Commentary: How ACSWP Keeps Busy

LOUISVILLE—When watching how the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) operates, I often am reminded of Hana, our recently departed Labrador retriever. The similarity appeared again at the April meeting of the General Assembly Council in Louisville.

Hana had a cute habit of amusing herself by shuffling her nose under a tennis ball and then awkwardly flipping the ball across the room. Then she would chase the ball, and, true to her breed, retrieve it. Hana could remain fully occupied indefinitely, chasing the balls she had thrown for herself.

ACSWP has become similarly adept in tossing itself tennis balls to busily retrieve. Or, more correctly, ACSWP is a master at finding ways for General Assembly to appear to be tossing it items to fetch, when in reality, the initiative is the committee’s from the start.

The activity has proved an effective way to remain front and center on controversial issues about which the ACSWP itches to propagate its opinions as a self-styled “prophet.” In addition, assigned tasks often produce continued funding, which keeps ACSWP viable as a denominational entity, even during times of downsizing. It is a clever and effective technique for self-preservation.

As an aside, it’s interesting that for its Iraq paper, to be presented at this June’s General Assembly, ACSWP didn’t bother even to appear to chase a ball tossed by anyone. It simply decided it wanted to offer General Assembly an extended denunciation of U.S. policy in Iraq, even though it had never been tasked with producing such prodigious opinion. All pretext of “only doing what General Assembly has asked us to do” was shoved aside for unadulterated advocacy, which is not part of the advisory committee’s responsibility.

The instance that took place at General Assembly Council (GAC) in April, however, was more subtle. In 2006, the General Assembly sought to broaden understanding of the context of Middle East conflict beyond ACSWP’s previously narrow focus on Israel alone. But intentions often get lost in our church’s polity. As a result, ACSWP is once again charged with producing a study focused solely on the Israel-Palestine conflict—a complete reversal of the Assembly’s intent.

Original Intentions Gone Askew
Any meeting of General Assembly is chock-a-block full of purposeful intentions. Every business item, whether presbytery overture, commissioner resolution, or entity report, intends to accomplish a purpose. It could be to tighten up or remove some regulation. It may be to add a dimension to church life. Or the purpose could be to press a cause. In any case, people have gone to a good amount of effort to bring about a purposeful change.

However, once an initiative makes it into the General Assembly realm, anything can happen to its purposeful intention. Maybe an overture gets submitted to block a loophole in some key standard, but instead, the Assembly ends up removing the standard altogether, accomplishing the polar opposite of the intention. It happens.

More often, though, the original intention gets more displaced than replaced. The intention gets lost in a sea of proposals and counterproposals, amendments and minority reports. What’s more, any initiative inevitably moves out of the sure hands of the proposer into hands farther and farther removed from those with knowledge of the original intent. For instance, an overture goes from a General Assembly committee, whom the overture advocate can address, to the General Assembly plenary, where the advocate stands outside as no more than an observer.

Not infrequently, an item gets referred for study to some group, which then brings it back to a subsequent General Assembly committee at least two years later. That new committee then commends it—in whatever form into which the item has evolved—to a completely foreign General Assembly plenary that has not the slightest contact with or understanding of the original intent or wording of the item. Yet, it is that far-removed General Assembly that eventually turns thumbs up or thumbs down on whatever form the original intent has taken. Like the final message in that party game of whispered “Gossip,” the final measure at the subsequent General Assembly may bear only slight resemblance to the original intent.

Often I have had the opportunity to watch this process at General Assembly and following. In observing both the origin of an intent two years ago at the 2006 General Assembly and then in following that item of business through to the April General Assembly Council meeting, I have witnessed yet another instance of that convoluted phenomenon—this time concerning the study of the volatile world of the Middle East.

ACSWP Gets What General Assembly Purposefully Gave GAC
What were the intentions of General Assembly in 2006? It was an assembly ready to set aside a controversial resolution about Israel divestment that was passed at the 2004 General Assembly. In 2006, commissioners focused on positive investment, wanting to be fair and evenhanded. They also realized that events happen so quickly in the Middle East that any assessment soon becomes outdated. As a result, the assembly asked the General Assembly Council to “carefully monitor ongoing developments of the situation in the Middle East and to examine the policies of the PC(USA) related to the Middle East, in order to make a comprehensive report to the 218th General Assembly (2008).”

At an early point of the 2006 General Assembly, the monitoring and reporting was headed toward ACSWP hands. However, commissioners familiar with ACSWP’s history of identifying almost exclusively with the Palestinian cause saw to it that the GAC and specifically not ACSWP would be designated as the entity to carry out the responsibilities. It was a deliberate action that was, for those who understood what was happening, a sign of lack of confidence in ACSWP objectivity. General Assembly had more confidence that GAC would get it right and that the 2008 General Assembly would have a “carefully monitored” situation and a “comprehensive report” about the situation.

