Church and Main

Music.

Hello, and welcome to Church and Main, the podcast that's at the intersection

of faith and modern life. I'm Dennis Sanders, your host.

Church in Maine is a podcast that looks for God in the midst of issues affecting

church and the larger society.

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So I wanna start out by talking a little bit about something I did this past summer.

This past summer, I went to Louisville, Kentucky. That's where the 2023 General

Assembly of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ was being held.

That is my home denomination, the denomination I was ordained into a little bit over 20 years ago.

Like a lot of other church conventions, the gathered assembly looks at important

issues and usually votes on them.

Being that we're a congregational church, usually those resolutions don't have

any force other than the sense of the assembly, but they do matter.

One of those issues that was taken up was Israel -Palestine.

And there was a non -binding resolution that wanted the assembly to call Israel an apartheid state.

And I remember looking at that resolution actually a few weeks before General

Assembly and I realized I was opposed to this measure. I just did not like it.

I didn't think it was fair.

Um, it just seemed.

Not right.

When it did come before General Assembly at General Assembly,

I voted on the measure and I was in a distinct minority.

That resolution passed with a large portion of those that were present voting in favor.

And I can remember leaving the plenary hall feeling somewhat disturbed.

Now, I'm someone that believes in the two -state solution. and I'm someone that

also thinks that there's a lot to criticize about how Israel has treated Palestinians in the past.

But I totally disagreed with equating Israel with apartheid era South Africa. To me that made no sense.

And the disciples are far from the only mainline Protestant denomination that

has labeled Israel an apartheid state.

In fact, in 2022, the Presbyterian Church USA also voted in favor of calling

Israel an apartheid state.

And earlier that year, the stated clerk of the denomination called Israeli policies

towards Palestinians as, quote -unquote, enslavement.

Then, stated Clerk Herbert Nelson, said during his Martin Luther King Day reflection the following,

quote, the continued occupation in Palestine -Israel is a 21st century slavery

and should be abolished immediately, unquote.

The United Church of Christ and a conference of the United Methodist Church

have also come out with strong language against Israel.

So, what's going on here? Is this a legitimate criticism of Israeli policy,

or is there something deeper going on here?

And what do these policies mean, especially in the wake of the October 7th attacks

in Israel by the terrorist group Hamas?

In this episode, I talk with the Reverend Todd Stavrikos.

Todd is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA, he's been active

in the organization Presbyterians for Middle East Peace,

a grassroots group of Presbyterian lay and clergy volunteers who want the PCUSA

to be an effective peacemaker in the Middle East.

He's also involved in a new organization, Pathways for Peace,

a non -profit educational organization that works to support collaboration between

mainline churches and the Jewish community.

He's on staff with the Presbyterian of Philadelphia and also the pastor of Gladwin

Presbyterian Church in Gladwin, Pennsylvania.

We'll talk a lot about what's been going on within mainline churches and what

does this mean between the relationship between mainline churches and the Jewish community.

So let's hear from Todd Stavrikos about the mainline churches and Israel and the Jewish community.

Music.

All right, well, thanks for joining me this afternoon, Todd.

Well, it's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me to be on the show.

Well, I think the first thing I wanted to start off with is just kind of some

basic questions about you.

I know that you are a pastor in the Philadelphia Presbytery and and also have

some work in the presbytery as well.

Yeah, I wear many hats. Yes, you do.

I'm the pastor at Gladwin Presbyterian Church, which as you noted,

is just outside the city of Philadelphia, the suburban region of the city.

I also do some consulting with the presbytery overall with its public witness

efforts, where we focus on some of the major issues that are hitting the city of gun violence.

Environmental concerns, ecological concerns, and immigration.

So that's another thing that I do.

In the past, I've been active with Presidetarians for Middle East Peace,

but more recently been more active with Pathways, which is a multi -denominational

entity that seeks to sort of

build up the middle, the center in the debate over Israel and Palestine.

Palestine, working primarily with many of the groups in Israel and Palestine

that are trying to build bridges to provide for a stronger place for peaceful efforts.

Because the extremists have, you know, right now the extremists control the

dialogue and it gets us nowhere.

Can you tell me a little bit about your work with Presbyterians for Middle East

Peace and the organization itself?

