Part 2:\u00a0 A Moment of Truth for the U.S. Church<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The first task of a prophetic theology for our times would be an attempt at social analysis or what Jesus would call \u201creading the signs of the times\u201d (Mt 16:3) or \u201cinterpreting this Kairos\u201d (Lk 12:56).<\/em> Kairos is actually a moment of truth, of discernment, of discovery. It is a revelation of the reality we live in, of what is at stake and our responsibility in that moment.<\/em><\/p>\n Allan Boesak, \u201cKairos Consciousness,\u201d 2011<\/p>\n A moment of truth<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s recent appearance before a joint session of the U.S. Congress and the shameful behavior of the members of Congress in rising to their feet 29 times to applaud his radical, intransigent positions should shatter any remaining illusions that peace will come through negotiations under current conditions.\u00a0Politics has failed to bring about a just peace in Israel-Palestine. In fact, the political\/diplomatic process, based on false assumptions (Israel will accept a contiguous, sovereign Palestinian state on its borders; the U.S. is an honest broker to the negotiation process) is itself actively advancing the building of Israeli Apartheid. \u00a0There is an urgent need to continue to build the international grassroots movement to delegitimize Israeli Apartheid and to exert economic, social and diplomatic pressure on Israel and on the countries supporting its policies, especially the U.S. Historically, the churches have played a significant role in creating political and social change through movements of nonviolent resistance. Examples of this in recent history are the U.S. Civil Rights movement, organized opposition to the Vietnam War, and the movement to end Apartheid in South Africa.<\/p>\n Our situation today is strikingly similar to that faced by a group of South African pastors and theologians confronting the intransigence of the South African government in ending Apartheid. In 1985, they sat down to compose a historic, prophetic document. It had been a long journey to reach that point \u2014 the result of a struggle of the churches in South Africa to come to terms with their silence and their sometimes active complicity with the system that had poisoned and brutalized their society. By 1985 the church had finally arrived at a place from which there was no escape, no compromise, and no way back.\u00a0 The authors of the South Africa Kairos document<\/a> articulate this in their preamble (passages from the document appear in italics):<\/p>\n We as a group of theologians have been trying to understand the theological significance of this moment in our history. It is serious, very serious. For very many Christians in South Africa this is the KAIROS, the moment of grace and opportunity, the favorable time in which God issues a challenge to decisive action\u2026\u00a0A crisis is a judgment that brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. A crisis is a moment of truth that shows us up for what we really are. There will be no place to hide and no way of pretending to be what we are not in fact. At this moment in South Africa the Church is about to be shown up for what it really is and no cover-up will be possible\u2026<\/em> It is the KAIROS or moment of truth not only for apartheid but also for the Church.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n Like South Africa in the 1980s, suffering under four decades under the Apartheid regime, the situation in the Palestinian territories after over 40 years under military occupation is serious, very serious. For Israel and the entire civilized world, entering the seventh decade of refugee status for the now five million descendants of the Palestinians displaced by the establishment of the State of Israel, there is no longer any place to hide.<\/p>\n The American context<\/strong><\/p>\n The situation in Palestine has created this moment of truth for the church on a global level, but churches in different geographical regions face differing contexts, necessitating different Kairos agendas. The context for the Palestine Kairos document <\/a>is military occupation and the implementation of an apartheid system of dispossession, discrimination and control over all aspects of Palestinian civil society. The context for the Southern Africa Kairos is (1) solidarity with Palestinians living under this apartheid system and (2) the need to unify and energize the church in South Africa by taking on the Palestinian cause. The U.S. context is multifaceted and compelling.\u00a0 It includes: (1) U.S. responsibility for financing the building of Israeli Apartheid and for shielding Israel from accountability in the international arena, (2) the American church\u2019s acquiescence with our government\u2019s support of Israel\u2019s oppression of the Palestinians, (3) theological support (along a spectrum of conservative, mainstream and progressive theologies) for a superior Jewish claim to the land and the right to expel and\/or exert political dominance over non-Jewish inhabitants, and (4) the American church\u2019s renewal movement \u2014 its quest to return to the fundamental principles of Christianity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe favorable time\u201d is now. The Palestinian Spring has arrived in the form of the Nakba Day protests, the Fatah-Hamas unity deal in Cairo and the upcoming United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood. These events unfold against the backdrop of the 2005 Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions,<\/a> the Palestine Kairos document of 2009<\/a>, the 2011 Kairos Southern Africa endorsement of Kairos Palestine,<\/a> the recent popular uprisings throughout the Arab world, and the growing awareness throughout the U.S. churches of the need for education and direct action to bring about a peace based on justice. The Palestinian and South African Kairos documents provide examples for the American church of what it means to take a clear stance on the theological unacceptability of any ideology, theology, or legal system that that grants the members of one group dominance over another. The parallel to our situation is the sham of the U.S.-sponsored \u201cpeace process\u201d and the myths that support it, such as the picture of an Israel that makes \u201cgenerous\u201d offers \u2013 offers that serve only to further its colonialist aims. The implications of this are as clear and inescapable for the U.S. church as they are for Palestinians living under occupation today and as they were for the South Africans three decades ago. Any theology and course of action (or inaction) that supports the oppression of an illegitimate regime has to be replaced with an alternative theology and course of action.<\/p>\n Activity within the American church in support of the Palestinian cause is not new. It has been going on for decades, at local and denominational levels, through educational programs, peace pilgrimages, connections with Palestinian and Israeli civil society organizations, and most recently through boycott and divestment initiatives. However, apart from the work of local taskforces and denominationally-based groups devoted to the cause of Middle East peace, a coordinated, ecumenical effort by the American church as a whole has been lacking. Churches for Middle East Peace is an ecumenical organization dedicated exclusively to this issue, but there is a growing awareness that CMEP\u2019s cautious agenda, limited to legislative advocacy, falls short of the activism needed to meet this Kairos moment. It is time for the U.S. church to takes its place alongside the Palestinian, Southern African, and nascent European and Asian Kairos movements.