On Sunday, Feb. 13, an adult class at St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Wayzata, MN, heard from the Rev. Nile Harper about recent tensions that arose after the actions of last summer's General Assembly regarding Israel and Palestine.

Specifically, the Assembly called for the office on Mission Responsibility through Investments (MRTI) to initiate a process leading toward selective, phased divestment from companies doing business with Israel in ways that support the military occupation, the construction of the wall of separation, and the demolition of Palestinian homes.

Dr. Harper has been involved in the discussions partly because of his position as chair of the church's Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and partly because he travelled last October with other members of the committee to visit Israel and Palestine, along with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.

One bit of fallout from the Assembly's action has been attacks on the church's long-standing program of using its investments to seek greater justice and peace through the working of the market. There is a nationwide campaign, promoted by several Jewish organization and by some Presbyterians, to overturn the divestment plan.

There has also been concern because two members of the church's national staff, both of whom were on the visit to the Middle East, were summarily fired by the Executive Director of the General Assembly Council. Serious questions are being raised about the process by which this was done. It is not consistent with Presbyterian polity to dismiss staff members without due process and full review.

In the discussion someone raised the question of "What can we do?" That is, how can we make our voices heard in protest both against the firing of the staff members, and in support of the church's program of divestment from companies that engage in behavior which undermines peace and justice?

Perhaps the best way to be heard is to communicate concerns to the four top officers of the Presbyterian Church, through letters or e-mail - both to question some of the actions that have been taken, and especially to support the program for responsible investments, which is called Mission Responsibility through Investments (or MRTI).

If you want to let your voice be heard, here are the people who should hear from you:

You might write to the General Assembly Council through its chair:

The Rev. Nancy Kahaian, Chair, General Assembly Council
121 West Ninth Street
Michigan City, IN 46360-3503
E-mail: nkahaian@adsnet.com

The GAC will be receiving the report on the staff firings in March, and should hear from people who are concerned about the Executive Director's action.

You might also contact any of these officers and staff members of the PC(USA):

The mailing address for all of these people is

Presbyterian Church (USA)
100 Witherspoon Street
Louisville, KY 40202

Mr. John J. Detterick, Executive Director
General Assembly Council
E-mail: jdetterick@ctr.pcusa.org

Mr. Detterick was the person who dismissed the two staff members: Kathy Lueckert, his Deputy Executive Director, and Peter Sulyok, Coordinator of Social Witness Policy.

The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, Stated Clerk
E-mail: ckirkpat@ctr.pcusa.org

He has been deeply involved in the interfaith dialogues with Jewish leaders at the national level about the policies of the GA in relation to the Middle East, including the initiative for selective, phased divestment.

Rick Ufford-Chase, Moderator of the 216^th General Assembly
E-mail: ga_mod@ctr.pcusa.org

As the top elected officer of the church, he has inevitably been drawn into the debates. He is director of the excellent BorderLinks program in Tucson, Arizona, and deeply committed to social justice and the peaceful resolution of conflict. As the top elected officer of the church, he has inevitably been drawn into the debates.

Also:

The Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman, Associate for Mission Responsibility through Investment
E-mail: bsomplat@ctr.pcusa.org

A few words of support and encouragement for his program, which has been effective in encouraging changes in corporate behavior on many fronts.

Gordon Shull of Wooster, Ohio, has commented before on the dismissal of two national staff members. We recently reported on the action of the General Assembly Council concluding that the dismissal was carried out according to proper procedures. Dr. Shull responds to this statement:

The statement by the GAC Personnel Subcommittee concerning the dismissal of Kathy Luckert and Peter Sulyok speaks only of the procedures by which John Detterick made his decision to dismiss them. Students of constitutional law know that a decision can follow perfect procedure and still be gravely flawed. (A legislature could follow all the rules in ordering capital punishment for Methodists.) We who were not privy to the subcommittee's proceedings therefore have a right to know more about just what happened that caused two such worthy representatives to be dismissed. I have presented some of the appropriate questions in a previous letter to the Witherspoon Society. None of these questions have been answered by the subcommittee. If we are to have confidence in the subcommittee's action, we need answers to these questions.

