As for me and my house …

The following is  letter from me to members of my congregation.  It was read at this morning’s services.

August 16, 2009
Members, adherents, and friends of St. Stephen’s United Church:
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Though I am on holiday at present, I believe that recent events make it important that I speak to you today and so I am writing this pastoral letter.  Over this last week United Church members from across the country have gathered in Kelowna to meet as the General Council of the United Church.  For those who might be new to, or unfamiliar with our denomination’s polity, the General Council meetings are the national embodiment of the denomination and this is the 40^th such gathering since the church was formed in 1925.  I have been keeping as close an eye on the proceedings as I think a non-participant can, and I would like to take this opportunity to keep you up to date on some matters that are of particular interest to us. 
First, our church has a new Moderator.  Her name is Mardi Tindal and she is the 4^th layperson to serve in this position.  Presently she is the Executive Director of the Five Oaks Centre, a United Church education centre near Paris, Ontario, but she is probably best known to us from her work as one of the hosts of Spirit Connection, the United Church television program on Vision TV.  I would encourage you to keep Mardi and her family firmly in your prayers over the next 3 years as she presides over a denomination that is in substantial transition.
Amidst the intimidating number of resolutions that were discussed by the Commissioners to the meeting, some were of special interest to me in that I know that their passage would have a significant effect on our fellowship.  One proposal that came from Saskatchewan Conference would have removed  congregational autonomy in some significant areas of setting local policy around accessibility to services.  One of those areas would be in limiting our ability to set local marriage policy.  That proposal was defeated.  Saskatchewan Conference also forwarded a proposal to remove the Articles of Faith from our founding document, the Basis of Union.  Passage of the resolution would, in my opinion, inevitably result in a drift from the larger Body of Christ.  Again, I was encouraged to see that this proposal was rejected by the General Council. 
I am very well aware that St. Stephen’s was visited last Sunday by two members of the local Jewish community who had some concerns about the General Council meeting.  First, let me thank you for receiving this couple with such hospitality and respect and offering them some opportunity to be heard.  You make me proud!  I understand that they were quite concerned about a series of resolutions put forward by some members of Toronto Conference, resolutions that were quite critical of Israel, one actually going so far as to call for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions.  Of special concern to many reading these proposals was the language of the supporting background material, material that the General Council meeting identified as being “provocative, unbalanced, and hurtful,” that Jewish observers in attendance at the meeting described as “hateful,” and that others have gone so far as to portray as anti-Semitic.  Please know that the proposals were quite rightly rejected by the General Council.  Still, of concern to me are comments that have been offered by some in leadership in the denomination, comments that lead me to believe that we could expect similar proposals in the future.  To be clear, I have no issues with criticism of the state of Israel—it is by no means without error and deserves, as do all nations, to be held to account for its actions.  My difficulty is with the way that Israel seems to be held to a unique standard and is subject to massively disproportionate levels of condemnation.  Genocide in Darfur, the oppressive regime in Burma, the use of rape as a tool of war in the Congo, the abysmal abandonment of Palestinian people by the nations surrounding Israel—all are strangely free from discussion and censure in this court of the church.  We must ask why this is the case.  To simply dismiss the possibility of anti-Semitism being at play is not an option for us.
This situation is profoundly unsettling and I believe that as a congregation we have been given a call to become more fully engaged in this issue.  As such, I am proposing that we begin to explore some ways of better understanding the complex issue of relations between Israel and the Palestinian people and I am looking forward to finding some ways to expand our friendships with the local Jewish and Islamic community.  While I will be asking the Education Team to put this on its agenda for the September meeting, I am also hoping that all members of the congregation will start thinking about how we can contribute positively at the local level and beyond. 
As you can imagine, I have some other thoughts to share with you about the work of the General Council and the state of the denomination in general, but these are things that can certainly wait until I return from holiday.  At that time I will be making a point of spending some time with the Commissioners who represented our Presbytery at the meeting and getting their thoughts.  I expect that they will be very helpful in bringing other important issues to our attention.  Until then, and as always, I trust that you will keep St. Stephen’s United and the whole of the Church in your prayers as together we look for ways to live faithfully and share the Gospel of Jesus with our neighbours.  See you in September!

Shalom

Phil
 

I haven’t yet seen anything but the video of an interview with GC staff person Bruce Gregerson, but it seems that the UC has dodged catastrophe on this one, walking away from this mess with the usual flesh wounds that we typically bear after having entered into an area in which we have little expertise.  A couple of thoughts.  First, this is an attempt to do some face-saving.  Certainly that’s what seems to be happening in giving the other courts of the church (Congregation, Presbytery, and Conference) “permission” to do what we are already permitted to do.  If our local church had wanted to boycott someone somewhere, we could have been doing that well before today.  Thanks for the paternal encouragement but we don’t need your permission, friends.  Secondly, what’s this “end the occupation” reference?  Referring to “occupied” territories is just imflammatory and betrays an unhealthy bias.

We really are taking a beating in the press … and rightly so.  That the proposals around Israel are still being discussed is completely beyond understanding.  Since the background material has been declared to have been “provocative, unbalanced, and hurtful,” it only makes sense that the resulting proposals are really “fruit of the poisoned tree,” the result of biased and hateful thinking.  A reasonable church would leave this issue to allow some thoughtful analysis to take place and perhaps revisit the subject at a future gathering.