Peace not Walls

I was raised in a Lutheran Church. Baptized, confirmed, and married. Thing1 and 2 were both baptized as Lutherans and Thing1 is a confirmed member of our Church. Thing2 will be in another year. This is the same church that I've mentioned having some issues with.

Our Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and I'm not sure thats a good thing. Parent organizations provide many forms of support but they also sap funds that could be used locally. These parent organizations also do things like 4 year long sexuality studies. After tens of thousands of dollars the ELCA position is the same as it was.

But thats not whats bugging me today. The ELCA 2005 Churchwide Assembly voted "to participate in a campaign -- "Peace Not Walls: Stand for Justice in the Holy Land" -- designed to build awareness, and engage in accompaniment and advocacy activities for "peace with justice" between Israel and Palestine." The ELCA is upset about the wall Israel was building to keep its citizens safe from sucide bombers. The wall makes sense to me. Keep the bombers away from the citizens. The position of the wall may be up for discussion but if it keeps the citizens safe I'm all for it. (The U.S. could use one along it's southern border...)

This area of the world has been fought over since before Christ was born. And now the ELCA wants us to stick our collective noses in. On the side of the nation sponsoring terrorism. I can't do that. Not at the expense of Israeli citizens. They need to be able to protect their people.