Social policy statement on Iraq sides with anti-war movement
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 26, 2004
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – While acknowledging that Presbyterians have different opinions about the U.S.-led war on Iraq, the denomination’s social policy agency takes the side of those who believe the invasion was “unwise, immoral and illegal.”
On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy approved a policy statement titled “Iraq: Our Responsibility and the Future.”
The 17-page report will go to the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for final action. The annual session will be held in June in Richmond, Va.
The Iraq statement is highly partisan, as has been one of the people it commends, Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick. It stridently opposes the military action that led to end of Saddam Hussein’s rein of terror and slaughter of thousands. The statement concludes that the military action could not pass muster as a “just” war because it was an attack without provocation.
The report makes a number of unquestioned assertions that conflict with congressional action that gave President George W. Bush the authority to strike against Iraq. For instance, it says, without considering the contrary view of national leaders, that the attack “is not directly or necessarily connected to the effort to deal with the threat of terrorism.”
It calls for the United Nations – and not the United States – to assume the major responsibility for rebuilding Iraq and facilitating “the transition to peace, freedom and participatory government in Iraq.” One of the late substitutions in the document was the word “participatory,” which replaced democracy.
It commends Kirkpatrick “for his strong leadership in opposing, on the basis of previous General Assembly policies, the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq, and for his leadership among world religious leaders in calling for interfaith cooperation to address the crisis created by this action for relations between Christians and Muslims.”
Further, it expressed regret that the Bush administration refused to meet with “religious leaders seeking to offer a full explanation of their opposition to an invasion of Iraq.”
The “religious leaders” cited by the document are principally members of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches. Kirkpatrick has been a leader in both organizations and has helped secure major funding for them from the PCUSA.
As a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, Kirkpatrick concurred with an anti-U.S. resolution that implied that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes because of the invasion.
That implication was affirmed by a World Council of Churches official and published by the Presbyterian News Service. After numerous Presbyterians contacted his office to criticize him, Kirkpatrick later denied that he personally favored war-crime trials of Bush and Blair.
The ACSWP statement includes a recommendation that the General Assembly reaffirm the denomination’s “solidarity with Iraqi Christians, especially the churches of Iraq, with whom we have had a strong bond of partnership for more than a century and a half, as they make their witness in their own society to the faithfulness of God, and as they seek to have a significant role in the rebuilding and progress of their own country.”
Before making their final revisions in the policy statement on Iraq, ACSWP asked Victor Makari of the PCUSA’s Worldwide Ministries Division to describe the impact of the war on the denomination’s five partner churches in Iraq.
“Generally, they are saying that the war situation has brought enormous misery,” Makari said, “but, nevertheless, they think that something good will come out of it. While they have reservations about the way the war was carried out, they are saying they want to look to the future rather than the past. There’s a new sense of optimism about the future.”
The U.S.-coalition occupation in Iraq has created competitive problems for the PCUSA’s partner congregations, Makari said. He criticized evangelical groups that have entered the country, “enticing church members to join them.”
The Iraqi churches are also worried that they might be left out of having roles in a participatory government.
Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Makari said, “They had representation in government, jobs in almost every ministry in government,” adding that in many cases, Christians were the second in command. “Relatively speaking, Christians have enjoyed full citizenship participation. Now they are concerned that they might be marginalized.”
He also said, “The Iraqi churches had no problems getting permits for buying land and getting church buildings going up.”