c. 2004 Religion News Service

Presbyterians Outline Criteria for Israeli Divestment

(RNS) The Presbyterian Church (USA) has set six criteria to consider in its controversial plan to pursue “phased selective” financial divestment for companies doing business in Israel.

A church panel that oversees “socially responsible” investments met Nov. 4-6 in New York to establish a framework for church action against companies that are involved in Israeli settlements, construction of Israel’s “separation barrier” or that assist Palestinians in violence against Israelis.

The divestment plan, adopted by Presbyterian delegates in July, has met fierce opposition from Jewish groups who call it unfair. Despite several high-level summits with leaders from both faiths, the church has not signaled any desire to reconsider.

Four of the criteria will target companies that provide services to maintain Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. A fifth category would involve companies that provide products or financial support to target civilians on either side. A sixth category involves companies involved in construction or maintenance of Israel’s controversial separation barrier.

Church leaders stressed that divestment is a “last resort” that would need the approval of church delegates in 2006. Officials said they would first pursue corporate negotiations, followed by shareholders’ resolutions. The panel hopes to conclude its research by next spring.

“Divestment is a long way from this point in time,” Carol Hylkema, chair of the Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee, told Presbyterian News Service.

It is unclear how much of the church’s $8 billion investment portfolio may be tied up in companies operating in Israel. The last time the church pursued divestment was against oil companies in Sudan, and earlier, the anti-apartheid movement against South Africa in the 1980s.

At the same time, the controversial plan has apparently sparked arson threats against churches. Officials said Friday (Nov. 12) they received an anonymous letter postmarked from Queens, N.Y., with threats that Presbyterian churches “will go up in flames _ bet your (expletive) that’s a terrorist threat.”

“Their (sic) will be Arson attacks against Presbyterian Churches with people inside there will be bloodshed,” the letter said. Church officials alerted law enforcement agencies and encouraged churches to beef up security and vigilance. The letter set a Nov. 15 deadline for the church to change course “or else.”

_ Kevin Eckstrom

Iliff School of Theology Given `Warning’ After President’s Retirement

(RNS) Iliff School of Theology, a United Methodist-related school in Denver, has been issued a “public warning” by a denominational review team after an investigation was conducted concerning the abrupt retirement of the school’s former president.

After the May 26 retirement of the Rev. David Maldonado, a team comprised of members of the denomination’s University Senate and Commission on Religion and Race looked into questions about “perceived racial and cultural insensitivities’ and the ways the institution is governed, said the Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, interim president, in a letter posted on the school’s Web site.

“The review team found that failures to assert appropriate leadership by the board of trustees, the unwillingness of some faculty members to recognize and respect different leadership styles, as well as not letting go of traditional norms and behaviors to allow for an inclusive institutional transformation, contributed to the problems that President Maldonado and the institution faced,” the report said.

It also said that Maldonado, who was president for four years, was not treated fairly by the school’s trustees: “Justice has not been done for him.”

The investigation team credited him with stabilizing the school’s finances, increasing enrollment and boosting the representation of Hispanics at the institution. He was the first Hispanic to lead a United Methodist-related seminary.

Wogaman noted in his letter that nothing in the report relates to the school’s accreditation or academic program.

“Iliff agrees with the team that this is an opportunity to correct problems identified by the denomination and welcomes their assistance,” he said in a statement. “Both the school and the review team are confident that Iliff can and will resolve these problems.”

The United Methodist News Service reported that the United Methodist Ministerial Education Fund contributed $900,000 to the school’s $5.14 million budget last year. The report said funding could be withheld if progress is not made on its recommendations. An evaluation of the school’s progress is expected within six months.

_ Adelle M. Banks

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary President to Retire

(UNDATED) Carnegie Samuel Calian, among the longest-serving and most successful seminary presidents in the nation, will retire in January 2006 after 25 years at the helm of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

“I think the institution needs a change, I need a change. My wife wants a change,” said Calian, 71, the son of Armenia immigrants who Americanized his first name from “Carnig” to “Carnegie” when he was a child.

“I really feel that God has another chapter for me, but I don’t know what it is yet.”

He is the longest serving president of any seminary of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and among the two or three longest serving among all 251 accredited seminaries in the nation. Under his leadership, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary was transformed from a struggling, liberal institution to a thriving one whose theologically diverse faculty includes some of the most prominent evangelical scholars in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Calian sought to create a centrist school that would model theological diversity and reconciliation to a divided church. Although the seminary is increasingly perceived as evangelical, he said the faculty represents a healthy cross section. Among them are New Testament scholar Robert Gagnon, whose “The Bible and Homosexual Practice” is a manifesto for opponents of gay ordination and Ronald Cole-Turner, a United Church of Christ theologian specializing in bioethical issues.

“Your perception of the school will depend on where you are standing. If you are on the left, you see the seminary moving away from you. If you are on the right, you see the seminary moving toward you. If you take the higher perspective, it’s really moving to the middle,” he said.

The theological shift has been accompanied by an increase in endowment from $9 million to $139 million, and in degree program enrollment from 210 to 380 students. Another 3,000 people attend the school’s continuing education courses each year.

Daniel Aleshire, president of the Association of Theological Schools, the accrediting agency for seminaries, said that only a few large, evangelical seminaries surpassed Pittsburgh for growth in enrollment and financial stability over the past 20 years.

Among all seminaries, “PTS has done as well as any, and better than almost all of them in terms of the growth of assets that theological education requires,” he said.

_ Ann Rodgers

Quote of the Day: Archbishop of Boston Sean P. O’Malley

(RNS) “Closing parishes is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in 40 years of religious life. I joined the monastery knowing that I would have to do difficult things for the rest of my life, but I never imagined I would have to be involved in anything so painful or so personally repulsive to me as this. At times I ask God to call me home and let someone else finish this job, but I keep waking up in the morning to face another day of reconfiguration.”

_ Archbishop of Boston Sean P. O’Malley, writing in a Saturday (Nov. 13) statement about the closing of dozens of parishes in his archdiocese.

MO/JL RNS END