More good news!

In another important move within the Mainline Protestant community, the Lutheran Church (more specifically, the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA) voted to reject a series of resolutions that singled out Israel for criticism and instead voted in favor of a “balanced and fair-minded” resolution that took into account the needs of both Arabs and Jews (see here for details). Just as importantly, this vote also called for the church to communicate “clear and reliable information” about the conflict, in contrast to the one-sided and inaccurate information frequently sent by church leaders to their members.

While not specifically about divestment, this vote (right after the recent rejection of divestment by the United Church of Canada) is critical for the following reasons:

(1) This represents a three-year string of votes at various Mainline churches (Presbyterian, Methodist, UCC, Lutheran) whereby church members taking part in democratic votes rejected one-sided calls to condemn Israel that were being pushed either by radical branches or by the church leadership itself.

If these votes were closer to 60:40, that would simply indicate that church members (as opposed to many church leaders) are part of a US consensus where support for Israel tends to hover in the 60-70% range. But the fact that these votes were so overwhelming (85% in the case of ELCA, 100% in the case of the Methodists), seems to indicate that church members are tiring of designated or self-appointed leaders claiming to speak in the name of their faith when hurling condemnation of the Jewish state. While general support for Israel among rank and file Christians is welcome, it’s even more important that church members are beginning to speak out and insist that the name and reputation of their church no longer be manipulated, even by the official church leadership.

(2) The ELCA’s choice to demand “clear and reliable information” be provided when discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict indicates a recognition that information frequently disseminated by supporters of divestment (or other anti-Israel measures) is often false and unbalanced (which it is), but still distributed to church members (including children) with no concern over its accuracy. This is the first time a Mainline Protestant church has voted to condemn this practice by calling for any debate on the Middle East to be based on high quality vs. biased information and sources.

These are both huge steps in the right direction emanating from the very places divestment activists once pointed to as being an example other institutions should follow: The Mainline Churches. Now that the Mainliners seem to be not just exiting the divestment game, but voting overwhelming for honest debate, it’s time we took up the banner of calling for other civic institutions to follow their lead.

UPDATE: An astute reader pointed out that the call for the church to provide "clear and reliable information" was a resolution submitted to the Memorials Committee ("Memorials" being the term the Luterans use for resolutions), but not voted on by the ELCA as a whole. Given that the last 5-10 years has seen little beyond anti-Israel "memorials" within the church, this is certainly a step in the right direction. Let's hope a desire for fairness and accuracy continues to percolate up and down the institution.

Thoughts on the UCC Rejection of Divestment

I’ve been reading coverage of the United Church of Canada’s decisive vote to pull the plug on proposals for church-wide divestment and boycott of Israel, as well as church rejection of some of the wild, conspiratorial materials anti-Israel activists within the church were using in their campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state.

I have to admit that, despite a few forays into British anti-boycott activities via some work with the UK group Engage, most of my anti-divestment activities has been US based, meaning I haven’t had much direct contact with what’s been going on in Canada. That said, Canadian institutions (including the United Church of Canada) are frequently put forward by divestment activists around the world as examples that should be followed, giving this week’s UCC rejection of the boycott weapon international significance.

But it was the commentary around the vote that got my attention, the story of a church that is both declining and aging, a denomination that once constituted a quarter of Canadians, now representing less than 10%. Like Mainline Protestant churches in the US (such as the Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians) facing similar declines, the UCC has been reducing the role of religious doctrine in the lives of its members in hope that being more inclusive (coupled with some TV advertising) will increase membership. And if this has created a vacuum regarding the role of a church where religious observance (or even belief) is optional, that space has filling up with secular politics (traveling under various appealing sounding, but intentionally vague brands such as “social justice” or “international law”).

If this swapping of a certain amount of spiritual for secular activity (i.e., finding a new balance between God and Caesar) was showing results in the form of a growing membership in the church, one could make a case for the success of this strategy. But apparently, continued declines in church membership has only triggered questions of how fast to double down on a strategy that has served these institutions so poorly for the last four decades.

This whole issue would hardly be here or there for those of us who are not members of a declining Protestant church. After all, what they do with their doctrine is decidedly their own business. But once secular politics became the spiritual mission for key church constituencies, suddenly people who differ with endorsed church policies found themselves arguing not secular politics, but (apparently) politics endorsed by the Deity.

Nowhere is the gap between lofty spiritual rhetoric and grubby human politics more apparent than in the way church policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict is formed. As with most divestment movements, a small, energized and highly-vocal minority make it clear to their co-religionists that they have one and only one moral choice on this issue (i.e., Israel is guilty as charged). Information that would contradict this conclusion is forbidden from the discussion. Parliamentary maneuvering is used to keep voices objecting to church anti-Israel policies off the stage. And when, despite all this manipulation, divestment motions fail (since church members have long indicated they hate these policies), the voice of this majority is ignored (or at least put aside for two years when new anti-Israeli resolutions can be put forward in hope of getting members to vote “the right way” for once).

A few months back, the synagogue I recently joined announced policies regarding the mechanism that would be followed for the Temple to take an official stand on a political issue. “Oh, crap!” I thought, knowing what I know of what became of so many Mainline Protestant churches who thought they were doing good by embracing the issues of the day, but quickly found themselves manipulated and exploited by ruthless divestment activists.

