October 6, 2004
A new report on the human-rights advocacy of mainline Protestant denominations raises concerns about the anti-Semitic attitudes embedded in those churches. The report indicates leaders in those denominations have an extremely biased approach to human rights.
The report is called Human Rights Advocacy in the Mainline Protestant Churches (2000-2003) and was published by the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD). The 40-page report documents an IRD analysis of human-rights criticisms leveled by four Protestant denominations - the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church USA, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) - as well as by the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
IRD concluded from its analysis that the leadership of those denominations is focusing on the United States and Israel as the "primary perpetrators" of human-rights violations in the world. The following statements appear on page two of the IRD report:
"It is evident from the tone and language used by mainline church leaders in their statements and legislation that, as a group, they believe that the United States is often a malignant influence in the world. This pervasive anti-Americanism is demonstrated time and again in their public policy advocacy, and one need not investigate far to find it.
"Given the dramatic unwillingness of the mainline churches to criticize states around Israel for their human rights abuses - not only the connections to worldwide terrorism, but also the oppression and brutality toward their own people - it is not unreasonable to ask whether anti-Jewish animus may play some role in the churches' skewed human rights advocacy."
IRD found that more than a third (37 percent) of the denominations' resolutions and statements from 2000 to 2003 were aimed at Israel; 32 percent were aimed at the U.S. Twenty nations shared the remaining 31 percent, which means most nations were not criticized more than once during that time, whereas Israel was criticized 72 times.
The research of report co-author Erik Nelson uncovered a glaring double standard. "In all of the criticisms that we found, there was not a single criticism of the Palestinian Authority," Nelson says. "In most cases in those churches, there has never actually been a criticism of the Palestinian Authority that we know of."
According to Nelson, officials with those churches have been quick to deny that any anti-Semitism is involved in their criticisms. Yet he contends it is "something that they need to look at."
"[W]e also think the issue is ideological; that it has to do with their assumptions about what causes human-rights abuses around the world," he adds. "Most mainline churches tend to think that the United States is responsible for those kinds of abuses."
Nelson, a research associate for the IRD's Episcopal Action program, says mainline churches should not be expending most of their energy criticizing one nation when their fellow Christians are suffering in oppressive nations like China, North Korea, and Cuba. But lingering commitments to liberation theology and anti-Americanism, he says, have led those denominations to refrain from criticizing those countries.
Nelson and co-author Alan Wisdom used as their benchmark for human rights in nations analyzed an assessment published in 2004 by Freedom House.
Human Rights Advocacy in the Mainline Protestant Churches (2000-2003) is available on the IRD website.
Institute on Religion & Democracy
Copyright 2004, Agape Press
