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Jewish-Christian Ceasefire - Weighing Alternatives
David R. Hunter
The response on the part of Christians to the ongoing struggle in the Middle East between Israel and the Arab states is limited, restrained and varied. This should not have surprised anyone, for in general Christians do not differ from the great mass of those who make up our nation. We are a people quite generally uninformed about international affairs and not very quickly stirred up by happenings abroad. Some of us are moved by such things, but it takes a Pearl Harbor or a halfdozen years of rapidly accelerating U.S. aggression in Indochina to get a response from us. The average Jew has every reason to be concerned about the breaking of the peace in the Middle East. The average Christian, unfortunately, is no more likely to be moved by that than by a coup d'etat in Chile or the gathering of troops on the Sino-Russian frontier. Such lack of involvement is not the result of his Christian faith or of anything that happens in his church, but is the result of his culture and of what doesn't happen in his church.
When Christians do respond to the Middle East crisis, they do so usually because they have been exposed directly or indirectly to missionary experience in Arab lands, to the New Left's Third World consciousness, to strong Jewish concerns about Israel or because they have an exercised concern about international affairs and the peace of the world.
The stimulus from missionary experience almost always provides a predisposition to side with the Arabs. One does not live very meaningfully as a missionary in a foreign country without becoming attached to the people of that country, becoming a part of its life and sharing its national destiny. This experience has produced a ready and continuing tendency to support Arab aspirations in the Middle East.
A new force in this country among Christians and others, even including some Jews, has been the rejection of Israel, considering her an agent of imperialism. Israel has been identified with the United States and with U. S. foreign policy, which has worked to the detriment of Third World nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Christians who are closely related to Jews in their community are likely to be influenced by Jewish concerns, which are fairly solidly in support of Israel. Most Christians, however, are not close enough to Jews, geographically or socially or religiously, to have had this experience.
A fourth very small segment of our population, Christians included, acted out of a concern for, and at least fair knowledge of, international affairs and were the better able to deal with the charges and countercharges which have always obscured the Middle East scene.
Faced with this kind of diversity, the Nation-al Council of Churches made, in the best sense of the word, an institutional response. It had to moderate its position to fit the conscientious demands of its total constituency, or else say nothing at all. It chose to speak, and what it said was worth saying, although it pleased neither the Jews nor the Arabs. Jewish institutions also know the limitations of institutional response. B'nai B'rith went through agony dealing with demands to take a position on the Vietnam war, and it had to end by taking virtually no position at all.
The fundamental sin of Christian institutions is not so much that they are not able to speak out forthrightly on matters of controversy, but that they are so inadequate in preparing their individual members to become socially active and responsible in relation to international issues. Individuals are relatively free to represent their own individual conscience on controversial matters, and if they have the courage to do so, the price they must pay in this country is not nearly so great as in some other parts of the world. All they need is knowledge, some moral criteria and just a modicum of intestinal fortitude.
Enough individuals responded in relation to the Yom Kippur war to suggest to me that things are at least a little better now than they were in 1967. On neither occasion, however, was there reason to fear that the limitations characterizing Christian response were interfering with the developing Jewish-Christian dialogue. Such shortcomings and limitations provide stimulus for dialogue. They did so in 1967 and they are doing so today. Jews and Christians need each other, and we are not likely to let our disappointments lead to the fratricidal act of breaking relationship.
David R. Hunter is Deputy General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.
