Talk:Presbyterian Church (USA) disinvestment from Israel controversy

message: Per request this article has been spun off from Presbyterian Church (USA).  This is too allow the article to grow and to allow more details of the issue to be presented. However, this is not to allow any deviation from WP:NPOV, please keep that in mind.  As of my creation of this article it is mostly a copy/paste with any introductory phargaph of my own creation, but this is a wiki so edit away --T-rex 01:48, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: I am suggesting that this page be moved and also merged with Presbyterian Church (USA) Hezbollah controversy, as well as some of the other controversy material at Presbyterian Church (USA). This follows the model used in Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as example. I don't think that the main Presbyterian Church (USA) should have more information on controversies in the last 5-6 years than on the first 200 years of the church, and making a separate sub-article for each controversy is a bit too maintenance intensive. I think we can put the full details on the controversies in one article, and summarize at Presbyterian Church (USA) (with the  link). KWH 05:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: IMO there are several sections that need clarification.  In the "2004 GA resolution" paragraph, it refers to all the different overtures (MRTI, endorsing the Geneva Accord, condemning the construction of the wall, Christian Zionism, messianic congregations) as a monolithic "The Resolution".  To those unfamiliar with Presbyterian polity (i.e., the vast majority of Wikipedia's users), it may not be clear that an "overture" before the General Assembly is like a bill before Congress or Parliament.  It has to be approved by a majority of the body to pass.  There were 74 separate overtures on a wide variety of topics brought to the 2004 GA (85 to the 2006 GA--neither number includes items voted on that came up as new business during the Assemblies).  It would be far beyond the scope of this article to report on the voting records for each.  I think that in the interest of clarity, it should be made clear that overtures were not voted on as a single, huge package.  Further, I think that the "Christian Zionism" (reaffirming it as a dispensationalist dogma incompatible with Presbyterian theology; it has its own article which ought to be linked anyway) and "conversionary activities" (the resolution to suspend financial support of messianic congregations failed) should be treated separately or not at all to avoid confusion.
The "Criticism of resolution" paragraph lists among its sources for the claim that "A small handful of critics of the divestment policy, none from major Jewish organizations, accused church leaders of anti-Semitism" editorial pieces written for major Jewish organizations' websites.  It comes across as contradictory.  Perhaps we could find out exactly who this "small handful" are or simply delete the sentence.
The "General Advisory Council response to criticism" paragraph has several problems.  First, there is to the best of my knowledge no such body within the PC(USA).  I assume this refers to the General Assembly Council, which is a subsidiary body that acts to implement the policies of the General Assembly.  It does not vote on or approve overtures as the article claims.  The paragraph further claims that "prior to 1974, the church had only called for...".  The PC(USA) did NOT EVEN EXIST until 1982.  If this is specifically referring to one of the predecessor churches, then say which one, because both took different stances at different times (the northern PCUSA, which later became the UPCUSA, as early as 1948 called for self-determination of "the Jewish and Arabic peoples").  Finally, personal opinions of undefined "pro-Israel advocates" regarding the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as well as their reactions to the positions of the NCC and WCC, do not belong in this article but elsewhere.
The second paragraph in the "Change to policy in 2006" section has little or nothing to do with the source given.  There is none of the "uncertainty" within the document itself and seems to reflect confusion on the part of the person who read it, not on the part of the PC(USA)'s leadership, membership or the world at large.  If there are credible sources supporting the vast uncertainty regarding the change in the GA's position, then let's see it.
I've been toying with a more in-depth explanation of how MRTI works (its recent removal of Talisman from the list after Talisman suspended its Sudanese operations, its successes with FirstEnergy, its ongoing lobbying of Wal-Mart, etc) and expanding it beyond the simplistic "Israel, South Africa" treatment it gets here.  It doesn't even explain what the church was divesting--the linked article to "divestment" uses as its example the US government's breakup of Bell Telephone in 1984.  Thoughts?
Flycandler 20:08, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Clear as mud

message: I have moved this page from its old title (Current controversies regarding the Presbyterian Church (USA)) to its current one (Presbyterian Church (USA) disinvestment from Israel controversy). The reason for this is that while it claims to be about 'current controversies', the entire article is only about a single controversy - the disinvestment-from-Israel resolution. It appears it was moved to its previous title back in 2006, with the intention of merging in other articles about controversies relating to the church (e.g. Presbyterian Church (USA) Hezbollah controversy); however, this merge never happened. Until this article is expanded to deal with more than one controversy, it should remain at its current title. Robofish (talk) 02:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page moved 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) disinvestment from Israel controversy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080509045542/http://www.pcusa.org:80/interfaith/vigilance.htm to http://www.pcusa.org/interfaith/vigilance.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 08:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified