by Julian Mann, The Daily Sceptic
The atmosphere at the Church of England’s General Synod after it passed its shameful anti-Israel motion was frighteningly complacent. From where I was sitting in the press gallery on July 13th the members in the chamber seemed to be very pleased with themselves.
But unless these largely middle-class Anglicans had returned home to an enclosed-order monastery after their meeting in the York University central hall, how could they fail to register the impact of the nuclear bomb they had just let off?
The Jewish Chronicle reported on the vote:
The Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, has voted overwhelmingly to encourage members to “engage with” a Palestinian-Christian document that accuses Israel of genocide, despite warnings from the Chief Rabbi and other Jewish leaders of the potential damage to interfaith relations.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis had condemned ‘A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide’ [also known as Kairos II], produced last year by Kairos Palestine, an ecumenical movement of Palestinian Christians, as a “shocking” document that contains “so much falsehood” against Israel, which “can only harm the cause of peace”.
This was echoed by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who said: “As supreme governor of the Church of England, and patron of the Council of Christians and Jews, the King could, through no fault of his own, find that the Church he represents is now committed to promoting a document that “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building”, in the words of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.”
Mirvis posted on X after the vote:
It is shameful that the Church of England General Synod has recommended engagement with Kairos II. This is a document full of falsehood, which openly rejects dialogue, uses extreme rhetoric to challenge the very existence of Israel and objects to existing peace agreements in the region. Though it poses as a route to understanding, Kairos II in fact functions as an egregious barrier to it, reducing one of the world’s most complex conflicts to a single, warped narrative, which can only harm the cause of peace. This is a sad day for Jewish-Christian relations.
In a piece on her Substack headed ‘The Unfathomable darkness of the Church of England’, Times and Jewish Chronicle columnist Melanie Phillips explained why the vote matters: