No, that isn’t the combination to my school locker or even government speak. It means I was the overture advocate (read: lobbyist [unpaid]) to the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in San Jose, CA. The overture (read: recommended legislative action) I was representing was designated “11-06,” which means it was the sixth item of business assigned to Committee 11, Peacemaking and International Issues.
The way it works is someone gets a great idea and tries to get their presbytery (read: presbyterian regional governing body) to agree to send it as an overture to the General Assembly (GA). The folks organizing the GA meeting assign overtures to various committees according to their content. The committee has two days to consider and act on all the business items assigned to it. They can approve, amend, disapprove, mash together, or replace overtures as they see fit. Anything they ultimately approve goes to the floor of the GA for the whole body to vote on. The GA can approve, amend, disapprove, mash together or replace the items that come from committee as they see fit. The things they approve are things like statements on things going on in the world, directions to the church or parts of it to do things like write study papers, or create curriculum, or send money and other forms of help to places that are in trouble, or tell the U.S. government what we think they should do about something, or tell everyone what the GA commissioners think about something. Sometimes they approve amendments to the church constitution, usually Part II, the Book of Order. If they do that, their action has to be approved by a majority of presbyteries before it goes into effect.
“My” item (read:the item I advocated but didn’t write) would not have to go to the presbyteries for approval. It is a statement to the Church of how Presbyterians will approach peacemaking in Israel and Palestine. This is a topic that has been pretty controversial for the Presbyterians over the last few years. I know, I know. Only the Presbyterians could make peacemaking controversial. The problem is several actions and statements have been heavily biased toward the Palestinians and against Israel. Certainly the Palestinians are in a bad way these days, to great degree because of Israel’s policies and practices. However, our advocacy for the Palestinians has been received as almost exclusively against Israel, without balance.
Well, not everyone believes that is a good idea, so three ministers in our presbytery wrote an overture to address the way we approach the conflict in that part of the world. It goes like this:
RECOMMENDATION
The Presbytery of National Capital overtures the 218th General Assembly (2008) to do the following:
1. Be a voice for the victims of violence in both Israel and Palestine. We ask PC(USA) members, congregations, committees, and other entities to become nonpartisan advocates for peace. As such, we will not over-identify with the realities of the Israelis or Palestinians. Instead we will identify with the need for peacemaking voices in the midst of horrific acts of violence and terror.
2. Focus our energy on the United States government, demanding that it assume an intensive and unrelenting role as a peacemaker, bringing together the opposing parties in forums where reasonable people can reach reasonable compromises about highly complex issues.
3. Condemn all acts of violence against innocent civilians. We will avoid taking broad stands that simplify a very complex situation into a caricature of reality where one side clearly is at fault and the other side is clearly the victim.
RATIONALE
This overture represents a humble confession of the very limited role the PC(USA) can play in solving the problems in the Middle East. Seeking to be part of the solution rather than inflaming the problems, we will join with and support any and all others in the world who seek a solution that creates two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and justice. We will call on all who, clinging to narrow self-interests, stand in the way of such a solution to consider the interest of all God’s children in the region.
So pretty simple, right? Treat people fairly on both sides, help the hurting on both sides, right? Wrong. There were all sorts of people who thought this meant backing away from the Palestinian suffering, being neutral in the face of injustice, being indifferent and disengaged, and so being in favor of the status quo. Feh!
Overture advocates have the opportunity to address the committee on their particular business item between open hearings when anyone can address the committee and when the committee debates and acts on it. I was asked to do this job because the three guys that wrote it were all going to be unavailable, and they liked what I said on the floor of presbytery when it came up. I had just come back from Israel, and this sounded just like what we had heard from several people there. I started preparing weeks ago, but didn’t know how much time I would have or any details, so I just put a lot of ideas together in no particular order at that point.
When I got to the assembly committee 11 and listened in on their first day’s deliberations I started to see the rhythm of how things worked. I also realized I would not have the time for the A/V presentation I had imagined. Instead I would have somewhere between 3-5 minutes to make my case. Wow. I flew 3000 miles, staying for five days, to present a 3-5 minute speech. Wow. Well, if that’s how it works, that’s how it works! And the presbytery is picking up the tab, so who am I to argue?
Any way, I spent a fair bit of time talking with people who have a lot more experience in Israel and Palestine, most of whom disagreed with our overture. I tried to learn what they heard in it that was bad and what they thought would be better. They were mostly very open to discussing it, although one woman, when I told her what I was advocating, just said, “Oh.” and walked away! Eventually we talked after she heard me making my case with someone else. The main concern they expressed was that in a situation of great power imbalance, it is impossible to take a balanced position without siding with the powerful. A fair point, to a point. After much, much consideration, and prayer, and consultation, I wrote a draft response/presentation for the committee. It came in at 3:12, so I figured I could sneak that last bit in. (Yes, I wrote down what to say, practiced it, and timed it. Go ahead and laugh if you want. I couldn’t afford to ramble.)
