Palestine News Network lists PC(USA) divestment among bds achievements in 2014

In its roundup of BDS achievements for 2014, the Palestine News Network lists the Presbyterian divestment decision:

Years of grassroots organising pays off as the Presbyterian Church (USA) general assembly in Detroit votes to divest its holdings from three US corporations – Hewlett Packard (HP), Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar – on the basis of their well-documented record of complicity in the oppression and denial of human rights of Palestinians.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee “warmly thanks each and every person who supported and contributed to the BDS movement this year.”

Contrast this with the language inserted into the PC(USA)’s divestment decision:

“This action on divestment is not to be construed or represented … as … an alignment with or endorsement of the global BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement.”

And with Moderator Heath Rada’s comforting assurance:

“In no way is this a reflection for our lack of love for our Jewish sisters and brothers.”

Your fig leaf is slipping.  The world outside the peculiar atmosphere of the 221st General Assembly Meeting last June had absolutely no illusions about the action.  Most of the assembled commissioners had no illusions about the action.  Some lied about it; others lied to themselves about it.  But most understood the reality.

You cannot be a little BDS.  As an entity, the PC(USA) has endorsed (selective) boycotts, (selective) divestment, and (selective) sanctions.  Oddly enough, that sounds eerily reminiscent of some global movement of some sort.  As an entity, the PC(USA) has used resources at its deliberative assembly that are affiliated with just such a global movement.  As an entity, the PC(USA) has promoted resources for congregations, for Presbyterians, and others that have at times employed overtly antisemitic language.

Sure, there have always been reasons given why it wasn’t to be construed that way.  Sure, there have always been denials of responsibility for the more inflammatory materials.  But these also seem to ring hollow.

GA221 Moderator Rada on CNN

CNN interviewed Dr. Heath Rada, the moderator of the 221st General Assembly along with Rabbi Rick Jacobs president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Moderator Rada seemed to have great difficulty parsing the decisions of the GA.

Watch the interview here.

PCUSA GA221 BDS action applauded by David Duke

Wow.  Just wow.

We’ve heard from so many commissioners at the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 221st General Assembly (and their apologists) about how their actions were not related to the global BDS movement.  (I’m convinced the assertion is insupportable – as I detail here.)  We’ve also heard how these actions came from a place of love.

The sad part is, many (though by no means all) of the ones saying this actually somehow make themselves believe it is true.

I suggest they read this.  It is an announcement on DavidDuke.com

It is titled “Victory! Presbyterian Votes Israeli Divestment!”

And it contains a couple of very interesting assertions:

[W]e heard from friends at the Presbyterian Church national meeting who told us that they were victorious … the Church voted to divest from companies doing business in the brutally occupied West Bank.

And

“The [sic] tried to threaten the voters by saying that “David Duke” supports this policy and that the Church will get a bad name by supporting something that Dr.Duke has been tied to in the media,” Said Melissa Anderson who was there with close friends who voted on the divestment. “But, people are just not listening to the Jewish racist threats anymore, they are starting to stand up for real justice.”

And it conveys a statement from Dr. Duke congratulating the Presbyterian Church “for standing up to Jewish racism and supremacism!”

 

You must be so proud.

Yep … No doubt, it was entirely unforeseen that people would interpret your acts as anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.  No doubt, you couldn’t be more surprised and distressed because you’re so full of love.

Presbyterian BDS: What you want is irrelevant, what you have chosen is at hand

When the gavel fell, the 221st General Assembly officially concluded, the commissioners began to make their ways home, and the Committee On Local Arrangements was left to clean up the details, the official PC(USA) was firmly aligned with the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. This is not really arguable in any credible way.

Now I realize this assessment will be met with protests of commissioners, of many institutional Presbyterians, and quite a few local Presbyterians. I also realize many of those protests will be offered with sincerity, honesty, and confidence. But they will be mistaken.

The language of Item 04-04 – the divestment measure, reflects the desire of commissioners to avoid association with the global BDS movement.