Sure, so Presbyterians for Middle East Peace kind of came out of the Presbyterian

Jewish dialogue that was taking place in the 80s and 90s.

And PFMEP really came together as an entity when the denomination began discussing divestment.

And PFMEP really, kind of most of its work was revolving around the issue of

divestment and trying to defeat the calls for divestment,

believing that it was sort of like the wrong policy for the wrong issues at the wrong time.

We think the fact that Presbyterian Church has very little say in what happens

in Israel and Palestine right now certainly speaks to the reality of what our

concerns were back then.

Since that time, it's been a loose organization made up of clergy and lay members

of the denomination who are concerned.

With the increasingly shrill voices that we're hearing in the denomination as it relates to Israel.

We think that the strong connections that have developed between the denomination

and the BDS movement is something that has hurt our standing with the American Jewish community,

who for the most part share our very same concerns about what has happened in

the state of Israel and the lack of the peace process.

So we found ourselves alienated from partners for peace because of the work

that supporters of the BDS movement within the denomination have done.

And I think many in the national offices have bought into the BDS narrative.

So while the denomination hasn't necessarily made any statements in support of the BDS.

We have entities like the Peace and Compassion Office as well as the Israel

Palestine Mission Network who are wholeheartedly a part of the BDS movement

in terms of what they advocate,

in terms of how they talk, that sort of thing.

And so our work has been mostly to provide an alternative vision with alternative

strategies of how we could be better moving to support the peace efforts.

I think one of the things that unfortunately has occurred, and we're seeing

it in the most, this most recent war,

is many of the mainline denominations, including Peace USA, have been using

rhetoric of saying the two -peace or the two -state scenario solution is over.

And when you say things like that, because words matter.

If it's going to be one state, then whose state is it going to be?

You get the maximalist right -wing Israelis who will say it's going to be a

Jewish state and there will be no Palestinians allowed.

And you get the maximalist Palestinians who say we are going to drive the Israelis,

the Jews, out of the land.

We can't get away from that. We have extremists on both sides.

They will never be happy until there are two states living side by side.

The Palestinian state for the Palestinian community and the Israeli state for the Jewish community.

And what we're seeing is Hamas, an atrocious, murderous organization,

who has no designs on peace, whose only goal is to kill Jews.

This is not a liberating entity. If they were a liberating entity,

they would be providing shelter for their own people right now, but they're not.

You know, Hamas has, once again, put their own people in jeopardy.

Hamas has shown who it is with just the ruthless atrocities that occurred on

October 7th, just unspeakable.

And a large part of that can be attributed to some of the language that they've

heard coming from the states, the progressive communities that have been highly critical of Israel,

who have labeled Israel all sorts of things, an apartheid state, a racist state,

nothing but a colonial state.

And they see that rhetoric, they hear that rhetoric, and they take actions to

further isolate Israel.

Whenever Hamas needs to get PR, they launch rockets.

It serves them, they are able to raise money off the issue because they know

Israel will respond as any state would to an attack.

They will then claim a disproportional response.

Israel will try and strike Hamas sites. We know now through all the investigation

that's taking place that Hamas

puts command and control facilities under hospitals inside UN buildings.

Buildings, they store weapons in schools and hospitals and UN buildings, and they want,

civilian casualties because that plays up to their view that Israel just indiscriminately

kills Palestinians. And we know that that's not the case.

Any rational person knows that that's not the case.

But we see the influence in the

fact that we have so many people speaking about how this is a genocide.

There have been unfortunate civilian casualties.

Innocent people have died, and I grieve over that.

But a genocide would mean that all two million residents of Gaza are at risk,

and we're not seeing that.

Nor are we seeing anything equivalent to genocide taking place in the West Bank.

And that doesn't even account for the millions of Palestinians who live in places

like Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria until the waiting for a two -state scenario.

So all this language that gets used, mostly on the progressive side of the political

spectrum, just further creates a fertile ground for Hamas to act.

And PCUSA and other mainline denominations are part of that problem.

You know, the reason, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because

there have been kind of two events that have kind of made me wonder about what's going on.

The first event was that, about now 10 years ago, 10, 15 years ago,

I used to work for the Presidential Twin Cities area.