On Day 2 of committee work, Comm 11 was way behind and had a huge amount of work still facing them in mid-afternoon. Open hearings on all 8 or 9 (!) Israel-Palestine overtures went smoothly, but long. Then after a brief recess it was time for the OAs to do their thing. The moderator said, “Remember you will have 2 minutes.”
WHAT?? TWO??!! I had done another rewrite that I hadn’t timed officially, but that appeared to be about the same 3+ minutes. How could I cut another minute?? I started picking and scratching out madly.
When my turn came, this is what I said:
Madame Moderator, I am David Douthett, minister member from National Capital Presbytery, advocating for 11-06. Many of you know National Capital has a reputation for being liberal and generally pro-Palestinian, yet we passed this overture overwhelmingly on a voice vote.
As you have heard and I learned in preparing, some people understand “nonpartisan” peacemaking to be passive, naive, disengaged, passionless neutrality, or endorsement of the status quo. I disagree.
Nonpartisan peacemaking means treating all parties with the same love and compassion, holding all parties accountable for their actions and responses, and giving support and comfort to the victims of violence from all parties.
Father Michael McGarry, rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem told a group of us on a recent trip there people in that region have long, deep memories, and they carry them around with them as if in a handbag. Whenever someone starts talking about peace, the memories spring out of the bag, and cry, “but REMEMBER!!” evoking horrors from the past.
We can assure all parties of our love and respect, that we have the best interests of all parties at heart, building trust, and inviting them away from the fear of the past and toward God’s future.
While power in the region is clearly imbalanced, our love and response can remain balanced.
As a pastor and recovering neurotic, I have benefited from family systems theory, which describes different unhealthy relationships.
When a third party is drawn into a conflict, that party can greatly affect the relationship, either bringing change or perpetuating the status quo. Oddly enough, it is when the third party over-identifies with one side the status quo is perpetuated, even if it is with the victim!
If we only understand the Palestinians as victims, {Time.} … victims they are likely to remain. If we only understand Israel as oppressors, oppressors they are likely to remain. If we treat all in the region as children of God, {TIME!} children of God they may become. Thank you.
I was talking so fast, I couldn’t imagine anyone heard anything I said, but when I sat down a young Jewish fellow named Ethan that I had been talking with through the morning said, “Wow! WOW! That was so great! Wow!” I was surprised but really pleased. It seemed that through the open hearings, the only folk who were speaking in favor of Israel were Jews and not many Presbyterians. That probably overstates it, but a lot more Presbyterians were blasting Israel than stand up for them.
It was four hours later the committee finally got around to debating 11-06. A motion to replace it with an alternative motion from the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP, pronounced either “A-C Swap” or “Acsswipe” depending on who you talk to) failed. After another attempted and failed amendment and some other discussion, it passed on a 47-15-1 vote! I was delighted, to say the least!
As of this writing, the Assembly has not heard the report from Committee 11 yet, so I don’t know the ultimate fate of 11-06. The committee is bringing several items that actually contradict each other on several points, some siding squarely with the Palestinians against Israel, others saying we shouldn’t do anything of the sort. When it came up in debate, one comm. member said, “With all the conflicting testimony we heard today, I think it is appropriate for us to send a variety of views to the Assembly and to the churches, so they can hear the variety of voices on this issue.”
Why, that sounds down-right nonpartisan!
Then there were the ruins. Many of the places we visited are archaeological digs and reconstructions of important biblical sites or sites that inform our understanding of biblical stories. Some places we went were churches that marked the traditional place where Jesus or some other biblical figure did something important. Often the altar of the church was built over a stone that Jesus was believed to have used or touched or sat upon or something. What we saw in several other sites were rows of stones that made up the foundation walls of ancient buildings. The buildings are long gone, but the foundations are still in place, row upon row of stones, trying to tell us an ancient story. I have to admit, though, that as fascinating as these places were and as powerful as it was to be standing the middle of such history, after a while they started to run together, becoming just another pile of stones.
Almost every day, though, we got a reminder from our guides that helped keep things in perspective. We had three guides over the two weeks we were in Israel, and all three were Palestinian Christians. Gus put it this way: The Church started in this place and went out into all the world. Now people come here from all over the world to see these stones and to worship at these stones, but these are dead stones, and the people forget about the living stones, the Mother Church, the Christians who live in the Holy Land.” The percentage of Christians that make up the population of Israel and the Palestinian territories has declined drastically since the creation of Israel in 1948. The situation is too complex to go into in any detail here, but many Christians in the Holy Land face economic hardship, intolerance from religious extremists, and the difficulties often faced by minority populations. That is to say nothing of the sad but not unusual infighting among Christian denominations, particularly in Jerusalem. In spite of all this, Gus described the Holy Land Christians as salt in the sandwich between the meat and the bread. You can still have a sandwich without the seasoning, but it just won’t be as good. He feared that, with Christians emigrating at a rapid rate these days, the Middle East will end up with a poor sandwich.
Nevertheless, they all seem friendly enough, and I can only assume God has put me in this group for a reason.