For example, it begins with this:

“The PC(USA) has a long standing commitment to peace in Israel and Palestine. We recognize the complexity of the issues, the decades-long struggle, the pain suffered and inflicted by policies and practices of both the Israeli government and Palestinian entities. We further acknowledge and confess our own complicity in both the historic and current suffering of Israeli and Palestinian yearning for justice and reconciliation…” [sic]

For some inscrutable reason, the text falls off into tortured grammar here. And while it might be possible to discern commissioner intent, it is really rather nonsensical. Nonetheless, it is pretty clear that the ‘prologue’ is designed to indicate that Presbyterians are really swell people who really get the complexity of the issue and mean nothing but good for everybody concerned.

Next, commissioners generously reaffirm Israel’s right to exist … not so much as a Jewish state, but something.

Then they declare their commitment to a two-state solution.

But the real clincher … the proof that their BDS is nothing at all like global BDS lies in the same paragraph as their divestment instruction:

“This action on divestment is not to be construed or represented by any organization of the PC(USA) as divestment from the State of Israel, or an alignment with or endorsement of the global BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanctions) movement.”

So there you have it … Nothing to see here, folks … This is not BDS … We’re doing this out of love ….

Some of their words might sound good. Some of them might sound kind. Some of them might sound vaguely Christian – and I have no doubt they want their “stand” to be genuinely good.

There’s only one tiny, little problem: their actions.

What General Assembly Commissioners, what Presbyterian officials, what naïve supporters want is irrelevant. What they have chosen is at hand.

Let’s look at that.

1. First there is divestment itself. Contrary to popular myth, the companies selected for this special treatment (Caterpillar, Motorola, Hewlett Packard) were not chosen at random. They were already targets of a then embryonic BDS movement. Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the BDS movement knows their campaigns specifically targeting these companies. If there was some other method, some other rubric the MRTI applied to evaluate the then current and potential holdings of the Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation, it has not been revealed. How then did they zero in on these particular companies? Ecumenical partners? Well some of these are the very BDS activists who issued the Amman Call [The PC(USA) commended this call for BDS in 2008.] and the Kairos Palestine document [the PC(USA) endorsed elements of this in 2010].

Committee 4 (essentially a sub-committee of the GA) that evaluated the proposed divestment recommendation and endorsed it, was staffed with resource people who offered one perspective only. I mean here, specifically, an anti-Israel perspective. Interestingly Rifat Kassis spoke to both this committee and the General Assembly as a whole. Mr. Kassis is coordinator of Kairos Palestine; he has publicly endorsed a total boycott of Israel.

Anna Baltzer, national organizer for the BDS US Campaign to End the Occupation said this prior to the General Assembly:

“…Inspired by our Presbyterian friends an [sic] allies, the US Campaign is mobilizing around the clock before and at the votes — everying [sic] from organizing outreach to decision makers to testifying in committee as an official resource expert.”

Pro-BDS former Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase spoke to the committee for half an hour. He was the moderator of GA 216 that first approved divestment in 2004.

More than one commissioners from Committee 4 expressed concern on the floor of the General Assembly plenary about the lack of balance in information available to the committee. From beginning to end, the divestment action has the fingerprints of the global BDS movement all over it.

2. Second, the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA) took conflicting, inconsistent, and self-contradictory actions. And their actions were more telling than their words.

While voting to assure the world of their commitment to a two-state solution, this same General Assembly also voted to initiate a study on whether the PC(USA) should continue to support a two-state solution. It put this study in the hands of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy – a permanent committee of the General Assembly whose record of anti-Israel animus is well-documented. This GA also insisted that the ACSWP use horribly flawed and inaccurate materials and consult with the IPMN (an unspecified, but the only relevant mission network) and the National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus. After Zionism Unsettled, the involvement of the IPMN in ANY study that concerns Israel should set off alarm bells even for the harshest Presbyterian critics of Israel.

This GA voted to assert that Zionism Unsettled – a resource endorsed by, among others, David Duke – did not reflect the views of the PC(USA), but it also voted to have the PC(USA) continue to distribute it.

This GA also voted to affirm “Occupation Free Investment in Palestine”. It commended the efforts of the pro-BDS Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s efforts to “excludes any investment in enterprises that benefit financially from the operations of the occupation, including the expansion of settlements.”