So, I was there when the PCUSA had their General Assembly in Minneapolis.

And that there were discussions at that point between the church and the Jewish community.

I even sat in on a meeting with local Jewish leaders to talk about Middle East issues.

And I remember a few years later, a document came out from the PCUSA.

And the way that it was framed was very interesting in that it talked a lot

about, I guess what we would call now settler colonialism, which as I looked

at it, thought this doesn't look right.

And as someone who's always kind of believed in a two -state solution,

that both sides have valid claims, both sides have done things that are wrong.

And that it was very one -sided, and that kind of troubled me.

And then this summer, my own denomination, the Christian Church Disciples of

Christ, had a resolution, and they're non -binding, but still,

that called Israel an apartheid state.

And I was kind of surprised how many people,

supported that viewpoint. I was in the minority. I did not think that that was correct.

And speaking as someone who remembers the 1980s and remembers South Africa and

knows and has kind of followed what goes on in Israel,

and I'm not going to say that the occupied territories and both have necessarily

been wonderful examples of,

you know, peace and harmony, but it doesn't seem like it's that simple.

And that just how I don't, I didn't understand how that could be helpful in

all of this, and especially how that could be helpful to our relations with the Jewish community.

And so I've just been kind of wondering what is it within the mainline churches

that in many cases are always so concerned about, and I think rightly, things like racism,

did not seem to care much, or have really put much thought when it comes to

these issues, that how that can affect our relations with the Jewish community.

Yeah, and I think you're putting the finger on the trends that we've seen over

the last 20 years, and maybe even longer.

Most of our mainline denominations are sort of center -left left Protestant communities.

We speak in the language of peace and justice.

And a lot of what we do is cloaked around peace and justice,

the idea of reconciliation through Christ and in Christ, which is absolutely right.

But we also tend to apply to the typical Western white perspective of one -size -fits -all.

We don't look at the complexities and differences.

We just think every issue between either minority communities or the haves and

have -nots, or whatever group is marginalized or oppressed,

we just think it's a cookie -cutter

mentality, and we apply the same philosophies to all these occasions.

And it doesn't work that way. And it never has.

But, you know, this is the, to me, this is the Western mindset run amok,

which is kind of funny, that all these churches would say that they're not that

they're trying to get away from the Western mindset. Right.

And yet it's running amok.

It's the white perspective.

And in this scenario, with Israel, everybody has focused on the occupation,

which is not a good thing.

The occupation is horrific. Anybody who has seen what the average Palestinian

has to go through on a regular occasion, on a daily existence,

the humiliation of living in the occupation,

it's a horrendous thing.

However, as wrong as the occupation is, we don't hold the Palestinians accountable

for any of their actions that have occurred in the past or the present that

leads us to a situation where the occupation is still in place.

The occupation is still in place because we have not agreed to a peace arrangement.

You know, Israel, technically, of the five nations that it was at war in 1948,

after the partition plan of the UN was issued,

out of those five states, it's still technically at war with three of them.

It's only been a peace agreement made between the Kingdom of Jordan,

which just recently occurred in the last 20 years, and Egypt.

Those are the two countries that have a peace arrangement.

Syria does not have a peace deal with Israel, does not even recognize Israel.

Same thing with Lebanon, same thing with Iraq.

So the occupation is still an occupation because nobody's been able to agree

to the deal or a deal on what the Palestinian state would look like.

If Israel wanted that land, they would have declared it their own a long time ago.

And so what some people are saying, you know, we need to end the occupation.

Well, what does that look like?

You just want Israel to claim the land, to annex the land, in which case there

is no state of Palestine? Not now, not ever?

Is there gonna be a peace deal?

You know, we thought we were on the right track with the Oslo Agreements,

and I'm not saying that the right wing in Israel was very helpful in this,

because they weren't, but it was Arafat and the Palestinians who walked away at the last moment.

And then instead of the peace deal, we have the second Innafatah.

So we need to hold the Palestinians responsible for their actions as well that have not led to peace.

So a lot of what we're seeing is just, it's not revisionist history,

but it's incomplete history.

It's people only looking at one side.

People always talk about, well, Israel has not lived up to the UN resolutions.

