September 2006 UCCtruths.com Archive

Three years ago today we went live with this site... and we've had a pretty good run. With well over 2,000,000 hits from over 500,000 unique users and 14,700 messages from over 400 registered users on the message boards, this site has exceeded any of my expectations. I genuinely want to thank everyone who helped make this site a success. To celebrate, I'm going to take a few days off, but I'll be popping off again by Monday (John Thomas: I'll still be reading my email though if you want to send me a email birthday card).

In the meantime (and for those who didn't figure it out yet) feel free to visit the new blog spin-off that was spawned earlier this month at MainlineTruths.com.

UCC's "Ethics in Telecommunications Award" - a real oxymoron

Earlier this month, the UCC's Office of Communication, Inc. (OC Inc.) with Telecommunications Research and Action Center (TRAC) hosted it's annual "Everett C. Parker Lecture and Awards Luncheon". The irony of the event wasn't missed by some telco observers. From TeleTruth.org:

Only in Washington DC would no one bat an eyelash when an astroturf group is a sponsor and prime mover that gives out "ethics' awards in telecommunications at the National Press Club.

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The Everett C. Parker Lecture and Awards Luncheon --The 24th Annual Everett C. Parker Ethics in Telecommunications Lecture and Awards Luncheon, will be held Tuesday, September 12, 2006, at 11:45 a.m. at the National Press Club. The event is sponsored by the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc. (OC, Inc.) and the Telecommunications Research and Action Center (TRAC).
TRAC: http://www.trac.org/events/

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We are not commenting on whether any of the recipients deserve their awards. TRAC is run by Issue Dynamics. Sam Simon is the chairman of TRAC as well as the founder of Issue Dynamics, a group that works for the phone companies, Verizon, AT&T, BellSouth to create astroturf groups or work with co-opted consumer, Hispanic, black, seniors or disabled groups for phone company-sponsored campaigns and lobbying.

John Thomas makes a mockery of

Jewish-Christian relationship

According to UC News, UCC President John Thomas delivered another speech on Jewish and Christian relationships -and the strained relationship of the UCC with major Jewish groups - in his Fall Convocation Address at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities this week.

And again, John Thomas misses the reason why our relationship with Jewish groups has soured.

While Thomas reflected positively on the UCC's history with Jewish groups (and our denomination's explicit recognition of God's covenant with Jews), Thomas failed to take any responsibility for the problems he personally, and completely unnecessarily, created in the last three years. Instead, Thomas continued to misrepresent the issues and challenges. Specifically:

1) Thomas mischaracterized the Presbyterian Divestment resolution of 2004 as targeting companies “whose business in Israel is found to be directly or indirectly causing harm to innocent people, Palestinian or Israeli.” In practice, the 2004 Presbyterian resolution only targeted businesses doing business with Israel. After all, what company can you divest from when a Russian made Katyusha rocket kills innocent Israelis?

2) Thomas laments the breakdown in communication between Jewish and Christian groups that started in 2004. However, Thomas refused to communicate with Jewish groups before the UCC's 2005 General Synod. At least two of the largest Jewish organizations in the U.S., the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Congress, asked for dialog on the issue of divestment before the UCC's 2005 General Synod. According to both groups, Thomas didn't respond.

3) Thomas again falsely claims that "some Jewish organizations" like the Simon Wiesenthal Center were in an alliance or partnership with the Institute for Religion and Democracy and cites a joint press conference held during the 2005 Disciples of Christ General Assembly as an example. While both groups held the same position on divestment and shared a podium to share those views, there has never been any relationship between the groups - a fact that Thomas was publicly alerted to the last time he made this claim six months ago.

4) Thomas asserts that there is an "influence of Christian Zionism" among "supporters of Israel in the United States". While true, Christian Zionism has not been a factor in any of the discussions around divestment nor has any Christian Zionist group that I am aware of ever participated in opposing any church divestment efforts. It's completely disingenuous for Thomas to reference a Christian Zionist influence that doesn't exist within the context of mainline churches... and it's probably why he doesn't cite any examples of this influence.

Simply put, Thomas's speech was intended to provide a cover for his own contribution to the disintegration in the relationship between the Jewish community and the UCC.

Without any doubt, John Thomas is personally responsible for the breakdown in the UCC's relationship with national Jewish groups - a relationship cultivated by his predecessors. Unfortunately for all of us, it's a legacy we will have to live with long after Thomas is gone.

Just in case we weren't sure... Religious leaders come out against torture

HARTFORD (09/18/2006) -- While the Senate is debating the President’s demands to change federal law to allow the CIA to use interrogation techniques that are not permitted by the Geneva Conventions, an interfaith group is organizing in opposition. At a press conference Tuesday, some of the state’s religious leaders, including the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree (Conference Minister of the CT Conference of the United Church of Christ) and Dr. Heidi Hadsell (President of Hartford Seminary) will speak out against the immorality of torture and prisoner abuse. Joining with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT; www.nrcat.org), these religious leaders are calling upon Senators Dodd and Lieberman to take a firm – and public – stand against any weakening of the United States’ commitment to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

There's nothing wrong with being against torture - clearly brutal, violent tactics are wrong and don't work. But this isn't exactly a black and white issue. What about sleep depravation, loud music or isolation? Religious leaders should have something to say but unfortunately the Connecticut Conference really isn't saying anything by simply being against torture - that's not what the debate is about. It's about what specific tactics clearly are wrong or right.

Forget Hartford - Let's go to New Orleans

I sat at my local UCC clergy gathering this morning, unassumingly munching on a couple donuts, still waking up. The morning had come earlier than desired, so I was sucking down coffee and listening to a couple anecdotes that illustrated my own Conference's woes. Truthfully, nothing inspired me to contribute to the discussion...I was there to listen, to inhale caffeine, to take advantage of free pastries.

And then the revelation came.

It was suggested by a fellow delegate to the 2007 General Synod, and it went something like this: what if, instead of flying to Hartford, Connecticut next summer to pat ourselves on the back and have a big party to mark 50 years of UCC existence, we all march down to New Orleans and stay at some UCC entity nearby and help people, now largely out of the national spotlight, rebuild their lives? That includes our friends at Back Bay Mission, a UCC-related mission devastated by Katrina much like the rest of the area.

It didn't take me long to latch onto this. My last experience at Synod in 2005 was one of self-congratulation. I recall one instance of someone standing at the microphone declaring, "We are the people we've been waiting for!" and feeling the pride radiate from the crowd.

If we're the people we've been waiting for, maybe we're the people New Orleans has been waiting for, too.

UCC shocker: Sabrina isn't educational programming

stations that show too many cartoons in lieu of educational programming. From the press release:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Lawyers for the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ (OC, Inc.) today (Sept. 12) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, requesting that the Commission take action on several OC, Inc.-sponsored petitions to deny pending license renewals, and expressing concern that the FCC has waited for more than two years to act.

In September 2004, OC, Inc. and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) filed petitions to deny against WPXW Paxon Communications and WDCA Fox Television for violations of the Children's Television Act in the Washington, D.C., market.

OC, Inc. filed petitions to deny in August 2005 against WQHS- TV Univision and WUAB-TV Raycom National Inc. in the Greater Cleveland, Ohio, market.

"As demonstrated in the petitions, these stations claimed to be in compliance with the obligations under the Children's Television Act when they were not," wrote OC, Inc. and CDD Counsel Angela J. Campbell of the Institute for Public Representation in the letter to Martin. "All the stations are airing programming that falls far outside the Act's, and the Commission's, requirements for children's programming."

According to the release, one of the offending programs, Sabrina: The Animated Series. "does not constitute education programming."

Cheryl Leanza, OC, Inc.'s managing director, is quoted in the press release describing the programming as "the television equivalent of a sugary dessert. While there is nothing wrong with dessert, the Children's Television Act was designed to make sure kids can include some nutritious items in their television diet."

What any of this has to do with the UCC or any church is beyond me. They may be right that the programming isn't consistent with the Children's Television Act, but is this something the UCC really needs to be involved with?

Would you support a 'Garden of Forgiveness' at Ground Zero?

Journey Films, best known for it's award-winning documentary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is exploring the idea of a "Garden of Forgiveness" in it's latest production for public television. It's an interesting idea and more complicated than it may look on the surface. From an email earlier this week from Journey Films:

A week ago we sent an e-mail alert about our interview with Fr. Lyndon Harris, an Episcopal priest who is promoting the development of a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero. We also offered an opinion poll asking “Would you support a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero? The result was an overwhelming “NO.”

With more than 2,500 votes cast the vote was 98% against the building of a Garden of Forgiveness and only 2% in favor. We should also note that many of the people on the Journey Films’ mailing list include seminarians, church and synagogue leadership and people who have supported our nearly two dozen films on subjects of faith and spirituality.

“After I interviewed Father Harris about his proposed garden I went down to the Ground Zero site and spoke with many people on the street about their sentiments for a Garden of Forgiveness,” says filmmaker Martin Doblmeier. “My impression was people were almost evenly divided, so our own poll results were quite surprising. What has become clear in the making of a film on forgiveness is that the word “forgiveness” itself raises so many raw emotions in people. Many Americans, no matter what their mind tells them they should do, are simply not ready in their hearts to walk a path of forgiveness until some justice has been realized. Forgiveness always takes time, and in the case of 9/11 it may take a very long time.”

My hunch is that the question is deeper than feelings about forgiveness and I think in the case of this specific question, the response might be more of a reflection about the location of the garden rather than the concept or practice of forgiveness. If the debates over the memorial at Ground Zero is any indication, there isn't a consensus on how to remember 9/11, never mind a "Garden of Forgiveness".

And then there's a deeper question - Who has the moral authority to forgive in such a public way? In one sense, we were all victims five years ago, but those of us who were only witnesses to the horrors of September 11 probably need to yield our opinions to those who were most directly effected and now carry the heaviest loss from September 11 and find ways to support those still grieving.

Happy Birthday to us!

UCC's "Ethics in Telecommunications Award" - a real oxymoron

John Thomas makes a mockery of

Jewish-Christian relationship

Just in case we weren't sure... Religious leaders come out against torture

Forget Hartford - Let's go to New Orleans

UCC shocker: Sabrina isn't educational programming

Would you support a 'Garden of Forgiveness' at Ground Zero?

Bob Edgar: Poster child for church/state conflict

politics... and at times to the detriment of the National Council of Churches.

So much for conspiracies... and so much for trying to claim the middle ground.

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