Yes, this GA rejected the proposal “On Distinguishing Between Biblical Terms for Israel and Those Applied to the Modern Political State of Israel in Christian Liturgy”; but it insisted on adding a cryptic comment:

[W]e take the matter of language, and specifically the tension around the use of the term “Israel,” very seriously. We hope the discussion and education about the use of language continues.

Though it may be self-evident to commissioners, it causes others to wonder exactly what they are saying here. What is the nature of the distinction they wish to make, and what exactly are they trying to educate people about? One likely interpretation of this is that it is an attempt to cut the Jewish people off from their biblical heritage. Given the comments of some Presbyterian activists on the subject, it would not be unreasonable to assume that hateful meaning.

3. Third, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is not just divesting. It is already on the record as boycotting “all Israeli products coming from the occupied Palestinian Territories, including AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories Beauty Products and all date products of Hadiklaim, The Israel Date Growers Co-Operative Ltd, often marked by the brand names: King Solomon Dates and Jordan River (not Israeli products from Israel.)” It has already “called on [its ecumenical partners] to join in the boycott.”

When the PC(USA) has called “upon all nations to prohibit the import of products made by enterprises in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land”, or when it has called upon conditioning US funding of Israel to various behaviors of Israel, it has been calling for sanctions.

The bottom line here is that any claim that divesting from companies chosen by BDS activists, boycotting products chosen by BDS activists, using BDS activists as resource persons in the committee which considered the divestment proposition – as if they were unbiased and credible sources of information, commending the Occupation Free Fund and other more stringent divestment vehicles, calling for sanctions … has every bit as much credibility as sentences that begin, “I’m not a racist, but ….”

Yes, I know this is not what the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA) wants, but it is what it has chosen.

 

Reflections on the PCUSA GA221

 Over the next couple of days I’m going to address what just happened at the PC(USA)’s 221st General Assembly in Detroit.

I’m a sucker for quotes – a personality quirk.

As I was considering the events of the PC(USA)’s 221st General Assembly while the smoke clears, several quotes leapt to my mind:

“All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

“Only ignorance! only ignorance! how can you talk about only ignorance? Don’t you know that it is the worst thing in the world, next to wickedness? — and which does the most mischief heaven only knows.” – from Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty

“I don’t hold jail against a man, but I hate a liar.” – Will Anderson (John Wayne) in the Cowboys

“There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery.” – from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers

But two quotations stood out as apt reflections of my thoughts on the assembly: “What you want is irrelevant, what you have chosen is at hand.” – Spock to Valeris in Star Trek VI; and, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” – from 2 Peter 2:22.

My next two posts will address each of these quotes.

 

And Now for Something Completely Unexpected

The New York Times is already reporting the PC(USA)’s choice for divestment as part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement.

Commissioners tried very hard to pretend that they could be D supporters without the BS.  Doesn’t work that way.

 

UPDATE:  AP articles are reporting it the same way – as BDS.  [Seems reasonable to me … just saying…]

PCUSA Divests by Seven Votes

Moderator Rada insists, “In no way is this a reflection of our lack of love for our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

I’m sure that means a lot.

Of course, the moderator is now agreeing that divestment “affirms our Palestinian friends And our Jewish friends”.

And can’t Presbyterians feel so good about themselves now that they’re so affirming?

I have no words.  Tomorrow I will feel pity for the PC(USA) as a whole.

It is done.

In Process

Watching this GA vote on various Middle East Issues reminds me of sitting through the trial scene in to Kill a Mockingbird.  You know – where Jem was sure Atticus one because his was the only argument that made sense.  But Scout knew better.  She got what was going to happen.

 

UPDATE:  5:10 and this is excruciating.

 

UPDATE 2:  5:44 Minority report failed by about 10%.  This makes divestment a lot more likely.  They are preparing to break for dinner and take up the main motion afterward.

 

UPDATE 3:  The plenary should reconvene tonight at 7:30

We’re Up

The General Assembly is now considering Middle East Issues.

If you’re interested, you can follow it live here.

My Problem with the PCUSA GA221

 Like many Presbyterians, I haven’t gotten enough sleep this week. It takes so little to make me happy: a fresh pot of coffee, a sermon that is biblical, finding a song I like on the radio, a new book – almost any book, conversations, a watchable movie, even the weather. Last night I watched a strong thunderstorm for over an hour; it held my attention the entire time.

