General Convention
Justice - Relationship - Humility - Jewish
As usual things are heating up around the Palestinian, Israel, Hamas, Iran, US weapons and support, antisemitism issue. If I missed something please add it in your comments. General Convention is around the corner. There have been hearings. Executive Council weighed in.
This posting is an attempt to offer readers an overview of the various positions. I know, it’s foolish of me. I will get yelled at for things done and left undone.
Still, I think we Episcopalians will be best served if our members and especially the delegates have at least taken notice of the various positions being put forward. So, I’ll give that a try below. However, I want to also say, that it would be even better if everyone voting at General Convention had fully researched the positions, being sure to read material from those who see it differently, and spend the week before GC on retreat. Yes, I know — foolish of me.
Here are some of the recent articles I’ve read. Please add material you have found useful in the comments.
Justice - Relationship - Humility - Jewish
Justice
A Moment for Justice in Palestine and Israel
“No lasting peace can be achieved nor justice established until Israel’s military occupation and control over Palestinians comes to an end and Palestinians and Israelis have equal rights, freedom, and self-determination.” These resolutions offer an opportunity for General Convention to move in that direction.”
“We invite you to study the rationale and principles of the BDS movement and to join us and a growing international community in this non-violent strategy to end injustice and to launch us on that long path to peace.”
Relationship
Stop Resolving and Love Your Neighbor
“To announce and prosecute your neighbor’s perceived transgressions without attempting to know or love your neighbor is to posture. Humanity did this toward another Jew about 2,000 years ago, using nails and a cross. Outraged protests, posts, and resolutions do not result in knowing your neighbor. Rather, they result in silencing your neighbor and declaring that resurrection and new life are not possible.”
Humility
Antisemitism is like crabgrass : A time for humility
“We are Benedictines who hear our brother saint calling us to humility in stages. We begin as we pray that God’s will may be done in us. The end being where we attain to the perfect love of God which casts out all fear. So, might our beloved friends gathered in convention pray with us that God’s life be our life and that we might make a beginning by acknowledging what it is that we fear within ourselves in our insistence and impatience.”
“What we are seeing is targeted, repetitive, and extreme harassment that is aimed at a specific community of people. We know where this leads. Might this moment call for concrete responsibility over abstract principle?”
Jewish
Two Jewish Episcopalians.
Antisemitism in the Episcopal Church
“ time…persecutors reached for the highest form of justification available. In the Middle Ages, it was religion. In post-Enlightenment Europe it was science: the so-called scientific study of race. Today it is human rights.’ Here one encounters anti-Semitism in the guise of human rights discourse that is focused on the policies of the State of Israel but is also often subtly critical of Jewish peoplehood. In the name of human rights, one sees Jewish history, memory of past trauma, and religious experience, including a devotion to a land that Jews were the first to call holy, challenged or repudiated. The Episcopal Church is not immune to this strain of anti-Semitism.”
Against Those Who Hate Jewish Flesh
“After the devastation of the Holocaust, many Christian denominations created statements explicitly condemning anti-Judaism and supersessionism, and yet in a contradictory fashion much of the anti-Jewish racism spilling out of the Hamas attack is from Christians, from those very same denominations, the Episcopal Church included. I must wonder if such post-Holocaust statements are empty words, similar to false promises made to other ethnic minorities. As a Jew in the Episcopal Church, I have a special ability to feel the arrows of anti-Jewish racism in an obvious way that Gentile Christians cannot. So, when such arrows are shot in my vicinity, I feel compelled to speak up.”
This abides,
Brother Robert
On the Feast of Noah Seattle, Chief of the Duwamish Confederacy