Well, neither have the Arab states.

You know, the UN Resolution 242 that called for an end of the occupied territories

also called upon all the belligerent parties to recognize the state of Israel. They haven't done that.

So, what are we going to, as Christians, you know, my perspective is as Christians,

we need to be holding both parties feet to the fire to get peace.

But when we side with one against the other, we then don't have any ability to be a peacemaker.

And all of our emphasis is on sanctioning the state of Israel.

In all the actions that the Presbyterian Church's General Assembly has taken,

we have never once condemned Hamas.

Why is that? I mean, especially, you know, we've seen kind of the brutality of what they've done.

Why can't we say, I mean, can't say that?

We have, unfortunately, we have people in the denomination who believe that

Hamas is a national liberating party.

They are the freedom fighters. They are the resistance. Hamas is none of those

things and we have people in this denomination who are fooled into thinking

that Hamas and Hezbollah are freedom fighters.

We have leaders of our own denomination who have met with the leaders of Hezbollah.

Wow. I mean, so how can we be Christian, Christ -like, advocating for peace

when we are not condemning terrorist activities.

When we are meeting with terrorists, but we're not asking them to transform

their hearts, we're giving them refuge through the words and rhetoric that we use.

That can't stand. And as you pointed out, everything is one -sided.

So is it any wonder that we're finding the extremist in Israel in power,

and the extremists like Hamas taking advantage of the situation,

because we've emboldened both.

Hmm. So what do you think that this does for or has done with these stances

when it comes to relations with the Jewish community here in the United States.

You know, obviously that many within that community have ties and in many cases

even have relatives that live in Israel.

What has that done to that? So, in the recent, with the recent war,

The overwhelming sentiment that I'm getting from my peers and Jewish community,

my friends, colleagues, people I work with on a daily basis is that they feel abandoned.

They hear they hear the statements that don't condemn Hamas.

They hear the statements that sort of.

Blames Israel for what happened on October 7.

And and they feel abandoned by their friends.

The Jewish community, you know,

we talk about in our, in our racial conversations, we always talk about the

lasting impact that trauma has on families and how trauma can be ingrained into DNA,

several generations after a traumatic experience can still be suffering from trauma.

Well, what do we think has been happening over 2 ,000 years to the Jewish community

who have suffered from the trauma of anti -Semitism,

pogroms, not being able to live in peace, and now have situations where once

again they're being attacked on streets in the United States.

Students, college students are trapped in library buildings as violent protesters

are outside banging on doors,

Jewish students are harassed walking to class, who have nothing to do with the

actions in the state of Israel, nothing.

So right now, the relationship of the Jewish community and the Presbyterian

church is non -existent.

Individual congregations have relationships. There is no dialogue between National

Jewish Organizations and PCUSA as a denomination.

They've written them off.

They do not view the Presbyterian Church USA as an ally in anything.

And we, you know, Presbyterians in particular have had a long history of working

side by side with Jewish synagogues and communities on all sorts of social justice issues.

And they're still happening. You know, God bless those congregations who are

continued to be in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors, which does not mean

that they're supporting the state of Israel, but it means that they're supporting

their Jewish neighbors.

But Presbyterian Church USA, there is no relationship whatsoever.

And like I said, you know, the Jewish community feels completely abandoned by

many of the mainline denominations.

They see the statements that come out from the Presbyterians and the Lutherans

and Episcopalians, things that that do not directly condemn Hamas,

that are all wishy -washy and talking about how this is just something part of the larger conflict.

What happened on October 7th was not part of the conflict.

It was an act of outright aggression towards the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.

Do you think that any of this could be related to or be even described as anti -Semitism?

I haven't said that because speaking as an African -American,

sometimes you don't want to make everything racism, so you don't want to make, in this case,

but I guess getting your viewpoint, Do you see this as anti -semitism?

Well, but as an African -American when you see racism Mm -hmm,

you call it out, right? Yes, you do.

I mean, you don't use it as an excuse necessarily for everything No,

you call it out when it's real.

Mm -hmm. The Jewish community is calling out anti -semitism and.

As a white man if you said something was racist I Cannot say to you. No, it's not.

