A Response to ELCA Bishop Eaton's October 13th Statement about the October 7th 2023 Massacre of Israelis by Hamas

As a Lutheran pastor of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) I'm deeply disappointed and ashamed of our Bishop’s official October 13th 2023 statement on the October 7th massacres of Israeli citizens by Hamas.

The Bishop's statement is deficient and misses the gravity of an historic event in Jewish history.

Bishop Eaton’s statement came out too late—six days after the massacre of 1400 Israelis and the capture of 250 hostages by Hamas. Bishop Eaton conflates the massacre with the war’s humanitarian crisis by blaming Israel for its lack of care for Gazan civilians. In this instance, her conflation of events creates a purposeful message. That message minimizes the initial event—the massacre—by dismissing its gravity and shifting attention away from the horrific intentional murder of Israelis while also blaming Israel for “indiscriminate and retaliatory” responses which have caused a humanitarian crisis amongst “Palestinian Muslims and Christians.”

But why the conflation? It has a purpose for the Bishop. It is the outcome of the six-day delay in getting her statement out. Our ELCA website has a category called “Peace Not Walls,” about our interest, views, and goals in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Does the following statement from “Peace Not Walls” reflect a possible reason for this conflation?

“Our church’s primary companion church in the Holy Land is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). This Arabic-speaking community of faithful Lutherans is the primary relationship through which the ELCA sees the situation in Palestine and Israel.”

If our church reflects—and I think it does—a pro-Palestinian view of the conflict, in which Israel is not looked upon favorably in any respect, how is the Bishop going to suddenly—without precedent—seem to sympathize or defend Israel?

How did our bishop see this Hamas incursion into Israel? Israelis were shocked and horrified that a pogrom—a pogrom!—happened to them within the safety of their own country, established in 1948, to give them exactly the safety now breached. Now, they call this event a watershed event in their history.

Why then, didn’t our bishop’s statement reflect this—when she had six days to hear Jews say what the event meant to them? This was not just another Hamas attack by rockets being shot from Gaza into Israel. This was an unprecedented infiltration of around 3000 Hamas terrorists into Israel itself, randomly murdering any Jew they happened across in their Israeli homes and villages. They murdered, in the most horrific ways: killing babies, grandparents, and whole families, some still asleep in their beds. This massacre was one of torture, gang rapes, beheadings, mutilation, and burning people alive—all videoed by Hamas themselves with pride and celebration.

Were we horrified when ISIS was beheading people live on TV? Where is our bishop’s horror now when Hamas publishes their own videos of the individual murders of Israelis?

A massacre is different from a humanitarian crisis during war. Equating humanitarian suffering in war with premeditated mass murder by terrorists is a flawed equation of two unequal scenarios.

She uses the Lutheran “two truths” theology to say—simplistically—Hamas is bad and Israel is bad, blurring the distinction between a massacre and a wartime humanitarian crisis in an effort to make them the same.

Bishop Eaton as head of ELCA, should have issued a simple statement denouncing, condemning unequivocally the massacre of Israeli citizens by Hamas terrorists, whose stated goal is to destroy the existence of Jews and the State of Israel in historical Palestine.