Resolutions Recommended by PIN as Models for Diocesan Resolutions
Freedom of Speech and the Right to Boycott
Resolved, the House of ______ concurring, the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church urges the President and the Congress of the United States to reject [‘reconsider’ if already passed] legislation that would penalize companies and organizations for their participation in nonviolent boycotts on behalf of Palestinian human rights. The Convention considers such legislation, at both federal and state levels, to be an infringement on our First Amendment rights, based on the Supreme Court’s consistent definition of boycotts as protected speech; and be it further
Resolved, that if recently passed, or passed in the future, the Executive Council or the Presiding Bishop are directed to file an amicus brief in support of court challenges to the law.
Explanation:
Opponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement have sought state and federal legislation that would label support for such measures anti-Semitic and would penalize supportive companies and organizations and, in some instances, individuals with fines and the loss of state contracts and assistance. Twenty three states to date [update as necessary] have passed such legislation or adopted it by executive order. Federal legislation is currently pending [or recently passed].
Whatever one’s stance on a particular boycott, everyone has a right to express their opinions and act accordingly. Boycotts as nonviolent political actions are an American tradition, with roots extending to the pre-Revolutionary boycott of British tea. As far back as the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Supreme Court has consistently considered boycotts protected speech under the First Amendment. Some examples of effective boycotts include the 1965-66 grape boycott in the Central Valley that birthed the UFW, the South Africa boycott which The Episcopal Church supported (Res. 1985-D073) in 1985, and, most recently, the boycott of North Carolina stemming from its anti-LGBT legislation.
Furthermore, The Episcopal Church affirmed in Res. 1991-D122 that legitimate criticisms of Israeli government policies and actions are not anti-Semitic. This church differentiates the use of nonviolent tactics, such as economic pressure on behalf of universal human rights, from the current resurgence of hate-speech and actions that demonize entire communities, Jewish, Muslim, African-American, Native American, LBGT or any other group. This church unequivocally condemns all hate-speech and actions.
The current anti-boycott legislation at the state and federal levels is opposed by, among others, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. In November, 2017, twelve of The Episcopal Church’s ecumenical partner churches and twenty-eight activist organizations released a public letter calling the anti-boycott legislation pending in Congress and in state legislatures “a blatant infringement on First Amendment rights,” and pledged to defend the right of churches and organizations to use economic measures in the specific case of Israel-Palestine.
SPONSORS: Mr. John Heermans and the Rev. Craig Smith
RESOLVED, That the 186th Convention of the Diocese of Vermont urge the President of the United States and the Vermont congressional delegation to oppose legislation that would penalize companies and organizations for their participation in nonviolent boycotts on behalf of Palestinian human rights, as such legislation, at both federal and state levels, would be an infringement on First Amendment rights.
EXPLANATION:
I am writing today to express grave concern about a wave of legislative measures in the United States aimed at punishing and intimidating those who speak their conscience and challenge the human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people. [Desmond Tutu, Statement issued through Oryx Media, April 2, 2014; text is below]
Archbishop Tutu’s letter focused on legislation, now adopted by at least 23 states and proposed at the federal level, in opposition to the movement known as Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a nonviolent movement directed toward American, Israeli, and other companies that support or enable the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Such legislation labels support for boycott and divestment as anti-Semitic and penalizes supportive companies, organizations, and, in some instances, individuals with fines and the loss of state contracts and assistance.
Boycotts as nonviolent political actions are an American tradition, with roots extending to the pre-Revolutionary boycott of British tea. As far back as the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Supreme Court has consistently considered boycotts protected speech under the First Amendment. Some examples of effective boycotts include the 1965-66 grape boycott in the Central Valley that birthed the United Farm Workers, the South Africa boycott, which The Episcopal Church supported in 1985 (Res. 1985-D073), and, most recently, the boycott of North Carolina stemming from its anti-LGBT legislation.
