The anti-Israel Religious Left has a new target for its fury,
and it’s not anybody like old nemeses like evangelical Zionists Pat
Robertson or John Hagee. It is Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop
Katharine Jefferts Schori, who recently dared to criticize
anti-Israel divestment schemes.
“The Episcopal Church does not endorse divestment or boycott,”
Jefferts Schori recently told a Los Angeles “peacemakers” luncheon.
“It’s not going to be helpful to endorse divestment or boycotts of
Israel. It will only end in punishing Palestinians
economically.”
Although reliably liberal and politically correct, Jefferts
Schori and most of her denomination don’t identify with anti-Israel
zealotry. In contrast, zealous activists within the United
Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church (USA) are trying to
persuade their upcoming governing conventions to target Israel for
divestment. Episcopal Church opposition makes their argument more
difficult.
So understandably, anti-Israel groups like Sabeel are
distressed. “If the church is afraid to cry out against injustice
and oppression, the living stones, the common people will cry out,”
warned Sabeel chief Naim Ateek in a letter to Jefferts Schori.
Based in Jerusalem, Sabeel is a nexus for anti-Israel organizing
between Palestinian churches and Western church activists. Guided
by the last remaining vestiges of Liberation Theology, which shook
the world in the 1970s by linking Christianity with Marxist
revolution, Sabeel summons churches to rally for Palestinian
“liberation” from Israeli oppression. Ateek is himself an Anglican
priest and frequent speaker in the U.S.
Ateek told Jefferts Schori that her anti-divestment remarks had
“shocked and hurt us,” by which he presumably meant Palestinian
Christians for whom he purports to speak. Theatrically, and citing
Holy Week, he described their pain over her stance to Christ’s
suffering during His crucifixion: “They felt like nails hammered
into our bodies and the truth of our reality, as though we
Palestinians are living a lie — only imagining things, and if we
only eat, talk, and share our stories, everything will be
alright.”
Recalling the “ongoing agony, pain, and oppression of our
people” across “40 years of misery,” Ateek told Jefferts Schori
with anguish that, “We only hear ‘the Episcopal Church does not
endorse divestment or boycott.’” Painful indeed.
Ateek cheekily told the offending Presiding Bishop that
Palestinians had already recognized Israel in 1988 and its right to
exist in 1993, had also renounced “terrorism” (which he put in
quotes) and generously accepted a Palestinian state on 22% of
“historic Palestine,” i.e. the West Bank and Gaza. Yet still the
occupation inexplicably grinds on. Only boycott, divestment, and
sanctions as “nonviolent direct action” can serve the common good
at this point, Ateek explained.
“We thank God for those people — Christians, Muslims, and Jews
who have eyes to
see and ears to hear,” Ateek declared, implicitly contrasting
them with Jefferts Schori. “Thank God for people of conscience who
are lifting up their prophetic
voice!” He cited retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
who ostensibly has declared Israel’s policies worse than Apartheid.
Ateek closed by remembering Christ as He entered Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday, greeted by victims of Roman oppression, and refusing to
silence the crowds. Of course, Jesus did not offer political
revolution but redemption from sin. But the prophets of Liberation
Theology, now fewer in number since Marxism’s demise, were never
very
interested in redemption.
Another angry voice over Jefferts Schori’s audacity in not
backing anti-Israel divestment is James Wall, an ordained United
Methodist who for many years edited the once prestigious liberal
Protestant journal Christian Century. Wall’s political and
theological myopia led that magazine almost to ruin, until he was
succeeded by more moderate voices. But Wall is not silent,
especially regarding Israeli oppression and its abettors,
apparently including Jefferts Schori. “An appalling shallowness has
descended over Mainline Protestantism,” he sneered over her refusal
to back divestment.
“Martin Luther King, sitting in that Birmingham city jail, would
most certainly inform these prelates that there is no debating
evil,” Wall harrumphed. “A brutal military occupation is not open
to debate.” He tut-tutted the “collective ignorance” in the
Mainline denominations that refuse to aim their battering rams
against Israel, on an issue that is “justice, pure and simple.”
He implicitly dismissed the likes of Jefferts Schori as “robed
religiosos, dripping with interfaith piety.”
Wall intemperately likened Jefferts Schori’s urging of
constructive investment among Palestinians to performing good works
inside the “largest outdoor prison.” He also likened her remarks to
“blatant Israeli propaganda” and compared her to
an “American politician scrambling for Israel Lobby money,”
which must be the worst insult Wall can imagine. Except he also
compared her to a 1950s white Southern bishop complacently urging
the segregated and segregators to live together peacefully.
“Bless you bishop, but there are people in Palestine on protest
hunger strikes,” Wall scowled. “Others are dying under the boot of
a brutal occupying army.” He seems to imagine the West Bank as a
place akin to Poland under the Third Reich, when actually most West
Bank Palestinians live under Palestinian rule, while Gaza is
controlled by Hamas. Widening his critique, Wall condemned “The
New York Times” as a biased “Israeli hometown paper.” He
quoted a “source” speculating that Jefferts Schori has surrendered
to the “copout of ‘interfaith’ wishy-washiness-cum-cowardice,” i.e.
caring about Jewish relations. Wall regrets the “Israel Lobby” has
taken her captive on behalf of the “Zionist enterprise.”
No doubt Episcopal reluctance to jump into the vat of
anti-Israel boiling oil that Wall and Ateek prefer is influenced by
desires for good relations with American Jews. But it’s also true
that the Episcopal Church, though obviously very liberal, is not as
politically intense as other Mainline Protestants. For example, the
Episcopalians were noticeably absent in recent religious
demonstrations before the U.S. Supreme Court for Obamacare. They
also skipped a recent interfaith call for a “faithful” federal
budget that shifts well to the left of the Obama Administration and
most congressional Democrats.
Sabeel and the former editor of Christian Century are
placing their hopes in Presbyterian and United Methodist
anti-Israel divestment proposals. But both denominations have
previously rejected divestment by wide margins at their governing
conventions. The anti-Israel Religious Left may have betrayal to
stoke their anger before this summer ends.
