ELCA Presiding Bishop Issues Statement on Israel-Hamas War
Bishop asserts identity politics of oppressor and oppressed
The ELCA Presiding Bishop in her statement on Israel-Hamas War began by denouncing acts of both sides:
As Lutherans, we are accustomed to holding tension between two truths. The ELCA denounces the egregious acts of Hamas, acts that have led to unspeakable loss of life and hope. At the same time the ELCA denounces the indiscriminate retaliation of Israel against the Palestinian people, both Christian and Muslim.
ELCA presiding bishop issues statement on Israel-Hamas war - ELCA
The last paragraph, though, does not hold the tension between two truths but resorts to the identity politics of oppressor and oppressed:
We must also call a thing a thing. The power exerted against all Palestinian people — through the occupation, the expansion of settlements and the escalating violence — must be called out as a root cause of what we are witnessing. We are committed to our long-standing accompaniment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
The God who liberates us calls us to be a liberating witness. May it be so.
ELCA presiding bishop issues statement on Israel-Hamas war - ELCA
More truthful would have been to hold the tension between two truths and to also state Hamas’s genocidal intentions as articulated in an excerpt from the article on Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology:
Released on August 18, 1988, the original covenant spells out clearly Hamas’s genocidal intentions. Accordingly, what happened in Israel on Saturday is completely in keeping with Hamas’s explicit aims and stated objectives. It was in fact the inchoate realization of Hamas’s true ambitions.
The most relevant of the document’s 36 articles can be summarized as falling within four main themes:
1. The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia),
2. The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective,
3. The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and
4. The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories.
Thus, as fighting rages in Israel and Gaza, and may yet escalate and spread, pleas for moderation, restraint, negotiation, and the building of pathways to peace are destined to find no purchase with Hamas. The covenant makes clear that holy war, divinely ordained and scripturally sanctioned, is in Hamas’s DNA.
Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology (msn.com)
A statement from churchwide also impacts thinking on the congregation level as Pastor Tamra Harder Staff (firstlutheran-barron.org) jumped from the appointed gospel text for the day to the text of the statement of the presiding bishop in her sermon and even substituted the statement for the Creed in the service of worship on October 15.
Livestream Player (firstlutheran-barron.org)
Unfortunately, the statement by the presiding bishop only polarizes the church in that it radicalizes identity politics and marginalizes measured action.