 But when I’m tired, all bets are off. I have to be very careful exactly how I react to things. I am overly tempted to kibitz, make snarky statements, respond in kind to unkindness, and indulge in occasionally satisfying, but not entirely helpful, rhetoric.

 Watching the PC(USA) General Assembly from afar is an experience almost designed as an irritant. I was going to keep it at arms length because almost everything that can be said, has been said. Now it’s all just words. I was all set to watch a repeat of a Dexter episode … it was either that or follow the excruciating GA committee process. Maybe I should have stuck with the Dexter episode.

(I imagine it is a sad comment when a story about a serial killer strikes me as more appealing than the GA, but that’s a separate matter.)

It should be noted, I am not now a member of the PC(USA) denomination. (I have not been for a few years. In an odd twist of circumstance, I am currently attending a PC(USA) church. And I have suspected a couple of times that my very presence causes them problems with presbytery. But that’s a story for another time.) The thing is, I have only ever been a member of the PC(USA). I have only ever been an elder in the PC(USA) – a function of the ‘warm body theory’ that governs in so many of our smaller churches. I like my local church; love the people – they are many of my friends. I have ties (of family, friendship, and participation) to several local PC(USA) churches.

So … I can’t escape it. Like it or not, what happens in the PC(USA), and what a General Assembly does affects me. And I find, no matter how troubling I might find a GA, I cannot look away. Worse, I find that I tend to be harder on or expect more from the PC(USA) than I might from, say, the National Education Association, the Teamsters, the Masons, or the GOP.

A few things about this General Assembly process bother me – more than they seem to bother others.

1. Because I am following this from a distance, I am obliged to read twitter feeds, comments, reports, and opinions from people more on the scene. Frequently enough, I can’t resist responding – at least to their more outrageous or false statements. Sometimes I just get picky. I have a relatively low tolerance for false and misleading statements – whether the speakers believe them or not. I also have a relatively low tolerance for hearing the same old arguments that don’t hold water – that are based on false premises, that aren’t logical. Most of the time, I bite my tongue (Yes … most of the time I do). Not always.

   More troubling than these is the contempt that people show for their opponents. The jokes they try to make that aren’t funny. The way they refer to the OTHER … and just because you think yourself progressive doesn’t make your anti-Other bigotry less odious. Disagreeing is one thing; soundly criticizing and argument – no problem; objecting to a behavior – OK. But this goes much, much farther. It amounts to trying to make a joke out of people you don’t like. I read so many comments insulting people AS people. And always, it was justified because, well, if they weren’t bad or ridiculous, they wouldn’t think different thoughts than you do.

   I have zero patience with this. I find it an extremely ugly feature of the PC(USA) General Assembly.

2. I am troubled by the great gulf fixed between the actual time and effort commissioners put into decided very difficult issues and the praise they heap on themselves and others heap on them. The fact is, many of these issues are intensely complicated. And horribly few people have enough knowledge and experience to decide them effectively.

   This GA, for example, approved a policy they called “Tax Justice”. Now, most of us can agree that the US tax system needs some work. Yet, only the tiniest portion of commissioners who voted for this understood the complexities they were swimming in. Instead, the committee relied on the expertise of the ACSWP. Such an uncritical reliance is NOT expending the effort needed to make wise decisions. Instead, this is the action of a rubber stamp committee. It is questionable whether the ACSWP put in a lot of work that wasn’t simply recycled from other progressive talking points.

   [As a matter of personal opinion, I happen to agree with a couple of features of this particular measure, but in toto, I think it somewhat horrifying.]

   However you may feel about individual actions, there is a bottom line. Without doing the work, commissioners are making pronouncements that are inescapably arrogant. Please understand, commissioners are run ragged at a General Assembly – but the time limits and workload has the effect of precluding competence. Apropos of their approach to this, the GA is being praised today because it managed to ‘complete’ its work yesterday an hour and a half early.

   Much better for everyone if they’d attempt to do fewer things better.

3. Process is important to me. Presbyterians historically valued the admonition, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” What I have seen here – and in fact, my limited experience in presbytery meetings and watching other General Assemblies – are rampant violations of process. And the majority doesn’t much mind this because they like the outcomes.

   To me, that is inexcusable. I am persuaded that getting a desired outcome at the expense of correct process – for example, failure to give full and correct information, weighting a committee in one direction, biased moderation, peculiar parliamentary rulings – is immoral.

   This really doesn’t seem to bother people all that much. If they’re on the losing side, they know (rightly) that it isn’t fair – and therefore isn’t right and is hardly the type of action that should be carried out by a church. If they’re on the winning side, it’s all good. Or worse, their powers of rationalization allow them to lie about it – even to the point of not seeing it.

   Institutional Presbyterians have liked the phrase, “Speaking truth to power”. Now, in some instances, they have been right. But in their own processes, they fail to acknowledge that they are the ones in power. Who will speak the truth to them?

   The thing is, if there is an established process, if there is a set of rules everyone agrees to, then the unempowered minority has legitimate avenues for action. They can (and usually try to) advocate for their positions. If, however, this process is warped – I would term it corruption even where it benefits me, because that is how I see it – but more charitably, if there are procedural irregularities, unempowered minorities – the losers – are left without redress. They have no recourse. Sure, the winners make a big (and patronizing) show about unity and reconciliation, and preach to them about how they should act, but they leave them no practical options. It rings false. And to compound this with seeming gracious, spiritual sounding and quasi-Christian words is more demeaning than helpful. It is the same voice always used by the powerful toward the unempowered.

4. I am appalled by the use of Christianity for alien political ends. Worship times designed to support certain desired vote outcomes strike me as positively obscene. [One example of this occurred in Committee 4 – Middle East Issues. During her devotions, the vice moderator decided to draw the attention of her committee to the fact that Jesus wasn’t afraid to tell the Jews that they were wrong. Of course, she seems to overlook the fact that Christianity teaches both that Jesus was Jewish, and that Jesus was God incarnate.]

   I have a bias here. I have a distaste for the practice of politics. I also find that Christianity rejects utterly the pursuit of money, political power and influence. It rejects the desire to get my way, to extend my influence, to use my money as leverage. To me, divestment is a prime example of grossly misplaced priorities. At its heart, divestment is more about Presbyterians’ (self-perception of their) money, political power, and influence, than anything else. My very first reaction to the 2004 divestment decision was this: why exactly does a Christian church [sic] have billions of dollars in investments? This very fact disturbed me – something about “Silver and gold have I none …” and camels and eyes of needles. But to use those investments as a weapon … and then claim to be speaking prophetically …. It was more than I could bear.

   Here again there is a bottom line: using religious speech to attain some other goal – no matter how much we might want it – proclaims that we believe our religion, indeed our ‘god’, exists to be used. Presbyterians – like all of us – can either work to get our way, to remake the world as we think it should be, to acquire wealth and use it as a weapon, to expand our influence in this world, or Presbyterians can follow the spirit and teachings of the New Testament. They cannot at the same time do both. None of us can.

For General Assembly Home Gamers

Many of the controversial issues considered by this General Assembly have been considered by committees, but remain to be decided by the whole assembly.

Committee recommendations are, of course, not official actions of the PC(USA).  They are indicators of the mood of a General Assembly, and there is a higher likelihood that the plenary will take the action recommended by the committee.  Nonetheless, I’ve seen this go either way many times.

In the meantime, we wait.

If you – either Presbyterian members, or concerned non-Presbyterian stake-holders, are trying to follow this from home, you might find these links helpful:

1.  The PC(USA) General Assembly plenary meetings are live-streamed here. 

This, of course, would not have helped us follow committee deliberations as they were not streamed.  However, some of the reports from the committees will be presented today, and the more controversial votes will likely take place tomorrow.

If nothing else, watching this will give an insight into the odd process of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) politics.  The effect of blending religious worship, spiritualized language and church jargon with political wrangling is – and should be – rather jarring.  It doesn’t lend itself to clear thinking and good decision making.  It does, however, lend itself quite freely to the manipulation of commissioners without their complete awareness.

2.  The docket gives an indication of the times issues will be debated.

This is NOT a hard and fast thing because business items can always be reconsidered – or even sometimes rescheduled if discussions on other items go long.  But if you have an issue that concerns you closely this will give you an idea when to tune in.