To repeat: a decision can be made according to proper procedures and still be unwise and improper. So we impatiently await a full report of what John Detterick said in advance to Lueckert and Sulyok, and by what authority; how they participated in the group's decision to talk to the Hezbollah; whether proper value was placed by Detterick on the principle that no religious or secular body, including the government, shall bind our conscience as we seek to love and understand our enemies; whether undue weight was placed by Detterick on statements made by members of the group, or on unexpected manipulation of the talks, or on sensitive discussions now underway over General Assembly policies.

Until we get the whole story, the GAC subcommittee's statement will look to many like a simple whitewash. That would not serve the church well.

-Gordon L. Shull, elder, First Presbyterian Church, Wooster, OH.
gbshull@sssnet.com

[1-12-05]

Dear friends,

I am indeed very upset by the firings. I think we should request an independent inquiry, and use the questions Gordon puts forth as basic talking points. I was a Missionary Advisory Delegate at General Assembly and served on the Peacemaking Committee.

I am worried, concerned and downright puzzled by the firings. I have made my voice known to the appropriate persons at General Assembly. I hope that the divestment process continues as mandated by our General Assembly. I also hope that our staff persons are upheld as the crisis generated by our decision to divest causes pressure from interest groups inside and outside our Church.

Rev. Donna Laubach Moros D.Min.

by Gordon Shull
[12-7-04]

Witherspoon member Gordon Shull has shared these personal reflections with us as his own expression of concern.

He is an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Wooster Ohio, and a frequent participant in presbytery and synod activities, is an emeritus professor of international relations at the College of Wooster. His teaching often engaged Middle East issues, and he attended the Presbyterian Study-Travel Seminar in Israel and the West Bank, led by Ben and Carol Weir in 1989. He holds degrees from Yale Divinity School and the University of Illinois. He can be reached at gbshull@sssnet.com

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Click here for background on this incident.

Surely I am not the only one who yearns for much, much more information about the events leading up to the dismissal of two of our executives who had participated in an interview with Hezbollah leaders and with the press.

A. Some preliminary questions:

1. Who sponsored the trip to Israel/Palestine? Who planned the itinerary? And what was the itinerary?

2. What groups or persons were on the itinerary? What groups or persons made up the delegation?

3. How did the possibility of meeting with Hezbollah leaders arise? How was the decision made to meet with them? Is it true that Mr. Detterick had instructed members not to meet with Hezbollah? If so, what was his authority for issuing this instruction? How was that instruction considered, both by the entire group and those who were dismissed, when the opportunity arose? How has the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy responded to this action toward its delegation?

4. What happened at the meeting with Hezbollah leaders? What did the Presbyterians hear, and what did they say? Did they engage in serious dialogue about the ethics as well as the prudence of suicide attacks? Had they engaged in serious ethical discussion with Israeli leaders?

5. Is it true that Mr. Detterick instructed the group not to have any press conferences? How did the possibility of a press conference, or press coverage, arise? How did the group respond to this possibility? What else happened besides a statement by Ron Stone? (Would we agree that a statement made by one member of the group should have no bearing on the larger question of the Christian justification of meeting with Hezbollah, and none on the more specific question of the fitness of others for responsible office?)

B. My curiosity is piqued by the following convictions:

1. As Christians called to love our enemies, to acknowledge our own sinfulness, and to be reconcilers, we should seek out all who consider us or our allies to be enemies. In a situation fraught with moral ambiguity on all sides, should we not talk to people of all sides? Might this not be an opportunity to learn from, and to influence, people who have come to see us as their enemy?

