Episcopal Press and News
Apartheid: Diocesan Response Varies
Episcopal News Service. August 7, 1986 [86167]
NEW YORK (DPS, Aug. 7) -- Apartheid: no one likes it, but how do American Christians, specifically Episcopalians, respond? This summer, four dioceses came up with varying, but related, responses.
The Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, in its June convention, debated pros and cons of divestiture, boycott and political action as responses to apartheid. An amendment to a resolution condemning apartheid encouraged the churches and members of the diocese to boycott the goods and services of companies doing business in South Africa. It also requested that a list of such companies be distributed to all churches in the diocese.
Bishop Charlie F. McNutt, Jr., in his annual address to the diocese, called for support of South Africa's Bishop Desmond Tutu and others in eliminating apartheid. He added: "I believe the time has come for the Church and others to divest financial holdings in companies that continue to cooperate with those who support this evil policy of apartheid. The time has come for our government to change its policy and impose sanctions regarding South Africa."
In the Diocese of Central New York, which also had a June convention, resolutions were approved calling for the diocesan trustees to eliminate all holdings in companies that do business in South Africa by the end of 1988 if insufficient progress has been made toward ending apartheid, and asking that the diocese continue to study "ways and means by which Christian concerns can be translated to positive action."
As one of those "ways and means," Central New York Episcopalians voted to provide scholarship support to two non-white South African undergraduate students at Syracuse University as a means of investing in the future of that nation. The diocese's Committee on Social Responsibility in Investments, which has been in consultation with Syracuse University's Vice President for International Affairs, the Hon. Goodwin Cooke (who was also present at the convention), noted that, under apartheid, higher education is almost totally unavailable to black, colored and Indian South Africans, while these may be the people called upon to be the country's leaders in the years to come. Under the terms of the resolution, the diocese will supply one-half the tuition costs for two engineering students, beginning this fall and for the four years of their undergraduate education. The remainder of the cost of their tuition will be paid by the University, with other expenses met by a U.S. government grant.
At a meeting of its executive council, the Diocese of Western Michigan recently announced that it has, in response to a resolution from its diocesan convention last November, divested over $1.1 million worth of investments from corporations doing business in South Africa. According to the Rev. Robert Shackles, rector of St. Paul's Church in Muskegon and chairman of the management committee which met with bank officials, "We were prepared to take a loss in interest by divesting, since this is a moral issue, but timing and prudent decisions resulted in a $194,000 capital gain."
This move by Western Michigan is in keeping with the policy of the Episcopal Church nationally, which voted for such divestiture at its General Convention last September and, said Bishop Howard Meeks, "We will be notifying both the companies and our own government of this action and our reasons for it. And we anticipate each congregation will follow a similar course of action, if they have not already done so."
The principal trustee of funds and real estate of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania., the Church Foundation, has adopted new resolutions to support the Corporate Council in South Africa. The Foundation, which holds over 300 church funds totalling nearly $50,000,000, has set June 30, 1987 for divestiture of investments in companies which do not show satisfactory progress toward the anti-apartheid goals of the Council.
In a letter to all its fund participants, the Foundation's Board of Directors noted that more than 100 major U.S. corporations doing business in South Africa have formed the Corporate Council with the advertised goals of abolishing statutory race discrimination, negotiating with acknowledge black Leaders about power sharing, granting full South African citizenship to all people and rejecting violence as a means of change. In its statement, the Board expressed support for these aims and added, "We believe that progress towards these goals will be harmed by the withdrawal of A significant pressure group which supports them. We believe that the goals of justice and peace will be best served by supporting organizations which support these goals."