September 1990, Page 59, 60

Religion

Church Group Calls for Bush to Resume U.S.-PLO Talks

By the Rev. L Humphrey Walz

A resolution entitled "Keep the Middle East Peace Process Alive" was adopted overwhelmingly on June 26 by the 1,500-delegate continental Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. Convening in Milwaukee June 21, the day after President Bush suspended peace talks with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Assembly expressed the conviction that "the cause of peace will be advanced only when all interested parties have the opportunity to participate in negotiations."

Director Robert Z. Alpern, of the denomination's Washington Office for Social Justice, believes this action reflects the mounting UU concern over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This has been gaining momentum steadily since the UU General Assembly issued its first resolution on the theme in 1982.

Alpern, in his capacity as chair of the multi-denominational Churches for Middle East Peace, wrote Bush on April 9 in support of the administration's peace efforts, while asking that the USA-PLO dialogue be "deepened and broadened in the months ahead."

Kimball Reports on U.S. Church Trends

"Protestant and Catholic Churches Show New Support for Palestinians," the headline dominating page 1 of the July-August Link, is also the title of the Charles Kimball essay that all but overflows that issue.

While winding up his seven-year stint as Middle East director of the National Council of Churches (NCC), Dr. Kimball has produced this succinctly comprehensive and graphic summary of developments in U.S. Christian attitudes toward, and relations with, the peoples of the Middle East. To describe it fitly, one needs only to repeat his own well-worded tribute to "Toward Peace in the Middle East: Perspectives, Principles and Hopes," the November 1989 pastoral letter of the U.S. Catholic bishops.

"This document," he wrote, "unlike virtually all media coverage of Middle East events, demonstrates that it is possible to understand and identify basic issues as well as appropriate steps to address the issues. It provides clarity without being simplistic and hope without being unrealistic. Those who read and ponder the text will not easily retreat into the frequently observed excuse for non-involvement because 'the issues are too complex.'"

Numerically, American Christians generally fit into three almost equal groupings of about 50 million each: 32 National Council of Churches denominations, including the Orthodox, "mainline," and African-American Protestant denominations; Roman Catholics; and most evangelical, fundamentalist and Pentecostal congregations.

Between the first two, cooperation and empathy are growing. In the Middle East Council of Churches, both share full and equal membership. In the U.S., both tend to be on the same wavelength on refugee and disaster services and in official declarations on Middle East issues. Such declarations are becoming more specific and emphatic on equal rights for Palestinians. Kimball gives details. Perhaps the biggest surprise for some readers will be that the Bakker-Falwell-Robertson-Swaggert mindsets have no monopoly on Middle East attitudes within the third evangelical-fundamentalist-Pentacostal category. There are others in those denominations who are paying increasing heed to the primary plea from Christians and Muslims in the Middle East to Christians in the United States, "As citizens, please accept more responsibility for what your government does to us in your name."

Commenting on his excerpts from and summaries of official declarations emerging ever more forcefully from within these first two categories. Kimball writes, "it is often very difficult to measure tangibly the importance of church pronouncements, resolutions and policy statements. Depending on the breadth of its distribution and the seriousness of the debate it engenders, the potential importance of such a pronouncement is considerable."

The same can be said of his Link essay. If you wish to consider participating in its distribution and consequent debate, ask AMEU, 241 Interchurch Center, NY, NY 10115, for a copy. Though not a requisite, a modest check along with your request would be thoughtful.

Award to Catholic Near East

For the second year in a row, the Catholic Press Association has awarded First Place for General Excellence in the mission magazine category to the concisely articulate, profusely illustrated, ecumenically minded Catholic Near East. The following hasty glimpses at two of the articles in its current issue will give a sense of its feeling both for the victims and for those who try to make a difference in circumstances that have hit the headlines sensationally or have eluded the media totally. A third article suggests a need for a more energetic humility to make the churches more truly Christian amidst today's dramatic global developments.

"Enduring a Bloodbath in East Beirut" gives fresh insights into the importance of Pontificial Mission and other workers who operate riskily out of shattered facilities and rubble-filled basements to provide shelter, nourishment and healing when blocked roads cut off fuel, food and medical supplies, and telephone, water and electric connections are broken. Their courage, determination and ingenuity unheralded, they persist in the face of cold, privation, fatigue and the shame and sadness of recognizing that the recent troubles in East Beirut are, nominally, "Christian vs. Christian." The rewards for these Catholic humanitarians? Simply to "feel more needed" and to enlarge their circle of friendly helpers, including those Muslims of West Beirut who take care of refugees from Christian East Beirut.

