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August 3, 2004
The PC in PCUSA
I normally do not comment on religious matters in this blog, but I'm going to make an exception. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Although my regular Sunday attendance is now at another denomination, I still go to PCUSA services in my old hometown often enough to keep track of their activities. But enough of that, and on with the post:
The Presbyterian Church USA is at it again.
The leftists who run the church HQ have decided that the policies of the state of Israel is so offensive to them that they will divest themselves of companies that do business in that country.
According to the General Assembly decision, any company which earns more than $1 million annually as a result of investments in Israel, or which invests more than $1 million a year in Israel, will be entered on a blacklist prepared for the church's leaders - the Presbyterians are likely to divest from any company that appears on this list.
This is important becuase we're talking about a mainstream church. You see their churches in most American towns and cities.
They've also got some 7 billion dollars invested in various funds and accounts. We're talking serious money
The church has tried to "clarify" their action, but I think the meaning is clear enough
In the aftermath of the storm over the divestment decision, the Presbyterian church plans to issue a clarifying statement soon, saying that it will not boycott every company that has investments in Israel, or earns profits from business with Israel.
The intention is to provide boycott exemptions to companies or entities which deal in education, social welfare and construction in Israel. The Presbyterians want to direct the divestment policy toward "companies that might cause damage and hurt the peace process," as Jay Rock phrases it.
What drivel.I've said it once and I'll say it again; is Israel perfect? No. Are the Palestinian groups all bad? No. But you'd have to be a moral idiot not to believe that Israel is infinitely better than the Palestinian Authority, or any of the competing Palestinian groups.
None of this is really surprising, though, to anyone who follows this church. Resolutions to oppose partial-birth abortion get voted down regularly at their national assemblies. And this is only the tip of the iceberg; they have taken a far-left position on virtually every issue; gun control, abortion, the war in Iraq, you name it. I only had time to link to one issue here so you can do the reseach yourself if in doubt but I've followed this closely for years.
If there's any good news in this church it is the Presbyterian Layman, a conservative group that acts as a watchdog.
Their membership numbers tell the real story; in 1965 the PCUSA had 4.2 million members. Today they're at 2.5.
What's both sad and frustrating, about it all is that so many of the individual denominations that make up this church are so good. The one that I went to (before I moved to Loudoun County) does good work both in the community and through it's mission projects. If all you did is attend this church and not pay attention to the activities of HQ, you'd never guess what leftists they are. How does the HQ get away with it? A letter to Glenn at Instapundit.com nails it:
I'm an elder in a PCUSA church and I am firmly convinced that the thing holds together--so far--solely backaches the pewdwellers have no clue what HQ is doing. HQ is in Louisville, but I've been dealing with that bunch of SDS retreads since they were on Riverside Drive in New York. They have been on the wrong side of just about everything that's been important in the last thirty years. In the days of the Cold War, I used to inquire if there were as many as one issue of US military or foreign policy in which the PCUSA disagreed with the USSR. Of course, in many cases one side or the other (presuming they were different sides) had a position and the other didn't. But nobody at HQ ever could tell me one where the two sides disagreed. They got mad when I asked. Once my term is over--end of the year--I am likely to leave. It's getting tougher to look my Jewish friends in the eye.
Posted by Tom at August 3, 2004 3:49 PM
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