09/28/2004: "IRD report hits hard at mainline on human rights"

The Institute on Religion and Democracy has posted its report entitled "Human Rights Advocacy in the Mainline Protestant Churches: A Critical Analysis" on its Web site. It's 40 pages long, and has a simple thesis: the human rights advocacy work of four big mainline denominations�the Episcopal Church USA, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America�along with the National and World Council of Churches, show a disturbing bias in what countries they take to task for human rights violations. Among the data:

In total, the mainline churches and ecumenical bodies studied produced 199 criticisms addressing human rights concerns in twenty-two nations during the four years we studied. Of the eighty-eight free nations, six were criticized. Free nations were the target of 145 of the 197 criticisms, or 74 percent. Of those six nations, Israel and the United States were by far the most criticized, together receiving 135 of the 145 criticisms, or over 93 percent, of all criticism of free nations. Of free nation criticisms, Israel received seventy-two, or 49 percent, while the United States was criticized sixty-three times, or 43 percent.

Of the fifty-five partly free nations around the world, five received criticism by the mainline churches. Partly free nations were the target of fifteen criticisms, or 8 percent of the total number of criticisms.

Only eleven of the forty-nine not free nations received criticism. They received a total of thirty-nine criticisms, or just over 19 percent.

(The expressions "free," "partly free," and "not free" come from the Freedom House chart published annually. The IRD report describes the methodology this way: The Freedom House survey assesses nations in two broad categories: political rights and civil liberties. Questions include whether leaders are chosen in free and fair elections, whether freedom of association for the creation of trade unions and political parties is honored, whether citizens are granted property ownership and whether citizens are free from government indoctrination. Freedom House rates each nation on a scale of one to seven for political rights and civil liberties. It then combines those two ratings and places each nation into one of three categories�free, partly free, or not free.) (p. 11)

Among the nations criticized by the six organizations were South Korea, Burma, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Mauritania, and Laos (once each); Britain, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala (twice each); Colombia and Zimbabwe (four times each); Pakistan, India and Sudan (six times each); Indonesia (seven times); Iraq (twelve times, usually in the context of a condemnation of UN sanctions or US policy), the United States (63 times), and Israel (72 times). Of the nations the Freedom House calls the fifteen worst human rights offenders on the planet, only five (Sudan, Burma, Laos, Cuba, and Vietnam) come in for any criticism, and then only 11 times altogether. The other ten�China, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan�receive no criticism at all. That means the U.S. comes in for human rights criticism almost six times more often than the fifteen worst nations in the world combined, and Israel 6.5 times as often.

The report's authors, Erik Nelson and Alan Wisdom, take a stab at suggesting possible reasons for this extraordinary disparity in public attention paid to Israel and the U.S. as opposed to any others. At least one makes sense and is unobjectionable�except for the WCC, all the others are U.S. based, and can reasonably be expected to criticize the actions of the own government more than most if not all others. The fixation on Israel is harder to rationalize. Nelson and Wisdom suggest several possibilities:

1) that Israel (and the U.S.) are held to a higher standard because they are Western democracies that value human rights;

2) that the organizations are acting in solidarity with church partners in other nations, and directing their criticism in accordance with how they are guided by others;

3) that multiculturalism and values relativism have caused the organizations to look with a more jaundiced eye on some violations of human rights than others, depending upon the culture and values of the offender;

4) that the organizations are seeking to be peacemakers, and therefore want to avoid demonizing those who are violating human rights, for fear of losing their political leverage (this would have typically been the excuse for silence about Communist atrocities during the Cold War);

5) that the organizations are using an ideological template to view abuses, seeing Western and American imperialism as the primary force behind evil in the world, and especially behind human rights abuses;

6) anti-Jewish bigotry.

I suspect that each of these plays at least some role, large or small. At the same time, there are problems with each of these possible explanations, as the authors explain. For instance, if these organizations want to try to help bring about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, why would they demonize the Israelis, but never, ever have a bad word to say about the Palestinian Authority (which is never named as a source in their condemnations of terrorism or suicide bombing)? With regard to the last in particular, the authors are careful to say that "We have not heard any U.S. church leaders make statements in public that are blatantly anti-Semitic" and "We do not assert that it is inherently anti-Semitic to criticize actions or policies of the state of Israel. Many of Israel�s own citizens do so on occasion." (p. 31) One possibility that they don't consider that I think should be thrown into the mix is the operation of a kind of "herd mentality" operating among many on the religious and political left. If you live in an echo chamber where everyone sounds alike, you're going to go reflexively back, over and over again, to the same themes, the same issues, even the same bogeymen. I'd be interested to know how often one or more of these organizations came out with statements on a human rights situation at the same time as one or more of the others, and the extent to which they all sounded alike.

Nelson and Wisdom conclude with several recommendations, including:

1) "Churches must broaden their human rights advocacy";

2) "Churches must reaffirm the transcendent origin of human rights" (think God as the source of human rights, as the Declaration of Independence affirms and Pope John Paul II has been teaching for years, rather than rights being granted by governments that can obviate them whenever they feel like it);

3) "Churches must reconsider inadequate notions of peacemaking" (recognizing that conflict comes about, not just because of misunderstandings or a lack of enough "dialogue," but also because genuine evil is real and must sometimes be dealt with in line with a biblical notion of justice);

4) "Churches must confront the worst violators of human rights" (not just the easy targets, and not just those on the front pages of the New York Times);

5) "Churches must be advocates for those in partly free nations" (because it is these nations that the churches may be able to make a real difference in the lives of the oppressed, especially in gaining enough space for indigenous Christians and others to bring about change in their own governments);

6) "Churches must be more balanced in their approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," which goes hand-in-hand with their last two recommendations, that "Churches must learn how to address human rights abuses in the Muslim world�including the Palestinian Authority," and "Churches must take the issue of anti-Semitism seriously."

