Pastors perturbed: Presbyterians rev up effort against anti-Israel resolution

When it comes to the Presbyterian General Assembly's stance on Israel, local Presbyterian leaders are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

The Rev. Art Mills of San Jose's Stone Church uses the strongest possible language to express his feelings.

He was at a morning meeting with members of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council following the G.A. resolution, when he found out the Presbyterian G.A.'s social action commission had met with Hezbollah in the Palestinian territories.

"I've been a Presbyterian all of my life, and that was my worst day as a Presbyterian," he said. "I'm glad the JCRC will even speak with us. It's something that needs to be done if we're going to change this thing."

Both locally and nationally, Presbyterian spiritual leaders are tapping into what they claim is a groundswell of anger at the resolutions, which condemned Israel's security barrier and the notion of Christian Zionism, raised the possibility of Israeli divestment, and continued the funding of a "messianic" congregation in Philadelphia.

The Rev. Doug Huneke of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon has kicked off a dialogue and petition-writing campaign as aggressive as his goals: He wants to reconvene the Presbyterian General Assembly a year early, in 2005, to throw out the anti-Israel resolution, and also seeks to have the members of the group that met with Hezbollah fired or compelled to resign.

The G.A. "has circled its wagons now, and I'm not able to get all the names of who is on that social action commission," Huneke said.

The pastor is also ramping up his interfaith dialogue efforts, working with local synagogues and the National Coalition of Christians and Jews. Sparking a conversation, he says, has not been a challenge.

"It's been easier. There's a lot of outrage in mainline churches about this thing. People are just very upset about the Hezbollah meeting, and have just found out about the G.A. [resolution]. The G.A. minutes only came out a month ago. Most people had no idea this had been done," he said.

"An overwhelming majority [of Presbyterians] are not pleased about this. Even though the resolution passed by a large vote, that body did not represent all the denominations. And I think they were led on by a group of pro-Palestinian folks in the denominational leadership."

The G.A.'s Israel resolution came as a shock even to insiders. The Revs. Donald Shriver of Manhattan and William Harter of Pennsylvania have been involved in Presbyterian-Jewish affairs for decades, and they co-founded the group Presbyterians Concerned for Jewish and Christian Relations in the 1980s.

At the G.A., they fought — unsuccessfully — against the continued funding of the "messianic" congregation in Philadelphia, which is housed in a Presbyterian church and has received hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet neither of them had been informed of the much further-reaching resolution condemning Israeli actions and pondering divestment.

Harter sees this as an oversight. Huneke, though, believes it was intentional.

Whatever the case, Shriver and Harter got to work repealing the resolution virtually the moment after it had passed. And, in "beating the bush" on speaking tours and petition drives, they say they've been plowing fertile ground.

"You should know, this divestment action evoked a veritable firestorm on the local level. It was an issue that really united liberals and conservatives. They may differ on other issues, but there's a very high level of unanimity against" the resolution, said Harter.

"At this point, the Presbyterian Church's stock with the Jewish community and Israel is at the lowest point it's been in 50 years.

"So, we have a lot of recuperating to do."