Birmingham, USA - A two-year-old Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) policy authorizing divestment from some companies operating in Israel is up for re-examination.
Delegates at a Presbyterian national assembly planned to debate a plan Wednesday to cancel the policy and instead say that Presbyterian holdings pertaining to both Israel and Palestinian territory should "be invested in only peaceful pursuits." The statement also urges an end to terror against both Israelis and Palestinians.
There's been considerable debate among the 2.3 million Presbyterians over a decision by the 2004 assembly to authorize "phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel" because of its policies toward Palestinians.
Twenty-two of the denomination's regional presbyteries submitted bills on the issue, most of them urging that the policy be more balanced or killed outright.
Jewish organizations criticized the 2004 action as unfairly one-sided but appear content with the proposed new wording.
Before the assembly, the denomination held official talks with five corporations that do business with the Israel: Caterpillar, Citigroup, ITT, Motorola and United Technologies. However, no investments had been withdrawn yet.
Off the floor, conservatives sponsored a talk by lay Presbyterian James Woolsey, a CIA director under President Clinton. He said the 2004 action put the church "clearly on the side of theocratic, totalitarian, anti-Semitic, genocidal beliefs, and nothing less."
But at a meeting of an independent Presbyterian caucus on the Mideast, the Rev. Donald Wagner of Chicago's North Park University accused Israel of a policy "worse than apartheid" was in white-ruled South Africa.
On another matter, The Denver Post reported that public records show a businessman and Presbyterian elder who promised to donate a record $150 million to the church owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors and has had his assets frozen.
Stanley W. Anderson, 62, of Denver, told the paper Tuesday he was working to pay off his debts and was confident he could pay the donation, the largest in the denomination's history.
On Tuesday, the assembly approved plan to grant local Presbyterians some flexibility in ordaining clergy and lay elders and deacons who live with gay partners.
Officials depicted this as merely updating a tradition with 18th century roots and noted that this assembly kept on the books a church law that says clergy and lay officers must restrict sex to man-woman marriage.
But 13 evangelical organizations issued a joint statement saying the consequences of the new interpretation of policy "throw our denomination into crisis." The changes mark "a profound deviation from biblical requirements, and we cannot accept, support or tolerate it," they said.
The evangelicals predicted a slew of future cases before church tribunals and general confusion on what the church now believes.