Yeah, it's not my place to say that Right, just like as a white man,

if a woman says that sex is misogynist, I can't say no, it's not.

I'm a white man, I don't have any right to say that it is or it isn't.

And yet we as a community, when a Jewish community or person says that's anti

-Semitic, we say, no, it's not. And we act like we are the authority.

The Jewish community will decide what's anti -Semitic, much like the African

-American community decides what's racist.

But we, this is one minority group that we do not allow their emotions to be truly held.

What is happening is anti -Semitic. And you can look at the strains of 2 ,000

years of examples of anti -Semitism and you can see how they've just regenerated

in new ways and in new forms, but it's the same old thing.

Anti -Semitism dehumanizes the Jewish people. The sheer fact that we don't even

recognize that their claim of anti -Semitism is legitimate, and dehumanizes the Jewish community.

So in that fact, that we like Presbyterians will come up with our own definition

of antisemitism that doesn't take into account what the Jewish community thinks.

That is antisemitism.

We are saying that their opinions aren't important.

Now, if we were to say that about the African -American community,

oh Lord, there would be riots. and African Americans rioting.

White members of the community would be up in arms if we did something like that.

But not when it comes to the Jews. No, no, no. We have different standards for the Jews.

So it's anti -Semitism, pure and simple. Why is that?

I mean, I can remember and do, whenever we go through the Gospels,

and being very careful to not preach anything that even seems anti -Semitic,

and I think that there is wisdom in that.

But when it comes to this, where you have a case where people,

Jews have been slaughtered,

we don't seem to be as careful. I mean, why?

And I don't want to sound like a one -trick pony, but that is the evil of anti -Semitism.

I mean, it has been, since the church started it,

and since the church for 2000 years, and even today, promotes it through really

bad exegetical work of scripture.

You know, I never wanna hear how a Christian pastor or preaches from the Gospel of John.

Because most of us understand that when the gospel is talking about the Jews,

the author is talking about the religious leaders.

And yet time and again, you'll hear a pastor talking about how the Jews don't

get it and just starts to rip into the Jewish community of the day,

which then draws inferences from the average person who's listening that,

well, if the Jews were wrong then, they still have to be wrong now.

And so within our DNA as Christians, we have anti -Semitism.

And we have to root it out of ourselves.

And colleagues and I have worked on a preacher's guide of how to preach from

Jewish scriptures with integrity,

of not realizing that every single prophetic voice points to Jesus.

There were real prophets who are speaking to the people of Israel within their

own context of what God is doing in the world.

But you find a Christian pastor reading any prophetic text and he's going to

draw it back, or she's going to draw it back to Jesus as if the reality of what

that person was talking about. It's not real.

But that's why it's so difficult for us to get away from anti -Semitism,

because it's in our DNA, and unless we're trying to root it out, it just sits there.

So, with the recent thing as of October 7th, and you alluded to this earlier

about some of the responses from mainline churches.

How have the churches responded, and how should they be responding?

Many of them have gone through a process of they've made a statement,

they've had to remake the statement, because someone's pointing out the error in their statements.

Unfortunately, most of them have couched this within the conflict.

And I can understand why you would do that, but the reality is October 7th was different.

And you can't be a student of history and not look at it and say,

yeah, this was different.

This was different from every other form of military constructs that have occurred,

you know, since the founding in 1948 of Israel and so forth.

This was a flat -out massacre with no goal other than to take lives.

And the fact that our denominations couldn't just condemn the act of October

7th and say, this doesn't mean,

the response should have been, we condemn in the strongest possible terms, this actions of Hamas.

We understand as faith communities that there has been an ongoing conflict

and that there is an occupation which is not good and that we believe that both

the Palestinians and Israelis deserve a nation and a state of their own.

But that the events of October 7th do not further that goal.

As a matter of fact, they actually have weakened that goal.

And so we condemn all those who have shed innocent blood for no other reason than to shed blood.

That would have been a simple statement, probably, you know,

even worded a little better, but that could have been the statement that was

made that gets the point across of saying, this was beyond the pale,

and we need peace.

And why do you think that they couldn't even do that?

Because it's difficult for us to give up on our bad habits.

For organizations such as PeaceUSA, who have spent 20 years defending Hamas,

That would imply that they were wrong about Hamas.

