General Convention Resolutions
This Sunday’s gospel was the heart-rending story of the
beheading of John the Baptist. King Herod was faced with a Faustian situation:
whether to adhere to his personal beliefs and conviction and save John the
Baptist’s life or to trade them and thus
save his face by beheading John. For Herod it was a crisis of conscience. In
the end Herod failed to honor his personal belief and conviction and his soul.
Fresh from attending the General Convention and feeling high
about my Episcopal branch of Jesus movement, I was at my church for worship on
Sunday and read this gospel lesson (Mark 6:14-29). Father Kim Guiser preached
on the need to follow our conscience when we face situation like Herod did. As
he was preaching, all I could think was the resolutions I proposed at the
General Convention. Both passed in the House of Deputies, but not in the House
of Bishops. Suffice to say I was disappointed. I found it difficult to
understand why the Bishops couldn’t call out on Israel to stop its practice of
a two-tiered system of laws: one set of laws favoring its Jewish citizens and
another set of laws discriminating against its non-Jewish, indigenous and
ethnic minorities. This Israeli practice
is a throwback of the most discriminatory racist laws of Jim Crow era in our
country. We put an end to it back in
1964 when the Civil Rights Laws were passed.
Our church, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, today
through its refusal to call out on Israel finds itself defending racism. Is it a Herod moment for us? Can we simply
ignore without having a crisis of conscience? Today, many consider our
criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic and would jeopardize our friendship with
our Jewish neighbors and rabbis. Denying people their human dignity and right
is not a Jewish value. Authentic
friendship and relationship are founded on a mutual commitment to doing God’s
work of justice together. To those who say that this resolution is divisive or
controversial, let me say justice struggles are always controversial as in the
case of slavery and marriage equality.
Can we sacrifice our principles to avoid controversy? Prophetic action
always requires courage.
Church, serving as the conscience of the state and upholding
our baptismal covenant of respecting the dignity of every human being, can no
longer stand idle and let this unjust system to go on. Let not our friendship or
special relationship with Israel prevent us from doing the right thing. If we
are unable to talk to our friends, how can we have conversations with other
countries about their human right violations. Case in point what if India, a
country with a Hindu majority, violated the rights of its ethnic minorities,
how will our church be able to advocate for the rights of Indian Christians,
given its history of complicity in Israel?
I pray that our leadership would stand for justice and human
rights for all people and call on Israel to dismantle the racist laws so that
the indigenous people of Israel also can enjoy same benefits and privileges of
citizenship similar to that of Jewish citizens of Israel.