2. It is a violation of our own integrity, our own mission as a church, to take instruction about whom to confer with, on a peacemaking and fact-finding journey, from any secular or religious group. Why does the label "terrorist," applied to Hezbollah by the United States government, automatically mean that we should not talk to Hezbollah leaders, especially when our church has condemned terrorism and has also acknowledged the extreme pain under which Palestinians have suffered for half a century? We recall that Menachem Begin and other Israeli office-holders were labeled terrorists during Israel's war for independence.

And should the objections of a particular group of Jewish leaders, with whom we are engaged in delicate conversation, automatically control our attempts to be faithful to our mission to love, to understand, to confer with, those who have come to believe that we and our allies are enemies?

3. We can condemn suicide bombings - as the General Assembly has repeatedly done - and still believe that we can best serve the cause of peace with justice in our time by talking to our enemies as well as our friends.

C. These questions become more poignant as we realize that a great many Jews - including many connected with the Tikkun Community, Americans for Peace Now, Jerusalem Women Speak, and many others - are hospitable to the positions taken by the General Assembly. Are we engaged in serious conversation with groups like the Tikkun Community, Americans for Peace Now, and Jewish Voice for Peace? How do they view a Presbyterian study-travel seminar decision to meet with spokespersons across the left-right spectrum?

D. I cannot respect a decision to dismiss two (or more??) valued servants of the church until I have had authoritative answers to these questions. The answers should be solicited from the dismissed employees as well as the dismissers. At the very least, is it not imperative that the General Assembly Council explore all of these questions thoroughly, with both the dismissed and the dismissers? To do less is to be unfaithful to the General Assembly Council's high calling - and also, perhaps, to forget lessons taught several years ago by the Dirk Ficca episode.

Indeed, it is tempting to recall the Ficca experience. In the course of an eloquent, sensitive discussion of interfaith dialogue Ficca posed a Christological question in colloquial language ("So what is the big deal about Jesus?") These words were wrenched from context in high dudgeon and huge distortion - without attention to the context, without realizing that the question led directly to a serious discussion of Christian understandings of the work of God in Christ. Some Presbyterians in high places, apparently without reading the speech itself, gasped at the colloquial words and condemned both speech and speaker out of hand. Have we suffered another knee-jerk reaction in this case? We can only decide after we have considered carefully the questions posed above. Fairness, our own integrity, and our peace of mind demand no less.

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A Presbyterian minister comments on the note above:

Thank you for raising several important questions. I'm glad to know that there are other Presbyterians seeking more information and discussion about this issue.

Kathleen Eschen-Pipes
Santa Cruz, CA     [12-8-04]

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A visitor justifies the dismissal of national staffers:

Matters such as dialogue with "the enemy" should be left to the state

God's Word does not contracdict itself. It is just that we don't know it well enough to be able to reconcile "apparent" differences. Some state activities are best left to the authorities--collecting taxes, for example. If every citizen chose to take it upon himself to do the work of the state, anarchy would exist. The Word (Jesus and Paul) admonishes us to be good citizens--to obey the rules of the state we are a part of, unless to so do would be inconsistent with God's Word. God's Word allows for a nation to be at war and for that nation to take up arms against an enemy nation. God's Word, while condemning murder, does not condemn killing an enemy in a war (research the Hewbrew word for murder used in Exodus 20:13). "Rendering unto Caesar" sometimes requires a citizen in the military at war with an enemy to kill that enemy. When a nation is at War (we are), having ordinary citizens meet with the enemy without authority of the state is disobeying God's Word. These matters should be left to the state. "Loving your enemy" does not mean having meetings with him without authority from your state. It does not mean going out of your way to seek him out for you to fulfill some role with the enemy that you believe the state is not fulfilling. From scripture, "loving your enemy" means, when you happen upon his nearly dead body on the roadside in a nonmilitary situation (obviously not in a military mode), you do the decent human act to get him help. It is a misinterpretation of the intent of scripture to suggest that "loving your enemy" means seeking out meetings with him without state authority. But then, those with agendas typically don't care about scripture's intent.

Paul White
First Presbyterian Church of Bakerstown, PA

[12-23-04]

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