This was a very long day, which ended just before midnight. We caught up on some business that was postponed on day 5 & 6, but only after the afternoon session on the Middle East overtures for divestment, etc.
Let me just say that there was an overt bias to the entire day.
The ecumenical delegate or visitor allowed to bring greetings, was from the church of Syria & Lebanon, and while not mentioning the persecution of Christians in Syria, did mention the poor Palestinians.
Later on, some of the discussions were tilted with some speakers allowed to finish their talks while out of time, and questions from the floor that turned out more like advocacy speeches than questions.
The final straw was after the advisory vote from the YAADs, TSAD, MADS, and EADs, the Moderator called for us to gather around in a group and pray and say out loud the name of a Palestinian who was hurt because of the issues in the Middle East, and a Jewish friend who was hurt.
After that the vote was taken, and divestiture passed by only 7 votes. A body of over 620 or so, and it only passed by 7 votes. This says that the church is not of one mind on this at all.
After this passed the rest was anticlimatic, except for one overture which asked the PMA to create a study on the safety of children of both sides in Israel & Palestine.
The overture asked that the PMA, in association with the IPMN, create this study. The same IPMN who created the Zionism Unchained study that reeked of falsehoods, innuendo and outright anti-Semitism. The same commissioner that rose up on the marriage AI, rose up with an amendment to strike any mention of the IPMN from that overture. His rational was basically, we've already put a knife in our Jewish friends, why do we want to twist it too. This amendment passed overwhelmingly.
The rest of the evening was spent tweaking a lot of stuff on social justice and polity, but I was fried by that time, and two days later, would rather concentrate on recovering from the daily push and spiritual warfare of the GA.
.... and so it goes!!
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