I'm sure there are quibbles one could have with the report, but all in all it looks a terrific piece of work. But not from where the usual suspects sit, however:

The Institute of Religion and Democracy's report titled "Human Rights Advocacy in the Mainline Protestant Churches 2000-2003," released today (Sept. 27), addresses the important matter of human rights in a fatally flawed way.

The report assumes that all that the National Council of Churches USA does or says about human rights gets reported out in resolutions and news releases. It ignores the NCC's sound, comprehensive policy base on human rights, especially the foundational "Human Rights" policy adopted by the Council's highest governing body in December 1963, and that body's November 1995 reaffirmation and expansion of that policy, "Human Rights: The Fulfillment of Life in the Social Order." [I'm sure�well, not really, but let's assume�those are fine documents, but the authors' response would probably be that the NCC has regularly ignored them in the way it's gone about it human rights advocacy work.]

In truth, the ideologically conservative IRD cannot claim to have produced an objective report, having among other things used another ideologically conservative group, Freedom House, as its barometer on human rights. [First time I've ever heard Freedom House called this, but let's say it's true�does that mean China or Saudi Arabia are free by any reasonable standard? Or that Israel isn't? How about dealing with the substance of what Freedom House says, rather than just dismissing them as "conservative"?]

The NCC naturally addresses many public statements to the government of the United States out of concern about how our own country behaves as a global citizen.

The most unfortunate part of the IRD's report is its apparent attempt to hurt Jewish-Christian relations by quite blatantly planting seeds of suspicion that the mainline churches are anti-Semitic. The IRD wrongly and dangerously equates any criticism of the government of Israel and its policies with anti-Semitism.

The NCC seeks justice for all people in the Middle East. It is working for justice in the land where our Savior walked and where our Christian brothers and sisters, along with Jews and Muslims, are crying out for justice. The NCC grieves all loss of life, including Palestinians and Israelis, and has said so. [The NCC may "seek justice" for all people in the Middle East, but it obviously cares a lot more about whether Palestinian olive groves are accessible than whether Copts get thrown in prison in Egypt or women have any rights in Afghanistan or Christians can worship without fear of the religious police in Saudi Arabia, etc. At least if caring is measured by public statements. As for the NCC "grieving all loss of life, including Palestinians and Israelis," that's great�so why no specific condemnation of the PA, or Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, or the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but repeated condemnations of the Israeli government by name? Why not even one word of condemnation for the PA's oppression of their own people?]

We regret the IRD's attempt to play partisan, secular politics with important matters of Christian faith and ministry.

That's the Rev. Bob Edgar not responding to the report. Oh, he thinks he responds, but in fact there's nothing here but ad hominem attack, name-calling, politicized distortion, weasel-wording, and in at least one instance (in bold) an outright lie, as the quote from page 31 of the report demonstrates. Blogger and UCC seminarian Chuck Currie (from whom the Edgar statement is taken�I couldn't find it on the NCC site) piles on with some holy whapping of his own:

IRD �monitors� church bodies and ecumenical groups and uses their resources to point out what they see as flaws. Their major domestic issues include opposition to same sex marriage and support for the war in Iraq. Their board of directors is made up of anti-abortion activists and other well known conservative political activists.

This organization does nothing more than attempt to malign the faith of good Christians working to promote justice as called for by God. Their report is a sham issued during a tense political campaign to give theological cover for the political right.

I'm sure it makes Chuck feel better to know that he's opposing the forces of anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage evil here, but he makes no effort to come to grips with the actual substance of the report. My suspicion is that there will be a lot of whining and weeping and gnashing of teeth on the left over this report, but very little substantial response. Hats off to Erik Nelson and Alan Wisdom for performing a signal service for those of us in the mainline churches.

UPDATE: Edgar's response actually is on the NCC site. The link to it is 3/4 of the way down the home page, under some stuff that's more than a month old. I guess they didn't want to bring any more attention to the IRD report than they had to. Afraid some people would read it, no doubt.

UPDATE: Over at MCJ, Chris Johnson has some examples of the kind of stuff the IRD is talking about, from his extensive ECUSA blooper file. Note especially that the perpetrators of suicide bombings are never named, even as generic Palestinians, whereas Israel is always explicitly named.

UPDATE: PCUSA Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick provides another striking example of the IRD's charges in a letter he has written to members of Congress. He is responding to a letter from 48 members of Congress asking him to repeal the 2004 General Assembly's call for divestment from companies doing business with Israel (he rightly says he can't do so on his own authority). He bashes Israel repeatedly, even saying at one point, "It is the occupation, not our move to consider divestment that threatens the existence of Israel." But of course there is no mention at all that the Palestinians are engaged in open war with Israel, or that any Israeli civilian has ever died at the hand of a Palestinian.