That means their own actions have blood on their hands.

And do they want themselves to be called on the carpet?

And so they, you know, try to defend themselves through their actions.

There are strong voices in the

denomination who continue to speak against Israel in unflattering terms.

I think most people in the Presbyterian Church USA believe there should be peace,

but don't hold Israel solely responsible for the situation,

but most of those folks have other things to do and aren't always going to be

voicing an opinion, whereas the pro -Hamas groups within mainline churches, that's all they do.

And so they raise outrage at everything, and that tends to be what the denominations pick up.

So when you talk about that some of these groups have actually met with Hamas

or Hezbollah, are these like officials high up in the denomination?

Are these people on the ground kind of missionaries.

I mean, do you have examples of kind of how that?

Yes. So, I mean, there are some that just happen through the course of people

going into, for instance, you know, Hamas is the civilian administration in

Gaza, rightly or wrongly, they just are.

So anybody who speaks to anybody in an official capacity in the Gaza Strip,

That's going to be a member of Hamas.

That sort of thing happens, and I guess that's fine.

What wasn't fine, and it was about a decade ago, that officers,

meaning professional staff of the denomination, when they were doing a trip

through the Middle East, met with leaders of Hezbollah.

That's not okay. Hezbollah is nothing but a terrorist organization.

They don't administer any parts

of Lebanon or Syria, even though they run around in Lebanon and in Syria.

They were active participants in supporting Bashar Assad's atrocious government,

during the Syrian civil war.

Hezbollah is a destabilizing entity within the nation of Lebanon.

And there's no reason to meet with Hezbollah.

And yet, a decade or so ago, members of PCUSA did that.

They were criticized then, and they have apologized for it, but the sheer fact

that nobody thought to question that, it leads you to wonder who's making the

decisions on these things.

So where do you see the future kind of of relationships and when it comes to

kind of Middle East peace and mainline churches,

do you think it's just going to kind of stay the same way?

And you know, will there still be kind of a counter movement that will speak up? Well, I.

God is always working in very strange ways, so in the darkest possible situation,

which I think we have right now, particularly for the people of Gaza.

We have a new opportunity.

We have a new opportunity and and President Biden is is leading the way,

and I know you You know, progressives are upset with kind of how he's responded,

but he's been very clear that following what's happening now,

there has to be a substantial change.

We need to get back to the two -state solution.

We need to unify the governance of Gaza and the West Bank. we need to rebuild

and we need to make sure that peace is the agenda.

This is where the church should have always been.

And so we have an opportunity again to proclaim peace, to advocate for peace,

to hold both parties feet to the fire, to let them understand that peace cannot

occur unless both groups are willing to give up something.

For the Palestinians, it might be they have to give up the right of return.

For the Israelis, it might mean they have to give up control over the Jordan Valley.

You have to give up something. But we can't expect Israel to give up something

significant if the Palestinians aren't willing to give up something significant.

And so we as the church have to say, if you're serious about peace,

you need to let go of some of that which you've held on from past history.

And so I think that's where we need to be. Now, whether we go there or not, I don't know.

I think there are those of us who are in the Pathways Network,

that's what we will be advocating for.

We will not go away, Even if the denominations tend to go astray from their

commitment to a two -state solution, and they've all spoken about that,

that is their stated goals,

we're not going to abandon that even if the denominations do,

because I don't think there's any other solution.

Could you tell me a little bit about Pathways and what you all are doing and yeah.

So Pathways is a group that formed about three years ago. Okay.

You know, there's an understanding that there is an umbrella entity that's advocating

for BDS style resolutions in all of our denominations.

And we need to also have a similar messaging and supportive entity of how do

we confront these anti -Israel,

anti -Jewish movements within the mainline denominations and we define the mainline

denominations as Presbyterians,

Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists,

UCC, Disciples, etc.

And so what we're trying to do is create an alternative.

So how do we create an alternative where we work with our Jewish allies and

anybody who's traveled with with a member of say the reform community or the

conservative community,

if you've traveled with them to Israel and if you sat down with leaders of Israel,

the people who are strongest and pushing back against what's happening and the

occupation are of those rabbis or those Jewish leaders.

