog posting.

Special thanks to Athanasius for the tip.

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God's Still Speaking... To SpongeBob

January 24, 2005 - In the race to match wits with the conservative "Focus on the Family" and James Dobson, the UCC proclaimed God's extravagant welcome for SpongeBob SquarePants today. The press release was issued in response to Dobson's claim that SpongeBob is being "exploited by an organization that's determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation's youth."

"Really SpongeBob, I think you have what it takes to lead the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries"

The Denver Post's David Harsanyi sums up the whole thing best:

"For now, be thankful that we live in an age where a cartoon character co-opted by gay activists, an aggravated religious leader and a didactic musician who once played guitar with the group Chic can coagulate into a salacious story about the cultural war."

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35 Years of Reflections

January 21, 2005 - Bill Wineke probably doesn't like this web site, if he even knows about it all. Regardless, we appreciate his wisdom and independent thinking even if our philosophies probably don't match up. Next week, Bill will celebrate the 35th anniversary of his ordination in the UCC and he reflects on it in his column in the Wisconsin State Journal. Of note:

Today, we in the liberal church are reduced to buying advertisements telling the world we're still here. And, from what I can see, the Christian right is busy making all the same mistakes we made in the past. The one thing I've learned in the interim is that the power of the church is pretty irrelevant on the national scene and incredibly important at the parish level. It's in the local congregation that people console one another when a loved one dies, comfort one another when a child gets in trouble or a job is lost, cheer one another on when good things happen.

Truer words were never spoken. Happy Anniversary Bill.

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UCC loses a church because it's not diverse enough

January 20, 2005 - We have to make a new category for the "Odd but True" news stories. Yale has decided to make Battell Chapel non-denominational... in an effort to make the theologically liberal church more diverse. No kidding, from the Yale Daily News:

The committee proposed Battell become non-denominational in order to welcome a wider array of students to Sunday morning worship. Battell is currently a member of the United Church of Christ and is also the oldest college church in America.

Welcome a "wider array of students"? They must not have seen the television ad.

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God speaks ...and He sounds just like Gore Vidal

January 20, 2005 - From "New Humanist":

The problem with a religious marketing campaign is that you risk irking other denominations if, like the UCC, you let on that God is speaking the language of, say, a 21st century environmentalist- feminist. This can be quite disturbing to Judeo-Christians used to God speaking to them, if not in their own voice and manner of thinking, then in the language of an ancient celestial lawgiver or a first century Galilean Jew. Evangelicals, for instance, are not going to be comfortable with a Jehovah whose politics echo those of The Nation’s Katha Pollit or Gore Vidal, especially when they are atheists. The “God is Still Speaking” campaign comes at an interesting time, a period of moral ambivalence when both Christians and non-Christians are awash in a tide of confusion with regards to technological advances--in abortion, cloning, and stem cell research. It has been a long time since we’ve had an opinion from the Highest Court. Yet the Bench remains silent. God has seemingly abdicated the role of lawgiver and left the job to congressmen and parliamentarians bought and sold to the highest bidder. God seems to being telling us “You work it out. I’m tired.”

OK, OK... the source is kind of odd, but it's an amusing piece.

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Same Stuff, Different Name

January 18, 2005 - The "Clergy Network for National Leadership Change" is promoting "interfaith vigils protesting the excessive expenses" of the upcoming Presidential inauguration which is funded entirely from private donations, not tax dollars. Besides not understanding the difference between private and public funds, they probably shouldn't be dispensing advice on how to spend money.

The partisan group, formally called the "Clergy Leadership Network," whose members include former UCC President Paul Sherry, was virtually bankrupt before changing it's name. Most of the funds the group did raise came from a single source: billionaire George Soros' "Americans Coming Together" - a shadow advocacy group that skirted campaign finance laws by funneling soft money to IRS classified "527's".

No word yet if the "Clergy Network for National Leadership Change" is planning to protest the excessive political expenses of their primary financier.

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The Church of Latter-Day Leftists?

January 14, 2005 - The National Council of Churches gets scorched in this article by the conservative FrontPage magazine.

