SCoJeC Rebukes Church of Scotland
over General Assembly Report

SCoJeC has issued a strongly worded rebuke to the Church and Society Council of the Church of Scotland after they published a report entitled The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the ‘promised land’ for adoption at the General Assembly at the end of May. This is described as "a theological reflection that explores the idea that biblical authority can be used to give a people, any people, the divine right to a land". Amongst other recommendations, it calls for the Church to “refute claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory”, and it goes on call for the report itself to be publicised and discussed in churches and presbyteries throughout the Church.

SCoJeC's statement reads:

The punctuation in the title of the document is sufficient to indicate where this is coming from: at merely 10 pages, this is not a reasoned academic discussion of either theology or politics, but a tendentious and biased polemic. It is full of selective quotation and biased narrative, fundamental misrepresentations of both Judaism and Zionism, supersessionist “replacement theology”, and offensive mis-characterisation of mainstream Jewish belief.  It is also remarkable for what it does not even mention, including 2000 years of Jewish prayerful longing for return to the land of Israel, terrorism against Jewish – not Israeli – targets throughout the world, the persecution and consequent flight of Jews from almost all middle-eastern countries, the near disappearance of Christians from the Palestinian Territories, and the classical antisemitic language employed by Hamas.  It is hardly surprising that almost all online support for the document has been from the extreme left and the extreme right, including Aryan supremacists in the USA.

The Board of Deputies has also criticised the report:


Rev David Gifford, Chief Executive of the Council of Christians and Jews, described the paper as ill-considered, regressive, and insensitive to Jewish anxieties, and criticised its "unfortunate words and phrases, as well as thinly veiled overtones of supersessionism and replacement theology, [which] smack of Christian superiority over Judaism".  He added, "Whilst few would disagree that serious issues need to be addressed by the State of Israel, instead of offering fresh opportunities and an openness to engage with the Jewish community in a joint response to the worrying trends in the Israel/Palestine conflict, this report runs the risk of further alienating our own Jewish community and increasing its fear and anxiety.

And Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, commented that “It is rather pathetic when a Church feels constrained to deny its sacred Biblical text in order to pander to "political correctness"

We do not expect to agree with the Church on every matter, either theological or political – after all, we do not agree amongst ourselves.  But we expect disagreement to be conducted in a respectful, rational, and truthful manner – the manner, indeed, characterised by the Kirk’s own 2003 report on the same subject, Theology of Land and Covenant:

Under these circumstances, one might have thought that the Church of Scotland would also be concerned about the beam closer to its own eye. Yet it is also silent on the experience of Jewish people in Scotland. In SCoJeC’s Government-funded Being Jewish in Scotland project last year, no fewer that four out of five respondents spontaneously raised the topic of Israel or Zionism, and the vast majority reported that the undisputed increase of anti-zionist activity in Scotland affected their lives as Jews in Scotland. Typical comments were that the “growing intolerance regarding Israel in Scotland … is in danger of becoming antisemitism”, and that “I sometimes feel afraid of stating openly my background and beliefs. I see increasing hostility in my surroundings”. We have drawn this more than once to the attention of the Church and Society Council, and are saddened that they have not seen fit to meet us to discuss how the Kirk could contribute to better relations between our communities in Scotland and instead are contributing to that climate.