"Ending of a History" tells of the almost unknown trials, hopes and despairs of 100,000 surviving Christians in present-day Turkey, which in the days of the Byzantine Empire was predominantly Christian. Citing evidence gathered by an ecumenical observer team headed by Dr. Otmar Oering of Missio, the German Catholic aid agency, the article reports gross official discrimination against churches and public humiliation of believers. It also recounts the devotion of the Capuchin friars in defending human rights and recovering confiscated properties.

"The Melkite Messenger" tells of Jerusalem-Alexandria Patriarch Maximos V. Hakim's leadership of dialogue among Christians, Muslims and Jews. He starts at the center of his own concentric circles with his prophetic challenge to Christians to be more Christian in their relations among themselves and with others. Of those with whom he works most closely, he says, "The Vatican and the Orthodox need to be converted!"

You may receive Catholic Near East by subscribing at $10 a year or by making a contribution to Near East Welfare Association, 1011 First Ave., NY, NY 10022.

Palestine, Israel and the FOR

The 75th anniversary of the international Fellowship of Reconciliation was celebrated by its Ameircan branch with a four-day July convocation at historic Conference Point on Lake Geneva, WI. High on the agenda was its session on "Nonviolent Struggle for Middle East Peace."

Panelists were Mubarak Awad, founder of the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-violence, Rabbi Marc Ellis, director of the Justice and Peace Program at the Maryknoll School of Theology, and Nancy Nye, formerly principal of the West Bank Ramallah Friends Girls School, now on the U.S. Friends (Quaker) Committee on National Legislation. President Phil Bentley of the Jewish Peace Fellowship spoke at a subsequent related workship, as did Zoughbi Zoughbi, a Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem who works in the East Jerusalem office of Mideast Witness, an FOR-sponsored project.

The June issue of Fellowship magazine had prepared participants with several pertinent articles. One, by chairman R. Scott Kennedy of the U.S. FOR Middle East Task Force, focused on the "Mideast Witness in Palestine and Israel." Another, condensed from the May Catholic Worker, upheld "Beit Sahour: A Model of Resistance." Pacifist Amos Gvirtz of Kibbutz Shefayim wrote on the work of FOR-affiliated Palestinians and Israelis for Nonviolence, and Deena Hurwitz interviewed Quaker Palestinian human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab on "The Intifada and Nonviolence."

Invitations to the event pointed to FOR's roots in a joint pledge by English Quaker Henry Hodgkin and his friend Friedrick Siegmund-Schultze, pacifist chaplain to the militant German Kaiser. Together they vowed to resist the oncoming World War I between their countries and to "sow the seeds of peace and love." During WWI, Siegmund-Schultze was jailed 27 times. Then, 25 years later, Hitler exiled him.

Habib on Religion, Conflict, and Peace

The Middle East Council of Churches having moved its central headquarters from violence-ravaged Beirut to the relative calm of Limassol, Cyprus, it was inevitable that the Cyprus Mail would have a reporter interview General Secretary Gabriel Habib on the MECC's approach to problems confronting the region's peaceseekers. The following observations have been culled from the resultant write-up:

"Religions can't solve political conflicts, but can contribute to their resolution by creating a proper climate of understanding." In some Middle East conflicts, such as those in Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Sudan, just as in Ireland and South Africa, "religions have been. . . abused or misused to mobilize masses and formulate ideologies. This has not contributed, to say the least, to solutions and reconciliation."

"That's why we urge people to find solutions, so fanaticism does not have time to create deadlocks."

The answer for the churches of the Middle East is not to avoid politics. Rather, "We, as Christians, would like to see that matters of faith in God are used to achieve justice and peace in a constructive way." Delays in resolving political conflicts help religious fanaticism and other forms of extremism to flourish, and create obstacles to achieving peace and justice. "That's why we urge people to find solutions, so fanaticism does not have time to create deadlocks. The danger is, the more you delay solution the more you make it possible for some political conflicts to become religious conflicts, which are even more complex and difficult to solve."

The Reverend L. Humphrey Walz, D.D., retired associate executive of the Presbyterian Synod of the Northeast, is active in denominational and ecumenical peacemaking movements.