MainlineTruths

Sudan Crisis Demonstrates the UCC's Failure to Promote Real Justice

Late last October, just before the mid-term elections, the United Church of Christ's Justice and Witness Ministries issued an "Action Alert" calling for the U.N. to send Peace Keepers to Sudan by encouraging people to pressure the U.S. government via an email. The logic? According to the alert, "It is time for the United States to take the lead in pressuring the Sudanese government to end the violence and allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to reach civilians."

Today, the U.N. Human Rights Council rejected a proposal to hold the Sudanese government responsible for halting atrocities in Darfur. As the Associated Press reports, "the council, which took over from the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission June, is dominated by African and Muslim countries that have sided with China, Cuba and other countries in preventing criticism of any government but Israel."

Make a mental note of that: China and Cuba, not the U.S., prevented the resolution from going forward. Instead of actually doing the right thing by leveraging the resources of the National Council of Churches and our ecumenical partners overseas to apply pressure to the countries blocking progress on the Sudan crisis, the UCC chose to play politics just before an election by suggesting that the U.S. was not taking the lead on Sudan.

OK, we get it. The UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries doesn't like the Bush administration... but is that worth dangling the lives of hundreds of thousands of people? As UCC members, do we really want to support these games?

The UCC's "Action Alert makes it clear that neither Justice and Witness Ministries nor it's Executive Minister, Linda Jaramillo, is really being serious about Sudan. Justice and Witness Ministries exists, in great part, by money raised by Our Churches Wider Ministries (OCWM) which receives it's resources from the generosity of UCC members. It would be too easy to tell other UCC members not to contribute money, but most churches barely contribute today. By the UCC's own numbers, less than 1% of churches give 10% or more of their current operating expenses to Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support. Encouraging people not to contribute to OCWM would literally be "preaching to the choir".

So what should you do?

Talk about it with other church members and educate them about the difference between political games and the real work of justice.

Another Art Show, Another Criminal

Solomonia is all over the Episcopal Divinity School's attempt to paint a cop killer as a "political prisoner". From Solomonia:

Unbelievable (or not).  Take a look at the rogue's gallery sponsoring this event (quoted from email):

Jericho Boston Presents

as part of their International Week of Solidarity with Political Prisoners:

Can't Jail the Spirit : Art by Political Prisoner Tom Manning

Can't Jail the Spirit exhibits Manning's paintings of political prisoners, freedom fighters, the earth and people struggling against oppression. Forhis actions, Tom Manning became a political prisoner ad has taught himself to paint inside the prison walls.

Can't Jail the Spirit was first displayed at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. A week after it went up, it was censored after intense pressure by state troopers and the police to shut it down.

Tom's paintings transcend concrete and razor wire, and show that they still can't jail the spirit!

WHERE: Episcopal Divinity School--Harvard University

OPENING RECEPTION: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 6:00-9:00pm

with: [snip list of losers]

For a calendar of related events visit
www.jerichoboston.org

Sponsors include:The Jericho Movement, Haymarket People's Fund, American Friends Service Committee, The New England Committee to Defend Palestine, Councillor Chuck Turner, Councillor Felix Arroyo, Voices of Liberation, episcopal divinity school, and the community church of boston.

www.cantjailthespirit.org

In case you had any doubt, Manning isn't a political prisoner, he's a convicted cop killer:

...Some time shortly after 1965, he was sentenced to five years in prison for armed robbery and assault, serving the last ten months in Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Cedar Junction. He claims it was during these years that he became heavily politicized, through his interactions with other prisoners[1]

After his release in 1971, he married Carol and together they produced three children, Jeremy, Tamara, and Jonathan.

Together with his arrest for the bombings, Manning was also convicted for his role in killing New Jersey police officer Philip Lamonaco during a traffic stop on December 21 1981. The killings launched the largest manhunt in NJ police history[2], and ended with the arrests of Raymond Levasseur, Patricia Gross, Richard Williams, Jaan Laaman, and Barbara Curzi on November 4th 1984, and Manning and his wife Carol on April 24, 1985. All of them were associated with the United Freedom Front...

Harvard EDS take note:

In September 2006, the University of Southern Maine removed his art from an art presentation, and apologised for allowing him to be heralded as a "political prisoner" by event organizers.

This looks like a trend with Protestant Churches making killers into heroes.

Bob Edgar's web site silent since election

As if we needed evidence, it's clear that National Council of Churches Bob Edgar's web site, MiddleChurch.net, was more about politics and the election than it was about building bridges. Edgar's life as a Congressman-turned-minister has been steeped in partisan politics... and at times to the detriment of the National Council of Churches.

Last September, the United Methodist Church (Edgar's own church and the largest member of the National Council of Churches) sent a "letter of concern" to the NCC over the departure of the Antiochian Orthodox Church and to “take immediate steps to understand” why the Orthodox church left the NCC. In the same letter, the United Methodist Church also expressed it's "disdain" over a politically loaded fund raising letter that Edgar sent out in June.

Edgar's initial reaction to the criticism he received from the letter was to suggest a conspiracy by "those who try to dilute our witness and mislead our friends by suggesting that the National Council of Churches is a partisan, left-leaning organization." However, his tune changed after the UMC letter. Thomas Hoyt, President of the National Council of Churches, said that Edgar now “has acknowledged that the letter was sent from the development office without proper review." That's the way the National Council of Churches admits a mistake without actually admitting a mistake.