<\/p>\n Lessons from 1985:\u00a0 A primer in \u201cChurch theology\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Although both the Palestinian and South African documents need to be studied by American Christians, the 1985 South African document, with its focus on church complicity, provides a particularly useful set of guideposts for the U.S. church. To be sure, there are differences in the historical situation and in the particular configuration of the challenges \u2013 indeed, South African colleagues tell me that what we are facing now makes their past struggle look like child\u2019s play. But the core issues of complicity and responsibility, and the perfect storm of theology, ideology and civil religion that support the continuation of an oppressive system are startlingly similar.<\/p>\n The heart of\u00a0 the South African document is its analysis of what it calls \u201cChurch Theology:\u201d that is, a theology and set of attitudes, opinions and assumptions that are employed by the church to maintain the status quo and to directly and indirectly support immoral government policies. Church theology tries to create the appearance of opposing injustice and oppression. In reality, however, it is devoted to shoring up the very system that perpetrates the evil:<\/p>\n \u2018Church Theology\u2019 tends to make use of absolute principles like reconciliation and non-violence and applies them indiscriminately and uncritically to all situations. Very little attempt is made to analyze what is actually happening it our society and why it is happening\u2026Closely linked to this is the lack of an adequate understanding of\u00a0politics and political strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n The document identifies three such \u201cchurch opinions\u201d or assumptions: reconciliation, justice, and non-violence.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Reconciliation<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Church Theology\u2019 often describes the Christian stance in the following way: \u201cWe must be fair. We must listen to both sides of the story. If the two sides can only meet to talk and negotiate they will sort out their differences and misunderstandings, and the conflict will be resolved. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n The fallacy here is that \u2018Reconciliation\u2019 has been made into an absolute principle. But there are conflicts where one side is a fully armed and violent oppressor while the other side is defenseless and oppressed. To speak of reconciling these two is not only a mistaken application of the Christian idea of reconciliation, it is a total betrayal of all that Christian faith has ever meant. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n In our situation in South Africa today it would be totally unchristian to plead for reconciliation and peace before the present injustices have been removed\u2026No reconciliation is possible in South Africa\u00a0without justice\u00a0\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n This analysis goes to the heart of the problem when applied to the Israel\/Palestine conflict. One of the most striking features of the discourse about Israel\/Palestine in the United States is the preoccupation with the need for a \u201cbalanced\u201d perspective. Here is how this typically plays out:\u00a0 you may not talk about house demolitions, humiliation at checkpoints, restrictions on movement, the death of innocent civilians, targeted assassinations, or any other examples of Palestinian suffering, without presenting what is usually termed the \u201cother side.\u201d The \u201cother side\u201d is the recognition of the suffering of the Israelis, who have endured five wars, terrorist attacks, and the sense that they are surrounded by implacable enemies. (The fact of Israelis\u2019 fear of annihilation is not in dispute. The question of the reality of the threat, however, is relevant.\u00a0 Ira Chernus takes up this issue in his recent piece in The Nation, <\/em>\u201cThe myth of Israeli vulnerability<\/a>\u201d). You may not talk about the dispossession of the Palestinians to make way for the Jewish state without noting historic Jewish suffering or the displacement of Jews from Arab countries. On its face, this seems fair. But in the current discourse, the demand for \u201cbalance\u201d is not about being fair. Rather, it is used to blunt scrutiny of those actions of Israel that are the root cause of the conflict. As the South African document so effectively sets out, appeals here to principles of \u201creconciliation,\u201d \u201cdialogue\u201d and \u201cbalance\u201d serve not to advance but to obscure the issue of justice. The example of South Africa clearly demonstrates that it is only when the structures of inequality and discrimination have been removed that activities devoted to reconciliation between the parties can be undertaken.<\/p>\n Justice<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The very serious theological question is: What kind of justice? An examination of Church statements and pronouncements gives the distinct impression that the justice that is envisaged is\u00a0the justice of reform, that is to say, a justice that is determined by the oppressor, by the white minority and that is offered to the people as a kind of concession. It does not appear to be the more radical justice that comes from below and is determined by the people of South Africa.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n There have been reforms and, no doubt, there will be further reforms in the near future. And it may well be that the Church\u2019s appeal to the consciences of whites has contributed marginally to the introduction of some of these reforms. But can such reforms ever be regarded as real change, as the introduction of a true and lasting justice. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n True justice, God\u2019s justice, demands a radical change of structures. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Reform was a major issue for the anti-Apartheid struggle. The offers of reform by the Pretoria government, coming too little and too late, mirrored for the authors of Kairos South Africa the attempts of some of the churches to enact superficial changes that did not address the underlying racial inequalities built into church practice and by which the churches continued to support racist government policies. In similar fashion, \u201cprogressive\u201d thinkers among Jews disturbed by Israel\u2019s behavior<\/a> attempt to find ways to remove or remediate the most egregious and blatant aspects of Israeli policy. These efforts, however, do not address the root cause of the abuses, which arise inevitably from the attempt of Israel to maintain a Jewish majority and to continue Jewish rule over a diverse population. In similar fashion, church bodies attempt to find ways to \u201cbalance\u201d or soften the prophetic witness to Palestinian suffering in order to deflect or avoid opposition by Jewish groups and groups within the churches who brand any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n