Talk:Presbyterian Church (USA) disinvestment from Israel controversy

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Per request this article has been spun off from Presbyterian Church (USA). This is too allow the article to grow and to allow more details of the issue to be presented. However, this is not to allow any deviation from WP:NPOV, please keep that in mind. As of my creation of this article it is mostly a copy/paste with any introductory phargaph of my own creation, but this is a wiki so edit away --T-rex 01:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

I am suggesting that this page be moved and also merged with Presbyterian Church (USA) Hezbollah controversy, as well as some of the other controversy material at Presbyterian Church (USA). This follows the model used in Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as example. I don't think that the main Presbyterian Church (USA) should have more information on controversies in the last 5-6 years than on the first 200 years of the church, and making a separate sub-article for each controversy is a bit too maintenance intensive. I think we can put the full details on the controversies in one article, and summarize at Presbyterian Church (USA) (with the {{main}} link). KWH 05:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed text

The following text states an opinion which is not cited to a verifiable and reliable source, and is not encyclopedic:

"In many ways this has been a result of the church's stance against the current state of Israel, including support of the anti-zionist group Hezbollah."

See "WP:NPOV#Let the facts speak for themselves and WP:NPOV#Attributing and substantiating biased statements, as well as the rest of the policy at WP:NPOV if you have any questions. KWH 01:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It is important to link to Presbyterian Church (USA) Hezbollah controversy within the article to show how this fits into the big picture of things. I know you can't stand to have anything bad about the PC(USA) be included in the article, but the facts do speak for themselves... --T-rex 01:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia's policies on Neutral point of view and verifiability, and Wikipedia's guideline on reliable sources. KWH 04:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright if all you are going to do is cite irrelevent policies, then I'm readding it. Please leave it alone. NPOV is not a sypathetic point of view... --T-rex 02:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother to edit war with you... but I'm again going to suggest again that you read the relevant policies, because it is facially obvious that this claim (that PC(USA) is against Israel, and supports Hezbollah) is "a piece of information about which there is some dispute" - an opinion - which must be attributed to "an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name."

As to the link, it would be more proper to put it in a "See also" section, but as you see above that I have proposed merging the two articles anyway, at which point that would be irrelevant... if you or nobody else opposes the move/merge in a few more days I'll go ahead and make the changes to merge the controversy material to a new article name. KWH 04:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not really for or against the merge, but I agree that it would take care of the need to include the link. I posted a note on the PC(USA) main article talk page, but it hasn't gained any discussion there either. If you do go ahead with the merge, I would just suggest that you don't do your best to keep all of the references currentlly cited --T-rex 12:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Topic Suggestions: Gay marriage and Gays as clergy, elders or deacons

Some liberal Presbyterians believe that homosexuals deserve wedding ceremonies and deserve to become ministers, elders or deacons, if they believe that they are called. Some conservative Presbyterians believe that although homosexuals are welcome to become members of the Church, they shouldn't have full weddings or become ministers, elders or deacons. There was discussion about this during the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 2006. Some information can be found here: http://www.pcusa.org/ga217/newsandphotos/ga06101.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Light_Presbyterians and http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_pru.htm

This is a topic that interests me; however, I don't have enough information or time to write a section about this. I'm just leaving this here just in case someone else wants to write a section or an article. Dawn22 08:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking - perhaps this issue is not a controversy; rather, it is an internal conflict within the denomination. Dawn22 13:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Howdy, all. It may deserve some inclusion somewhere, but as someone very familiar with the controversy, the phraseology used above could charitably be called "weasel words". I'm sure you could find "some liberal Presbyterians" who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and "some conservative Presbyterians" who believe that anyone who ever listened to a Cher album should be stoned to death. I have yet to meet ANY conservative Presbyterian who believes that homosexuals should have ANY sort of wedding, never mind a "full wedding" (not a term used in Presbyterian polity). I know of MANY conservative Presbyterians (a former pastor of mine included) who do NOT welcome openly gay people as members of their congregations.

There's also the sticky theological question about "deserving" (a word which can be inflammatory under certain conditions) when describing the theological heirs of John Calvin. As Calvinists, Presbyterians believe that the Call to Ministry (which includes Minister of Word & Sacrament, Elder and Deacon) is divine, and under our form of government, the acutal decision of ordination is made by the governing body primarily responsible for making the determination (the regional Presbytery for Ministers of W&S, the local Session for elders & deacons) of whether the candidate is likely to have the Call and the spiritual, mental and emotional means to answer it. This is generally done by a rigorous process of education and examination. "Liberal Presbyterians" would not characterize their side of the debate as believing that anyone "deserves" anything other than being held to the same standard as everyone else.

