Presbyterian Church USA's (PCUSA's) Stated Clerk Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II proclaimed on Martin Luther King Day, "The continued occupation in Palestine/Israel is 21st-century slavery and should be abolished immediately …I would also hope that the Jewish community in the United States would influence the call to join the US government in ending the immoral enslavement." Slavery and human trafficking are felonies in Israel just as they are in the United States, and Nelson's false implication that Israel or American Jews condone slavery in any way, shape, or form makes PCUSA a leading member of the Hamas-American Bund.

This is by no means an implication that PCUSA supports, whether through word or deed, terroristic violence by Hamas. My understanding is that PCUSA condemns all violence. Its blatantly reckless, unfair, and unfounded accusations against Israel make it nonetheless a dupe, stooge, and useful idiot for terrorists who shoot up Israeli schools (Ma'alot), murder Israeli athletes (Munich), blow up Israeli Seders and pizza shops, bash in the heads of Jewish children with rifle butts, cut up Jewish families with knives, fire rockets at Israeli cities, impose apartheid-like conditions on Arab women and Christians, use Arabs as human shields, and abuse LGBT people. PCUSA is therefore an enabler for terrorists in roughly the same manner that equally useful idiots were enablers for Hitler during the 1930s.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has condemned the PCUSA's behavior. Steve Gutow, the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, described PCUSA's guide on Zionism as "worthy of a hate group, not a prominent American church." 

PCUSA Equivocates on Israel's Right to Exist

"Presbyterians and Palestine" asserts that, "President Harry Truman, in part to curry favor with Jewish Americans prior to an upcoming election, would in May recognize the nascent State of Israel." This is not consistent with Truman's side of the story, and Truman was known for his honesty and character. The PCUSA page continues, "Greenslade responded to the reporter: '…The hasty action of the President in recognizing the State of Israel while the whole question was before the United Nations is deeply resented and difficult to explain.'" The web page also uses anti-Semitic phrases like "Jewish aggression" and "Israeli depredations." The article also comes across as blaming Israelis, as opposed to the governments that started the 1948 war, for the Nakba (catastrophe) which PCUSA claims relates only to the displacement of Palestinians but many construe as the establishment of Israel inside its 1948 borders.

PCUSA's flirtation with denial of Israel's right to exist through (1) the implication that Harry Truman recognized Israel to "curry favor with Jewish Americans," which incorporates the anti-Semitic "divided loyalty" slur in the bargain, (2) denunciation of Truman's action as "hasty," and (3) use of the word "nakba" reinforces its role as little better than a propaganda organ for Hamas and related terrorist organizations.

PCUSA: Where Women's and LGBT Rights are Slogans

PCUSA also claims to be socially progressive, and it does support LGBT rights in the United States and allows women to be ministers. This support for women and LGBT people ends, however, where "Palestine" begins. It is safe to hold a gay pride march in Tel Aviv, and women can be anything in Israel including Prime Minister. Haaretz reports, on the other hand, "At risk of harassment, torture or worse from Hamas or members of their own families, queer Gazans often hide away in fear." The Guardian reports, "A Hamas-run Islamic court in the Gaza Strip has ruled that women require the permission of a male guardian to travel…"  You cannot say credibly from one side of your mouth that you are for women's and LGBT rights when the other side of your mouth shills for entities that treat women as second-class citizens and LGBT people even worse.

PCUSA Met with Hezb’allah Terrorists

PCUSA's role as a dupe, stooge, and useful idiot for vicious terrorists is not limited to Hamas. Even the left-leaning Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) found the meeting of PCUSA elder Ronald Stone and others with Hezb’allah terrorists too extreme to tolerate. "During this meeting, Elder Ronald Stone of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary praised Hezbollah for its 'expression of goodwill towards the American people' and 'initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding.'" And what is  Hezb’allah's "goodwill towards the American people"? This makes PCUSA a useful idiot for the world's hostes humani generis, an enabler for pure unadulterated evil, and part of the Hezb’allah-American Bund in the bargain.

Elder Stone went on to say that “relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders." When you are a stooge and useful idiot for terrorists, you will find them very easy to get along with until you are no longer useful to them.

Presbyterians Should Leave PCUSA

Most of us learn at a very early age to respect other people's religious beliefs. When what you call your religion, however, crosses the line to incitement of hatred of other religions, whether it's the Westboro Baptist Church's position that God hates almost everybody but the WBC, or PCUSA spewing anti-Semitic canards and enabling entities that murder Jews, you forfeit that protection and respect. Others can and will rightfully denounce what you call your "religion" as a front for agendas that are abominations to the values of every single religion on this planet. I am not talking about Presbyterianism; I am talking about what PCUSA calls Presbyterianism, just as I do not denounce Christianity when I condemn the appalling behavior that WBC calls Christianity. The latter behavior is in fact antithetical to Christianity; if you die and find yourself with Fred Phelps, you went to the wrong place. Denunciation of the depraved violent ideology that Hamas calls Islam is similarly not a condemnation of Islam, nor is condemnation of what Jewish Voice for Peace does under color of Judaism anti-Semitic.

I regard PCUSA as it is currently governed as nothing more than an enabler for terrorists, abusers of women, abusers of LGBT people, and abusers of Jews, Christians, and peaceful Muslims. I perceive PCUSA's current governance as no more representative of Presbyterianism than Charles Coughlin was of Catholicism.  Dr. Nelson called for Jews to join him in attacking the reputation of Israel; I urge in return that Presbyterians leave Nelson's organization in favor of other Presbyterian organizations, and many have already done so.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. He or she is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.

Image: Presbyterian Church USA