The current anti-boycott legislation at the state and federal levels is opposed by, among others, the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. In November, 2017, twelve of The Episcopal Church’s ecumenical partner churches and twenty-eight activist organizations released a public letter calling the anti-boycott legislation pending in Congress and in state legislatures “a blatant infringement on First Amendment rights,” and pledged to defend the right of churches and organizations to use economic measures in the specific case of Israel-Palestine.
The Episcopal Church affirmed in Resolution 1991-D122 that legitimate criticisms of Israeli government policies and actions are not anti-Semitic. While the 79th General Convention (2018) did not directly address the anti-boycott legislation, it did adopt Resolution B016 [see text below] to join with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America in how it sets investment policy. B016 directs the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSSR) to develop criteria for Israel/Palestine based on a human rights investment screen and past actions of General Convention and Executive Council; to encourage an increase in positive investment in Palestine; and to encourage continued engagement in shareholder advocacy regarding human rights in Israel and the occupied territories.
Any legislation that suppresses legitimate criticism of public policy, and that restricts freedom of expression and the ability to exercise public witness through boycotts or investment and selective purchasing practices violates the U.S. Constitution. While the Church and its members may not be of one mind about which measures are most effective, the Church must collectively affirm and defend the right of individuals, congregations and organizations to use economic measures in the specific case of Israel-Palestine relations.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Statement on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) [This statement was issued for Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu by Oryx Media, April 2, 2014]
I am writing today to express grave concern about a wave of legislative measures in the United States aimed at punishing and intimidating those who speak their conscience and challenge the human rights violations endured by the Palestinian people. In legislatures in Maryland, New York, Illinois, Florida, and even the United States Congress, bills have been proposed that would either bar funding to academic associations or seek to malign those who have taken a stand against the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.
These legislative efforts are in response to a growing international initiative, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, of which I have long been a supporter. The BDS movement emanates from a call for justice put out by the Palestinian people themselves. It is a Palestinian-led, international non-violent movement that seeks to force the Israeli government to comply with international law in respect to its treatment of the Palestinian people.
I have supported this movement because it exerts pressure without violence on the State of Israel to create lasting peace for the citizens of Israel and Palestine, peace which most citizens crave. I have witnessed the systematic violence against and humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation and pain is all too familiar to us South Africans.
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades- long support for the Apartheid regime. My conscience compels me to stand with the Palestinians as they seek to use the same tactics of non-violence to further their efforts to end the oppression associated with the Israeli Occupation.
The legislations being proposed in the United States would have made participation in a movement like the one that ended Apartheid in South Africa extremely difficult.
I am also deeply troubled by the rhetoric associated with the promulgation of these bills which I understand, in the instance of Maryland, included testimony comparing the boycott to the actions of the Nazis in Germany. The Nazi Holocaust which resulted in the extermination of millions of Jews is a crime of monstrous proportions. To imply that it is in any way comparable to a nonviolent initiative diminishes the horrific nature of that genocidal and tragic era in our world history.
Whether used in South Africa, the U.S. South, or India, boycotts have resulted in a transformative change that not only brought freedom and justice to the victims but also peace and reconciliation for the oppressors. I strongly oppose any piece of legislation meant to punish or deter individuals from pursuing this transformative aspiration. And I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.
Confronting Christian Zionism: a Resolution passed at the 167th Convention of the Diocese of Chicago, 2004
Sponsors: Ted Curtis, Peace and Justice Commission, Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Resolved, that this 167th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Chicago, in order to alert the baptized in the diocese of the erroneous teachings of Christian Zionism, instructs the Peace and Justice Commission to prepare and send to each congregation in the Diocese materials about these erroneous teachings and a Christian response to these teachings.
Explanation
Christian Zionism is defined as “a movement within Protestant fundamentalism that understands the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and thus deserving of political, financial and religious support.” (“A Christian Zionism Primer” by Donald Wagner, in Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem’s Corner Stone Issue 30 Winter 2003:12.)
