Last month, the PC(USA)’s Office of Interfaith Relations put out an excellent paper titled “Vigilance Against Anti-Jewish Ideas and Bias”; to the surprise of many, it was (and is) an excellent piece of work, searching and honest in its examination of the ways in which Presbyterians have been guilty of “anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish motifs and stereotypes, particularly as these find expression in speech and writing about Israel, the Palestinian people, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and steps toward peace.” Consequently, it garnered considerable praise from evangelicals in the denomination.Given the way things tend to operate in the PC(USA), the cynic in me is tempted to think that someone saw that praise and decided they must have done something very, very wrong; whatever the reason, the original paper has now been strangled in its bath and replaced by something very different under a revised title: “Vigilance against Anti-Jewish Bias in the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” The actual concern for vigilance against anti-Jewish bias is, to say the least, much more muted in this new paper; there is, however, a great deal of concern for how awful Israel is. It’s also far more self-congratulatory, to the point of arrogance, as Viola Larson notes; where the first document was an honest confession of denominational sin, the new one is effectively a frontal assault on that confession. That’s a shameful thing for those who are called to follow the Way, the Truth and the Life. I think the Rev. John Wimberley, of Western Presbyterian Church in D. C., said it best in his letter to Presbyweb:
I simply don’t know how we can release a document, receive high praise from the Jewish community, withdraw it and release a new document which profoundly angers the Jewish community and all of us who have spent a lifetime trying to build trust between Presbyterians and the Jewish community. This is beyond bad process. This is bad ministry. Who will trust our words in the future? Why should they?
The internal conflict over Israel/Palestine in the PCUSA is a great example of how political polarization seemingly poisons everything we try to do. One group has chosen to unjustly focus on Israel, while the other unjustly focuses on Palestine, meaning everything we try to say and do as a denomination is truncated, stuttering and hamstrung. Any good thing we say on either side gets wrenched back for fear that the Other Side will see it as weakness and choose that time to strike. Its so absurdly frustrating, and its entirely rooted in an imported sense of conflict and threat that has nothing whatsoever to do with being the church.
There’s a lot of truth in that; I think, though, that the persistent habit of denominational leadership of choosing sides on many issues, including this one, makes it worse–it sets up a series of counter-reactions, an inflammation reaction. I’ve seen in my other denomination, the RCA, that having leaders who are focused on making sure the process works equally for everybody and that everyone feels listened to can go a long way to reducing that irritation.