Another round in the ongoing Protestant campaign against Israeli security measures is set for Tuesday, when the Disciples of Christ Church is to discuss a resolution calling on Israel to dismantle its West Bank security barrier.
The Disciples of Christ, a strongly liberal American church that broke from the Presbyterian and Baptist churches in the early 1800s, opened its annual general assembly in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
The "Tear Down the Wall" resolution that the organization is to weigh is basically the same one adopted at the beginning of July by the United Church of Christ, which shares a common lineage with the Disciples. Both churches have memberships in excess of one million people.
The Common Global Missions Board, an example of modern ties between the Disciples and the UCC, is a shared body that drafted the resolution on the security barrier.
"The Common Global Ministries Board," the resolution reads in part, "calls upon the Israeli government to cease the project to construct the barrier, tear down the segments that have already been constructed, and pay reparations to those who have lost homes, fields, property, and/or lives and health due to the barrier and its effects."
Although the language of the resolution is less incendiary than other anti-Israel divestment resolutions passed by other Protestant churches in the past few years, the fact that the resolution is even being discussed is enough to disturb both Jewish and Christian groups alike.
In the past, such groups as the Judeo-Christian Alliance and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have attempted to encourage members to vote down the resolutions.
On Tuesday as well, members of the Disciples of Christ are expected to demonstrate outside the Portland location of the Disciples assembly, together with representatives of the pro-Israel advocacy group Stand With Us and of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
"In the wake of the terrorist outrages in London and [the recent] suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Israel, this resolution sends the wrong message, at the wrong time, to the wrong people," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement ahead of the general assembly.
Disciples of Christ officials have already rebuffed a Wiesenthal Center request to shelve the resolution.
Here's a terrific wrap-up on the Disciples' General Assembly:
http://www.jewishreview.org/Archives/Article.php?Article=2005-08-01-1566
Posted by: EV | July 31, 2005 at 04:08 PM