To my delight, the policies that were introduced were extremely stringent and methodical, allowing for several layers of decision making (while also allowing some flexibility for emergency situations, or the special role of clergy). Without dwelling on details, these rules recognized that the synagogue is an institution made up of members whose opinions deserve to be taken into account, that it is an institution that has been around for 50 years, meaning its reputation and moral authority rests on the work of countless people who may no longer be around to speak.

And, like the Christian churches, this authority rests of millennia of effort and history that has come before any of us were born. In short, taking a stand on an issue of the day “in the name of the church/synagogue” is NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY!!!!! And, by “lightly” I’m not just talking about taking stands on frivolous matters, or on issues around which everyone already agrees. Taking decisive stands on critical issues (such as the Middle East conflict) is also frivolous if those positions are decided by tiny minorities who may speak only for themselves. It is frivolous if decisions are proposed based on moral blackmail or based on manipulating and/or ignoring the opinions of church members IN WHOSE NAME DIVESTMENT ACTIVISTS ARE CLAIMING TO SPEAK.

Divestment activists, of course, want their message to be amplified by making it the word of the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian or Methodist Church because then they are one step away from declaring their “Israel=Apartheid” message as being the word of God himself. It’s clear what’s in it for them. But the question remains, especially for church leaders continually manipulated by divestment advocates while ignored members who protest or leave in disgust: what is in it for the Churches beyond divisiveness, misery and continued decline?

Another Victory for Justice

Yet another church has come to its senses vis-à-vis refusing to make anti-Israel boycotts official policy for their religious institution.

The United Church of Canada has been roiled by debate on the Middle East for over 30 years. Like the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches in the United States, a small but vocal minority within the Canadian Church has been pushing harsh anti-Israel motions (including calls for boycott and divestment) for decades, with little to show for itself, beyond a souring of Christian-Jewish relations in Canada and deep bitterness within the church itself.

This year church members finally said “enough” voting down boycott and divestment motions nearly unanimously. While divestment advocates may search for scraps they can pass off as some kind of victory (given that they have brandished the United Church of Canada for years as their ultimate success story), they’ll have trouble categorizing one more unanimous rejection (just like the Methodists gave them last year) as anything other than what it is: the people in the pews refusing to buy their snake oil.

As noted here and here, the only outcome of church divestment projects to date has been misery within the churches themselves. Perhaps Canada will serve as one more example of how to begin to get the toxins divestment brings with it out of a civic organization (hopefully for good).

What damage does divestment cause?

FAQ#11: What kind of damage is caused by divestment programs?

At its heart, divestment is an attempt to import the bitterness of the Arab-Israeli conflict into a civic institution such as a college, church, city or union in order to leverage that organization’s reputation for the narrow partisan gain of divestment advocates. Historically, attempts to win a well known organization into the divestment fold are accomplished by maneuvering behind the backs of members (not to mention outright fraud, as at Hampshire). On several occasions, students, church members or citizens simply wake up one morning to discover their school, church or city is allegedly calling for a boycott of Israel in their name. Divestment advocates have proven themselves indifferent to the conflict and pain caused by asking a church, school or town to take an official stand on one of the most difficult, complex issues of the day.

This is not to say that institutions do not have a role in making statements regarding current events, or that activists do not have the right to make request of the school they attend, the church they belong to or the city in which they live. But the cynical manipulation of civic institutions (not to mention the abuse of the language of human rights), including the bait-and-switch tactics associated with divestment, brings with it bitter divisiveness that can take years to heal. Divestment activists, with their single-minded objective to gain the support of a well-known organization – by any means necessary – time and time again fail to reflect on the damage they can cause in an attempt to achieve their aims.

Is Divestment a Threat?

FAQ#10: If divestment has been so unsuccessful, is it really a threat?

Despite divestment’s losing streak, calls for divestment have gained considerable momentum based on a single victory, such as the temporary support divestment had with the Presbyterian Church which was used to inspire hundreds of divestment projects between 2004-2006.

Divestment programs also tend to distort debate on college campuses, creating a discussion over whether or not Israel should be punished for its “crimes,” rather than pointing out the inaccuracy and unfairness of these very accusations or the responsibility of Israel’s accusers for the situation in the Middle East.

Divestment also tends to do tremendous damage to the institutions which embrace it, poisoning the atmosphere and creating hostile environments on campuses and elsewhere. For all these reasons, divestment needs to be fought whenever it rears its head within any civic institution.

So where has divestment been successful?

FAQ#9: If divestment has failed at colleges and universities, has it been successful anywhere else?

In 2004, a number of Mainline Protestant churches (notably the Presbyterians and Methodists) passed resolutions calling for divestment of their retirement portfolios from stocks identified by BDS activists as supporting the Jewish state. In fact, the success divestment had in penetrating major churches was the anchor for the BDS movement between 2004 and 2006.

As with universities, however, support for divestment in the churches turned out to be extremely shallow. While some church leaders supported divestment (as did a few regional churches, like the New England Methodists), the rank and file categorically rejected divestment calls, voting down divestment by margins of 95%-5% (the Presbyterians) or unanimously (the Methodists) in 2006 and reaffirming those decisions in 2008.

During this period, divestment was also attempted in some US cities (notably Somerville, Massachusetts and Seattle, Washington), but lost badly in both places. The same bait-and-switch tactics that played themselves out on campus were also tried at other institutions, but ultimately good sense prevailed and divestment was rejected.