What was adopted in Birmingham at the 2006 General Assembly (referenced above) was the Report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. It essentially resurrected the Church's historical principle of "scruples", where a candidate for ordination could declare his objections to a particular point of church law and the examining body would determine whether said point was "essential" to the church: an objection to the historic prohibition against lending money for interest could be considered "non-essential", while an objection to the existence of Christ could be considered "essential" (to take two extremes).

This brings us to the essential point: what is too technical and "inside Church politics" for a general reference work like Wikipedia? An entire article could be devoted to the principle of scruples and the PUP report. Flycandler 19:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Clear as mud

IMO there are several sections that need clarification. In the "2004 GA resolution" paragraph, it refers to all the different overtures (MRTI, endorsing the Geneva Accord, condemning the construction of the wall, Christian Zionism, messianic congregations) as a monolithic "The Resolution". To those unfamiliar with Presbyterian polity (i.e., the vast majority of Wikipedia's users), it may not be clear that an "overture" before the General Assembly is like a bill before Congress or Parliament. It has to be approved by a majority of the body to pass. There were 74 separate overtures on a wide variety of topics brought to the 2004 GA (85 to the 2006 GA--neither number includes items voted on that came up as new business during the Assemblies). It would be far beyond the scope of this article to report on the voting records for each. I think that in the interest of clarity, it should be made clear that overtures were not voted on as a single, huge package. Further, I think that the "Christian Zionism" (reaffirming it as a dispensationalist dogma incompatible with Presbyterian theology; it has its own article which ought to be linked anyway) and "conversionary activities" (the resolution to suspend financial support of messianic congregations failed) should be treated separately or not at all to avoid confusion.

The "Criticism of resolution" paragraph lists among its sources for the claim that "A small handful of critics of the divestment policy, none from major Jewish organizations, accused church leaders of anti-Semitism" editorial pieces written for major Jewish organizations' websites. It comes across as contradictory. Perhaps we could find out exactly who this "small handful" are or simply delete the sentence.

The "General Advisory Council response to criticism" paragraph has several problems. First, there is to the best of my knowledge no such body within the PC(USA). I assume this refers to the General Assembly Council, which is a subsidiary body that acts to implement the policies of the General Assembly. It does not vote on or approve overtures as the article claims. The paragraph further claims that "prior to 1974, the church had only called for...". The PC(USA) did NOT EVEN EXIST until 1982. If this is specifically referring to one of the predecessor churches, then say which one, because both took different stances at different times (the northern PCUSA, which later became the UPCUSA, as early as 1948 called for self-determination of "the Jewish and Arabic peoples"). Finally, personal opinions of undefined "pro-Israel advocates" regarding the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as well as their reactions to the positions of the NCC and WCC, do not belong in this article but elsewhere.

The second paragraph in the "Change to policy in 2006" section has little or nothing to do with the source given. There is none of the "uncertainty" within the document itself and seems to reflect confusion on the part of the person who read it, not on the part of the PC(USA)'s leadership, membership or the world at large. If there are credible sources supporting the vast uncertainty regarding the change in the GA's position, then let's see it.

I've been toying with a more in-depth explanation of how MRTI works (its recent removal of Talisman from the list after Talisman suspended its Sudanese operations, its successes with FirstEnergy, its ongoing lobbying of Wal-Mart, etc) and expanding it beyond the simplistic "Israel, South Africa" treatment it gets here. It doesn't even explain what the church was divesting--the linked article to "divestment" uses as its example the US government's breakup of Bell Telephone in 1984. Thoughts? Flycandler 20:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It is entirely dishonest to say that the church recognized Israel's right to exist prior to 1974. It did not. Calling for peace, is not recognizing a right to exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.14.250 (talk) 21:49, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Page moved

I have moved this page from its old title (Current controversies regarding the Presbyterian Church (USA)) to its current one (Presbyterian Church (USA) disinvestment from Israel controversy). The reason for this is that while it claims to be about 'current controversies', the entire article is only about a single controversy - the disinvestment-from-Israel resolution. It appears it was moved to its previous title back in 2006, with the intention of merging in other articles about controversies relating to the church (e.g. Presbyterian Church (USA) Hezbollah controversy); however, this merge never happened. Until this article is expanded to deal with more than one controversy, it should remain at its current title. Robofish (talk) 02:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

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