They don't believe in the settlement industry. They don't believe in the continued occupation.

Many of them are against the barrier wall. They understand the need for it, but they're against it.

And so how do we, as progressive Christians, work with the Jewish community

who have far more influence on what happens in the state of Israel than we do?

How do we work with them to achieve our goals? And that's what Pathways trying to do.

We're also going to lift up those organizations that are promoting shared society in Israel,

who are trying to bring a stronger sense of balance and equity to Israeli Arabs,

Israeli Palestinians, as compared to their Jewish neighbors.

Years, having equal opportunities in the economy, in education, in politics.

And so we'll continue working there. And we'll continue working with groups

that are seeking to improve the average existence of Palestinians in the West Bank.

You know, the PA is a corrupt entity.

And the average person struggles, not just because of the occupation,

but they struggle because the PA is not using its influence to increase the

economy in the Palestinian territories.

So how can we do that?

You know, there's a group that I work with, Roots Shoreshim, that brings settlers,

Israeli settlers, and Palestinians together for dialogue and working together

to better understand each other to help plant the seeds of peace.

They understand that and down the road there will be peace.

But you need to start planning seeds now. So Pathways is an entity that seeks

to support those kinds of groups as well How do we lift up this middle so that

we don't so the extremists aren't the only voices that we're hearing?

I want to hear from extremist Palestinians, and I certainly don't want to hear

from extremist Israelis I want to hear from the average people who honestly

just want to have a decent life for their families And we're gonna lift up their voices,

And work with them So that's what we're about.

We are beginning to expand our work and our ministry.

We lead trips, probably the most balanced trips that there are,

going to Israel and Palestine,

spending time in both regions, meeting with people on both sides to hear stories

and to explore ways that we can better support them.

We provide educational opportunities, helping partner congregations with Jewish

communities in their area,

advocating for better witness against anti -semitism, both inside the church and outside the church.

So that those are our goals and we're seeking to kind of expand that network

to bring more people who share that vision into the fold.

So, if people want to know a little bit more about Pathways,

or about Presbyterians from the Middle East Peace, and also to contact you, how can they do that?

You want me to give out contact info?

Or web addresses. That's safer. Well, the best thing is to go to Pathways' website,

which is Pathways for Peace, so www .pathways .org.

The number four piece .org.

You can see what what we're up to and then you can subscribe to the newsletters that we sent out.

You can follow us on social media.

We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

You know, so we can make all that available to folks, you know,

and they can follow us and they can contact act as through those medias as well. All right.

Well, Todd Stotrofis, thank you for taking the time to talk.

This was really a good discussion, and hopefully can at least provide another

voice out there, I think, that needs to be heard right now.

Well, I appreciate you reaching out. I mean, sometimes we do feel like we're

the lone voice calling out in the wilderness.

So I appreciate you reaching out and giving us the opportunity to share more of our vision.

And if we can help in another format, let me know.

Yeah, we're available. All right. Well, thank you so much. So take care.

All right. Thanks, Dennis. God bless. All right.

Music.

So thanks again for taking the time to listen. And as usual,

there are going to be links of interest related to this episode with Todd.

They are in the show notes.

I'm actually thinking about doing a solo podcast on my own views on October

7th and what that, the aftermath, and what it means for mainline churches.

Stay tuned to see if that happens.

Just one note is that I've moved podcast hosts, I have moved from Substack to Transistor.

If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or some other podcast app other than Substack,

really nothing is going to change, so you don't have to worry.

If you are listening on Substack, know that you won't easily,

you will still be getting emails from me from Church in Maine.

There will be a link to the episode so it'll be there.

There will also be included kind of a preview of the episode that you'll get

along with the new episode. Usually you'll see the link for the preview.

You can play that in your Substack app and then there's a link to go to the

Transistor page, the page on Transistor to hear the podcast, the full podcast.

So I do hope that you will still continue to listen.

Just means a different change of podcast host. So that is it for this episode of Church in Maine.

Remember again to rate and review this episode on your favorite podcast app

so that others can find podcast and consider donating so that I can continue

to produce more episodes.

And again, I'm Dennis Sanders, your host. Thank you so much for listening.

Take care, Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.

Music.