Of note from the article:

	Further complicating the NCC’s situation is its history of financial mismanagement. Despite doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of various leftist causes, the NCC been saddled with fiscal woes.
	The NCC’s leadership has long spent beyond the organization’s means, and in 1998, the NCC found itself facing a deficit of $1.5 million. In 1999, NCC expenses exceeded total revenues by some $4 million. These budgetary shortfalls have compelled the NCC to appeal to its member denominations—seven of which account for 90 percent of the NCC’s budget—to step up their contributions. For instance, in 1999 the NCC requested that its chief sponsor, the United Methodist Church, increase its yearly contribution of $2.5 million by an additional $700,000. Despite such stopgap measures, the NCC has proved incapable of reigning in spending. In 2002, records showed that the NCC continued to spend 30 percent more than it received, with the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA responsible for 64 percent of NCC revenues. The support of the United Methodist Church is of particular importance to the NCC. According to the 2004 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, a chronicle of church membership published by the NCC and edited by the NCC Deputy General Secretary for Research and Planning, Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, the United Methodist Church has recently experienced small declines in membership. Other NCC member churches have not faired as well. Partially as a consequence of growing dissatisfaction with the radical agenda espoused by the NCC’s leadership, many of these churches have suffered a precipitous decline in their membership.

The article is politically loaded... but does it have any merit? Sound off in the message boards today.

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"Still Speaking" Fades Away

January 11, 2005 - In his "Epiphany letter" last week, UCC General Minister and President John Thomas noted the strong interest that the "Still Speaking" campaign had created by the 137,000 online searches for "find a church". However, from site statistics compiled by Alexa, the initial surge of interest in the StillSpeaking.com Web site has all but completely faded after just a couple of weeks.

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Tsunami Politics

January 10, 2005 - EcumenicalInsanity.net caught UCC Seminarian Chuck Currie playing political games with Tsunami relief on his narcissistic "blog" when he tried to claim four days after the Tsunami disaster that the "religious right" wasn't responding to the call for aid. The truth is that there are a wide variety faiths responding to the crisis and they come from all over the political spectrum. Ironically, Chuck's preferred charity, the UCC supported Church World Service, happens to be at the bottom of the list below in the percentage of relief aid that actually goes to relief efforts.

UPDATE 1/28/2004 - CWS has a note on it's site that says: "100% of your congregation’s contribution designated for Tsunami Recovery goes to the relief and recovery effort, and that is also true of individual unsolicited designated contributions."

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Give Wisely

January 6, 2005 - A number of charities are soliciting donations for relief efforts for the victims of the tsunami disaster. Not all charities operate alike and different charities contribute different percentages of funds raised for relief efforts. Below is a list of 44 charities ranked by the percentage of contribution that goes to relief with links to contribute. 

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'Accessible Airwaves' Campaign Bombs

January 3, 2005 - Last month we reported that the UCC filed petitions with the Federal Communications Commission to deny license renewals for CBS and NBC stations in Florida in response to the rejection of one of two UCC ad's by the networks. The campaign, titled "Accessible Airwaves", originally planned to raise $100,000 by January 1, but, according to it's web site, has only raised $16,000. 

The campaign is being orchestrated by the "Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc." which is run by Robert Chase - the architect of other failed campaigns including the unethical and dishonest attempt to block WorldCom's license transfer in 2002. In the "Character Counts" campaign to block the WorldCom license transfers, Chase  failed to disclose in the campaign that he was working with lobbyists representing WorldCom's largest competitors - which was ultimately exposed in a Washington Post article. 

Even now, the campaign to block license renewals because of the ad controversy is disingenuous. Chase and OC Inc. are now claiming that the ad was rejected by the networks "because its all-inclusive message of extravagant welcome has been deemed 'too controversial'." To the contrary, NBC clearly stated "The issue of controversy stemmed from the ad‘s suggestion that other religions are not open to all people for a variety of reasons."

As it's been stated on this site many times, if our denomination is to be taken seriously, we must first be honest. This isn't about politics or theology, it's about honesty. 

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Help Support Disaster Relief in Southeast Asia

January 1, 2005 - A listing of organizations accepting contributions and donations to aid victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami can be found on the Network for Good Web site.

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