09/24/2004: "Mainliners, human rights, and questions of prejudice"

Later today, the Institute on Religion and Democracy will be holding a press conference and releasing the results of a study of mainline church human rights advocacy that is most revealing. I received a copy of the press release prior to the news conference (it's up at the IRD site now), and will take a look at the full report when it's released. In the meantime, here's what IRD found:

The report examines resolutions passed by the highest governing bodies of four denominations�the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Methodist Church, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America�between 2000 and 2003. It also covers resolutions, press releases, and articles during that same period from the U.S. National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. The IRD report scrutinizes the churches' choice of the nations at which they aim their human rights criticisms. It uses as a yardstick the assessments of civil and political freedoms around the world compiled by the human rights group Freedom House.

Freedom House is generally considered one of the most accurate and genuinely non-partisan of human rights organizations, refusing to give breaks to regimes of either left or right. Their annual chart of the status of freedom in the world's nations has been an essential tool for human rights watchers for years.

The results showed that over one-third of all church criticisms of human rights abuses were aimed at a single small nation: Israel. Slightly less than one-third were aimed at the United States, and the rest were distributed among twenty other nations. Only 19 percent of the church criticisms were aimed at nations deemed "not free" in the 2004 Freedom House assessments. Many of the countries rated lowest by Freedom House�such as China, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia�were not criticized even once. Of the fifteen worst human rights abusers listed by Freedom House, only five received any criticism during the four years studied.

(In fact, it is far more likely that one of the Big Four would have something supportive to say. For example, in their overview of the situation in Burma, the Anglican Peace and Justice Network had this to say about the relationship between a brutal military government and a Nobel Peace Prize winner:

The international lobbying community should realize that giving backing to Daw Aung San Su Kyi, and her NLD Party, and praising whatever she does, while at the same time criticizing and downgrading all the actions of the military government, is a dead end. Myanmar's history is not that clear-cut and simple.

Both the NLD and the military government should realize that the destiny of their nation and people depends on their critical collaboration. They need to do their own homework. Outside people can only advise. Until and unless they learn to work together, there seems to be no hope at all.

That's an unusually, even excessively, even-handed approach that is rarely applied to Israel and never to the Palestinian Authority.)

"Israel is certainly responsible for some human rights abuses, as are all nations," said IRD President Diane Knippers. "But an extreme focus on Israel, while ignoring major human rights violators, seriously distorts the churches' message on universal human rights. We cannot find a rational explanation for the imbalance. We are forced to ask: Is there an anti-Jewish animus, conscious or unconscious, that drives this drumbeat of criticism against the world's only Jewish state?"

"Explicit criticism of Israel was completely out of proportion, in volume and in severity of tone, with church criticism of more notable human rights abusers," said IRD Research Assistant Erik Nelson, the primary researcher for the report. "That excessive criticism, paired with the fact that none of the churches or groups that we studied criticized human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority or other neighboring governments, certainly raises concerns about a prejudiced double standard. Mainline churches need to face frankly the possibility of anti-Semitism among 'our kind of people.'"

I think raising the question of motivation is entirely appropriate. The peace-and-justice types at the Big Four may or may not be anti-Semites, but they still have to account for the gross imbalance. For that matter, so do church assemblies. For instance, why did the PCUSA single out Israel for divestment this summer, and have not one word to say about Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most repressive countries?

Harsh mainline criticisms of Israel have already raised alarms in the Jewish community. A September 28 meeting in New York between top officials of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and leaders in the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements will address these issues, among others. IRD Vice President Alan Wisdom, co-author with Nelson of the report, commented: "I hope that leaders in my denomination [the PCUSA] will see this situation as more than a public relations problem with an external group [the Jewish community] that needs to be mollified. I hope that they will take this opportunity for some serious introspection, asking whether we Presbyterians have been faithful to our own Christian commitment to value equally the human rights of all peoples."

Knippers expressed her concern for the future of human rights advocacy in the mainline: "After the Cold War, some church leaders apologized for ignoring human rights abuses behind the Iron Curtain. Today the churches seem to be ignoring human rights abuses in other parts of the world, most notably the Arab world. Did these churches really learn anything from their failures during the Cold War? We need an entirely different approach for the 21st century."

An excellent question from Dr. Knippers. Check back for further information about what the IRD found.

UPDATE: The IRD press conference will actually be Monday, which is when the report will be released. More then.