The Layman – October 2004 Volume 37, Number 4 – Posted November 8, 2004

Praising terrorists shames the PCUSA The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, which has a long history of embarrassing Presbyterians with its leftist policy statements, has crossed the line again. This time, the commission led a 24-Presbyterian delegation to the Mideast. Two of its members gave comfort to the enemy when they met a Hezbollah leader in Beirut. Hezbollah (“Party of God”) is a radical Islamic group that has been condemned by the United States, the United Nations and Israel, among others, for terrorist activities. According to the U.S. State Department, Hezbollah was responsible for two bombing strikes that killed 270 Americans. Yet, Ron Stone, a member of the commission, and Nile Harper, its chairman, gave interviews to Hezbollah media in which they praised Hezbollah and reiterated the PCUSA’s condemnation of Israel for construction of a wall to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from murdering more innocent men, women and children. (See story beginning on Page 1) The statements by Stone and Harper drove deeper the wedge between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Jewish groups and many Christians are horrified that the PCUSA would allow its emissaries to speak so irresponsibly, knowing that the slightest provocation can ignite another major conflagration in the Mideast. The day after The Layman Online published a story about the comments of Stone and Harper, Presbyterian leaders in Louisville, Ky., the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA), issued a statement saying Stone and Harper did not reflect the views of the denomination. That’s only partly true. Certainly, the official position of the PCUSA condemns terrorism. But the 216th General Assembly approved a controversial resolution about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that called for the denomination’s divestment of funds in multinational corporations doing business with Israel with no proposed sanctions against Palestinian terrorists. The statements of Stone and Harper added to the growing international perception among Jews that the PCUSA is anti-Israel. This is not the first time the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy has displayed an arrogant disregard of Biblical and social-political realities. It once assisted in producing a paper on euthanasia that dared to raise the question of whether Jesus committed suicide. It helped produce another paper on communities by imagining a grand heavenly feast in which all are surprisingly welcomed by a pantheon of Gods – Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Gaia, etc. Its original study on families all but mocked the traditional family as representative of God’s will and endorsed as equally valid cohabitating couples and homosexual partners. Fortunately, three General Assemblies rejected the committee’s papers on euthanasia, community and families and ordered that they be rewritten. The work of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy has dishonored Christ and undermined the Christian mission of the Presbyterian Church (USA). According to various estimates, the PCUSA paid between $50,000 and $100,000 to send the denomination’s delegation to Beirut and give Stone and Harper a stage to undermine the effort to bring peace in the region. Perhaps other members of the delegation were more faithful witnesses, but the denomination’s leaders should never have allowed the delegation to meet with a terrorist group in the first place. There is a way to respond. As the directors of the Presbyterian Lay Committee have urged in their Declaration of Conscience, ministers and elders serving on church sessions should “prayerfully consider” redirecting their national per-capita apportionments to ministries that honor Jesus Christ. Some Presbyterians still know what it means to bring “on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.”

Respond to this article Index of Layman editorials Home · News · PLC Publications · The Presbyterian Layman Online Reviews · Archives· History of the Lay Committee · Feedback · Links