As support for Israel erodes in many Western countries, especially among liberals and the millennial generation, American-Christian backing for the Jewish state is considered one of the bulwarks against such trends. But not all Christians feel warmly about Israel. During the past several years, a number of leading mainline Protestant churches—including the United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, and most recently the United Methodist Church (UMC)—have considered or voted on resolutions supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In May, at the Church’s quadrennial general conference in Portland, Ore., UMC committees rejected four resolutions that called for divestment from companies doing business in Israel, such as Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard.
“What happened at the UMC’s general conference is a miracle,” Dexter Van Zile, a Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), told JNS.org.
Van Zile praised the Methodist delegates for going a step further in their decision by voting to encourage UMC institutions “to disaffiliate with the U.S. Committee to End the Occupation, a far-left anti-Israel agitprop organization that includes ISM (International Solidarity Movement) groups that condone violence against Israel and others that agitate for Israel’s destruction.”
“These decisions place the UMC on a separate planet when it comes to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Van Zile said. “On this planet, the adults are firmly in charge. These days, that’s pretty rare.”
Ethan Felson—executive director of the Israel Action Network (IAN), a strategic initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs—said the UMC’s vote highlights the benefits of liberals and conservatives working together.
“IAN applauds the strong stance of the United Methodist Church general convention in rejecting divestment by a sweeping margin both at the committee and plenary level. Liberals and conservatives came together to reject divestment and investment screens at the general convention,” Felson told JNS.org.
While the Methodist Church’s rejection of BDS—and a similar rejection by the Episcopal Church at its general convention in 2015—mark positive developments for pro-Israel advocates, there remains a broader challenge to win over more support from other mainline Protestant churches. Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ (UCC) voted to divest from companies doing business in Israel in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Related article: JCRC Meeting Addresses BDS Among Christian Denominations and on Campus
7 Comments. Leave new
“BDS has also gained traction by making church activists and leaders—particularly within the UCC and PCUSA—to feel influential and important, Van Zile argued.
“These two churches in particular are dying, just dying. Losing members and churches, every year. Wading into the BDS movement guarantees they will get at least some—even negative—coverage in the media,” he said.
THAT comment right sums up everything that’s wrong with the louisville sluggers
A few more conservative and traditional faces will disappear from the table.
When I was a teenager in my UP church, we had close ties with the synagogue down the street. The confirmation classes attended services there and met with the rabbi, and the two congregations held joint fellowship dinners, and exchanged preachers. Now the same church, now PCUSA, has no ties with the synagogue and there is a definite anti-Jewish sentiment. It is heartbreaking and the reason I withdrew my membership.
Oh goody, just got a email showing De La Rosa prancing around Wendy’s headquarters with 60 other protesters, I’m sure they were shaking in their shoes in the board room. Oh our Presbyterian mission agency, what would the Lord do without them!!!!!
Once the usual suspects of liberal mainline denominations got in bed with the BDS movement it was unavoidable that certain understandings and correspondence would be exchanged with all sorts of characters. And some of those characters and organizations are indeed racist and antisemitic from any objective reference. In that they hate Israelis, and by extension Jews, for the simple fact they happen to be Israelis and Jews.
Until the PCUSA, UCC, UU, etc. Clean up their own houses they richly deserve their fates of irrelevance and nothingness in terms of what they bring to the table in all things Israel-Palestine.
Again another example of ill-liberal liberals who only like free speech when they happen to agree with it, and only like toleration, they get to define and impose exactly what to tolerate on everybody else.
All will be on display in a few weeks at the traveling circus, freak show, political theater, celebration of mediocrity that is all things GA.
How sad and disappointing to have the Church organization used to fulfill one’s politics and to use the power of positions to the dismay of others supporting the Church’s purpose. What statement would better illustrate our religious and constructive beliefs better than attempting to harm corporations supplying some of the highly regarded instruments building hospitals, schools, homes, communication links, roads, as well as defenses, Etc.
What best can we who hang praying for a better direction of their Church and its goals, do? ……sAnd while those who seek God travel elsewhere. What joy can it be for those who lost or won a vote?
This is what passes for social action, justice in the PCUSA now. Cheap and easy. De La Rosa getting folks into his car in the Louisville parking lot and driving them to the local regional Wendy’s HQ or outlet and joining the usual suspects of Sander’s supporters in their latest outrage. Your per capita at work I suppose, but things are indeed tight in all things PMA, but at least the lawyers are getting paid.