Although Christian Zionism has its beginnings in the 1820’s, it was not until the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and then the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the ’67 War that Christian Zionism was able to assert that in these events the countdown to the end times had begun.
Christian Zionists support the claim of Israeli Zionists that the land from the Euphrates to the Nile, land originally promised by God to Abraham, has today been promised by God to the modern State of Israel. Christian Zionists then maintain that this land has been exclusively and eternally to the Jews. As a result, non-Jewish Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza are to be regarded as aliens at best and at worst are to be driven out of the land. Christian Zionists are silent on the suffering of Palestinian Christians (and of all Palestinians). Jerusalem itself must be the eternal and exclusive Jewish capital. A number of Christian Zionists support Jewish groups who are committed to rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. These groups regard the Dome of the Rock as an ‘abomination’ which must be removed.
Christian Zionists subscribe to following premillennial dispensational predetermined events that must occur before the Second Coming of Christ: 1)the Rapture in which the saints (true believers in Christ) will be bodily taken up from earth; 2) seven years of tribulation– a time of calamities and war especially in the Middle East which will culminate in the battle of Armageddon; 3)the millennium reign of Christ in which Jesus will return as the Jewish messiah to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years and 4) the Second Coming at which time Jews who have not converted to Christianity will be lost. But these events of the End Times cannot begin until the Jews have been restored to the Promised Land. Christian Zionists base these events on literal and futuristic interpretations of selected Bible passages in the books of Daniel, Revelation, Ezekiel and 1 Thessalonians.
A partial response to Christian Zionism would be to say that we read Scripture in the light of the two great commandments– to love God and our neighbor. God came into the world not to destroy it but to save it. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3: 16-17). Instead of the militaristic power and slaughter during the seven year period of the Tribulation as described in great detail in the Left Behind series, Scripture witnesses to a God who has conquered sin, death and the devil in Jesus the Lamb of God. God’s power as manifested in the life, death and resurrection of his Son is that of a vulnerable, nonviolent love.
Since the ’67 war Christian Zionists have increasingly become political supporters of the Zionist expansionist policies of the State of Israel. For example in 1977 in response to President Carter’s address in which he said, “Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland,” the Israeli lobby and the Christian right, including Christian Zionists, took out advertisements in major U.S. newspapers. The text of the advertisements stated in part, “the time has come for Evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in Biblical prophecy and Israel’s divine right to the land … We affirm as Evangelicals our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people … We would view with grave concern any effort to carve out of the Jewish homeland another nation or political entity.” (quoted in Don Wagner, “A Christian Zionist Primer Part III Rewinding the Bible Prophecy Clock: Israel and the U.S. Christian Right (1048 – 1988)” Corner Stone Spring 2004 Issue 32:7). And on January 27, 1992 thirty-three Christian leaders signed a full-page advertisement in the Washington Times announcing “Seventy Million Christians Urge President Bush to Approve Loan Guarantees for Israel.” These Christian leaders said, “We deeply believe in the Biblical prophetic vision of the ingathering of exiles to Israel, a miracle we are now seeing fulfilled.” (quoted by Gary Burge. Whose Land? Whose Promises? What Christians are not being told about Israel and the Palestinians. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003:240).
Today Christian Zionists, rooted in their fervent belief in Dispensationalist theology which is being popularized in Tim LeHaye’s twelve-volume Left Behind series and other literature both fiction and non-fiction, have become a growing concern for Christians, Muslims and Jews who are working for peace and justice in the Middle East. In April over 500 people from 30 different countries came to Jerusalem to participate in the Fifth International Sabeel Conference, “Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics and the Palestine-Israel Conflict.”
Mainline American Protestant churches have been speaking out about Christian Zionism. The General Synod of the Reformed Church in America and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA voted to reject Christian Zionism on theological grounds and to take steps to educate their members on this flawed teaching. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has published a study guide on the Left Behind series. Several writers from mainline Protestant and evangelical churches have created a website, www.christianzionism.org that collects writings and posts media on Christian Zionism.