That will not be the case.

At the February 2008 meeting of General Assembly Council, prior to the February 22 date when all such reports were due, only a preliminary and sketchy report was given. It showed signs of the same old biased sources, rather than careful monitoring and comprehensiveness. So further wording was needed to add to the report in April, well past the February 22 deadline for reports.

At General Assembly Council (GAC) in April, the item about a Middle East study was referred on to General Assembly. It has now appeared in the General Assembly business as Item 11-28 and as a brief item (Item I.E.5) in a report calling for “final responses to referral,” a dry, practically unnoticed listing that tells what has been done with items referred to entities from previous assemblies. Where there was once passion about a hot item, by the time it gets to a final response to referral a couple of years later, it is old news, someone else’s interest. So it is with this item, which was all the rage in 2006 but may well end up buried in a reflexively approved consent agenda in 2008.

The recommendation would basically assign ACSWP a task that it is eager to do. It directs “the General Assembly Council (GAC), working with the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), to prepare a comprehensive study, with recommendations, that is focused on Israel/Palestine within the complex context of the Middle East.”

When the recommendation was discussed in committee at the April GAC meeting, the outgoing ACSWP chair, Gordon Edwards, certainly saw it as an opportunity for his committee. “The committee sees this as a high priority,” he assured the GAC. This was something the ACSWP wanted in 2006, when General Assembly instead gave it to GAC. But now, it would head right back to ACSWP from the 2008 General Assembly, which will have no collective memory of what the 2006 General Assembly intended.

Some concern was voiced by GAC members. “Are the financial implications likely to be something that causes General Assembly to turn down the request?” asked GAC member Gary Skinner. “I’d hate to see it go down at GA for lack of financial support.” The figures before the GAC detailed a $42,600 price tag for the study.

Victor Makari, reporting for World Missions, waffled a little. “Costs are not exactly an exact science,” he  began. Perhaps that inexactitude could help get the item approved. But Makari had further concerns beyond cost and peace within the Middle East. “Our entire team is also concerned with peace within our own church,” he confided. He must remember the enormous outrage engendered by the divestment debacle in 2004.

ACSWP coordinator Chris Iosso jumped in to explain how the original intention had morphed into something else. “We’re not doing a full policy study,” he assured the GAC committee. “This has been scaled down enormously.” How enormously? Well, the study was scaled back from looking at the entire Middle East context to basically shining a searing spotlight only on the Israel-Palestine conflict—which is exactly what the General Assembly in 2006 chose not to do!

Iosso went on about “the process of winnowing the number of studies being requested,” and how ACSWP, to save money, is “trying to do reports and not do full policy studies.” His conclusion? “I don’t think we’re watering it down too much.”

But GAC member Carol Hylkema seemed to think so. “Considering the gravity of the issue, it seems more appropriate to do a full study, which would involve more people, cost more money, and take more time,” she opined. “I suggest asking General Assembly to consider ramping up the study.”

Makari, however, seemed to favor the less costly focus on Israel. “The reason the cost quoted here [$42,600] is within the range of reasonable is that the study is focused primarily on Israel and Palestine,” he argued, “even though the request itself was to focus on the entire Middle East.”

What ensued at the GAC committee meeting was some parliamentary wrangling to suggest to General Assembly that it could increase the funding for a more fully orbed study, should it so choose. It was decided that the committee would again take up the subject after appropriate wording could be produced. Later in the day, a paragraph was voted to be added to the report, giving the proposed study team the ability “to assess related costs” for a larger study. Oddly, when the committee report was approved by the full GAC the next day, that wording that would possibly have opened the door again to a wider study never made it into the item approved and sent on to General Assembly. No explanation was given for its omission.

What Came of What Began
So where does that leave the original intent? The intent was to bypass ACSWP and have GAC do a fair and comprehensive report of the whole Middle Eastern region, andnot just Israel-Palestine. GAC would then report back to General Assembly in 2008 to inform any further actions and to place what is going on in Israel within the context of the much-broader political tensions and realities of the region. That was the good intent in 2006.

What has resulted in 2008 is ACSWP being delegated the task of coming up with a narrow study about Israel-Palestine and completing it two years late, for the 2010 General Assembly.

This highly modified business that is contrary to the original intent was approved by the full GAC in April without a word of discussion or consideration. Whoosh, it was done! Now, the business will go to a General Assembly committee largely unaware of the background or intent of the matter. The committee will see a proposal that looks sane enough on the face and, barring someone relating what is really going on, will probably approve it overwhelmingly. Most likely it will go on to the General Assembly plenary and be routinely approved, perhaps in a consent agenda.

Biased, can’t-say-a-good-word-about-Israel ACSWP will have another ball to chase for the next two years, and hardly anyone will be the wiser. It works nearly every time.