The version of the docket I have linked to has Middle East issues being addressed Friday afternoon.  The item on distinguishing between “biblical Israel and the modern State of Israel” (that the committee recommended against) should come up tonight.

3.  PC-biz is a system that has been used for several General Assemblies now.

I find it easiest to follow the progress of specific items by looking under the “Committees” tab.  Here is where you will find the current status of business items – how committees handled and what action the whole GA has taken.

This is particularly useful if you want to know the exact wording of a measure, or if you want to see the supporting materials that accompany it.  The fact that many business items have been amending during the process makes this more complicated and more important to keep straight.

This was done by Committee 4, for instance in that the committee chose not to act on the MRTI divestment recommendation, but instead to amend an anti-divestment overture – keeping its more spiritual and ethical language, but adding divestment to it.  Someone simply following the overture could easily be confused because now, it takes the exact opposite action than that intended by its authoring presbytery.

 

Friday

Per the PC(USA) GA docket, it looks like Committee 4 – Middle East Issues – will be considered by the full assembly on Friday afternoon.

This is the proposed docket only – so that time-frame is still tentative.

To see the business conducted in committees today visit here.

Update on PC(USA) Support for Two State Solution

It seems Committee 4 passed item 04-01 “On Reviewing General Assembly Policy Regarding the Two-State Solution in Israel Palestine” without any amendment or alteration.

Of course, this is not an outright rejection of a two-state solution; it only calls for a reconsideration.  If it passes the plenary, it will still not be “acted upon” until the next General Assembly in 2016.

Given the records of the people specifically tasked with this project, I can only say with absolute certainty that it will be bad for Israel.

Perhaps members of Committee 4 were very naive; perhaps they meant well.  (For example, someone said that all 8 YAADs supported divestment …) It doesn’t matter really – we only have their results to look at.  And these are pretty much uniformly bad.  Uniformly unfair – they do not take into account legitimate perspectives that don’t follow their basic narrative.  Uniformly dishonest – they spring from dishonest sources, and they foster continued fictions.  Uniformly unhelpful – nothing in this committees recommendations, if taken, will in any possible way increase the likelihood of peace or bring any conceivable benefit to any Palestinian or Israeli – with the possible exception of a tiny handful of professional activists.

 

On a Positive Note

Unlike its companion, Committee 4, Committee 7 – “Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations” – voted to reject an overture from the Presbytery of Chicago “On Distinguishing Between Biblical Terms for Israel and Those Applied to the Modern Political State of Israel in Christian Liturgy”.

Since the design of this overture was to sever the ties between ancient, biblical Israel and modern Israel – and by implication, between ancient Israel and the Jewish people – it was problematic at best.

In fact, whenever churches have emphasized this distinction historically, they threw open the floodgates to Christian antisemitism.

I’m not suggesting that the modern state of Israel is identical to biblical Israel, but to deny the relationship between the two is foolish and dishonest on the best of days.

In their action on this matter, Committee 7 chose to follow the “advice and counsel” of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, and it chose to reject the contrary “advice and counsel” of the Advocacy Committee for Racial and Ethnic Concerns.

ACREC urged Presbyterians to go farther and insist that “This distinction should be made by worship leaders whenever ‘Israel’ is used in a worship setting, whether in hymns, prayers, confession, or sermon.]”

Fortunately, wisdom prevailed in committee 7.

Nonetheless, as with all the decisions taken today, nothing is final until after the whole assembly meets.

 

Thankful for Small Hypocrisies

Well, at least PC(USA) GA Committee 4 thinks Zionism Unsettled doesn’t represent the PC(USA).

While it was, of course, produced by an official mission network of the PC(USA), and while it was heartily endorsed by a former long-time stated Clerk of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly, and while it is distributed by the PC(USA) … it really has nothing to do with Presbyterians.

Could it be that the lack of support of Committee 4 for Zionism Unsettled has less to do with the work’s objectively offensive content than it has to do with David Dukes fawning praise of it?

I’m sure I don’t know the motivations.  But it is at least a relief that Presbyterians can rest easier knowing there is no relationship between them and Zionism Unsettled.

 

Mazel Tov.