FALN Terrorist Honored by UCC

The entertainment was great and the artwork was beautiful... but no one dared to mention the crimes committed by the artists (or the victims they killed and maimed) at an art show honoring convicted terrorists at the UCC headquarters last evening. For a church so vocal against violence and armed conflict, the silence said more than the art.

In his closing remarks, UCC President John Thomas referred to the artwork of Oscar Lopez Rivera and Carlos Alberto Torres as the "imaginative vision of Shalom" while plainly ignoring the violence which lead to their imprisonment in the first place. Thomas's fawning over convicted terrorist Alejandrina Torres without mentioning her crimes or her victims also spoke volumes about his character, his faith and his politics. Apparently, his often repeated message of peace and non-violence doesn't apply when it comes to people like Alejandrina Torres who was caught on surveillance video building a bomb in the 80's as part of her activities with the FALN. Instead of seizing the moment to, again, preach against violence, Thomas embraced the indignant and unremorseful Torres. Certainly an "imaginative vision of Shalom".

More disappointing than Thomas was Linda Jaramillo, the UCC's executive minister of the Justice and Witness Ministries, who called Alejandrina Torres a "friend" and "role-model".

The event did feature some beautiful demonstrations of Puerto Rican pride, but this pride really had nothing to do with the FALN terrorists, the artwork or Alejandrina Torres.

CAMERA Challenges Episcopal Church on its Portrayal of Arab-Israeli Conflict

From the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA):

Sadly, the Episcopal Church is not a trustworthy observer of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The church’s leaders and constitutive bodies routinely issue one-sided statements about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and its publications portray Israel as exclusively responsible for violence in the region. Moreover, the church has provided substantial support for anti-Israel activists in both the U.S. and the West Bank. Its so-called peace activism amounts to an ad hoc anti-Israel media campaign that serves to delegitimize Israel’s rightful place amongst the nations of the world.

Mainline Influence?

Mainline church leaders are giving themselves high marks for getting "a clean sweep of voter-approved wage increases in Ohio, Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Arizona and Nevada" although the real influence of the Mainline on the initiatives is questionable. A search on Google News yielded only 24 articles 30 days before the November 7 vote featuring the "Let Justice Roll" campaign, many of which were press releases.

Gay Controversies Overshadow Installment of First Female Episcopal Head

From the Christian Post:

Jefferts Schori’s installment has caused further division in the already divided Episcopal Church with seven conservative Episcopal dioceses rejecting her leadership. The dioceses oppose the new presiding bishop’s support of ordaining gays and permitting blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples among other reasons.

She had said in an interview with the Associated Press that she believes homosexuality is “how one is created” and the Church should help gays and lesbians find “holy ways of living in relationship.”

In 2003, she voted for the election of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

During Saturday’s installment ceremony, Jefferts Schori recognized the division within the U.S. Episcopal Church and responded, “If some in this church feel wounded by recent decisions, then our salvation or health as a body is at some hazard.” She called for members to seek “healing and wholeness.”

USA Today: Don't count the Mainline Churches out yet

USA Today's Cathy Lynn Grossman has been all over a study released in September by Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. As a follow-up to her original story of the study, she now looks at Mainline Churches and profiles St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Virginia. Contrary to studies showing a decline in Mainline Churches, St. Mark's is growing "from 500 to 1,200 people since 1997".

To highlight the "revival" of mainline churches, the article  points to Diane Butler Bass' book  Christianity for the Rest of Us which is full of anecdotal stories of success. From the USA Today article:

Yet church historian Diana Butler Bass argues that St. Mark is not an anomaly but a signpost of revival. It's living proof that headline-dominating conservative and fundamentalist churches aren't the only face of American Christianity.

In her new book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, Bass visits churches coast to coast to bolster her claim that the mainline is not dead — yet.

"Mainline" is shorthand among historians, statisticians and theologians for the Protestant faiths of the Founding Fathers, housed in landmark churches on downtown corners, still preaching the social justice teachings that have shaped many political, academic and philanthropic leaders to this day.

Bass set out on a Lilly Foundation grant to find 50 mainline churches rooted in the Gospel, rich in worship, strong in social justice, creative in spirituality and radiating hospitality. Instead, she found 1,000 thriving congregations from California to Virginia. St. Mark, nestled in the town where the British surrendered to Colonial forces 225 years ago, is one of the 10 churches highlighted in her book.

Bass' book is a sort of white-wash for declining Mainline Churches. Her projections of "strong in social justice, creative in spirituality and radiating hospitality" is not new message in Mainline Churches and it certainly is not driving growth for Mainline Churches whose numbers have continually declined.

While anecdotal stories of growth are good signs, Bass' book and the Baylor study don't seem to address the decline of membership in Mainline Churches while the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention are growing. Many people point to theological differences being the reason, but I'm not convinced. The late management guru, Peter Drucker, identified growing churches (and in particular, 'Mega-Churches') as those that foster community. When you look at what St. Mark's is doing to generate growth It's hard to disagree with Drucker's conclusions.   At some point, Mainline Churches will either get the message or simply fade away.