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July 25, 2005
Here We Go Again
Ever since the 1986 divestment campaign against South Africa, reformers have been looking for another troubled democracy that they could influence by choking off private investment. Never mind that divestment is about as effective as economic sanctions—hit either does not work at all or it impoverishes the people at the bottom while giving the rulers a convenient foreign enemy to excuse their misrule. Now it is so-called mainline Prostestant churches that want to get into foreign policy, by pulling their investment from any company that does business with Israel, as my friend Eugene Kontorovich writes in the Wall Street Journal. Not being an Anglican, as I am, Kontorovich misses one vital point: there is a prayer we say every Sunday for the clergy. It is right here in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The modern Episcopal Church has rewritten this and other prayers and forgotten the wisdom behind them. So now we have this mess, with dog-collar wearing amateurs inserting themselves into politics rather than carrying on with their more important duties of comforting the sick and the dying, teaching the young, uplifting the poor in spirit, and saving the souls of the lost.
Posted by Richard Miniter at July 25, 2005 10:31 PM