NCC report praises ecumenical organization By John H. Adams The Layman Online Tuesday, May 18, 2004 The 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) will be asked to affirm the work of the National Council of Churches and continue the denomination's high level of funding for the ecumenical organization. That request from the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations will go before the commissioners through a General Assembly-mandated report on the NCC. The report is a glowing tribute to the controversial organization that nearly became extinct by outspending its income and depleting its investments. The report does not blame the NCC's financial crisis on its leaders' actions, but when the situation was disclosed in March of 2000 an independent auditor said the National Council of Churches had a significant risk of errors or fraud with "reportable conditions rising to the level of material weaknesses." A glossary of terms used to prepare candidates for CPA exams defines material weakness as a "condition in which internal controls do not reduce to a relatively low level the risk that material errors or fraud may occur and not be detected in a timely period by employees in the normal course of performing assigned functions." The audit did not result in any fraud charges, but it did disclose a $4-million budget deficit, later reconciled by massive budget cuts, staff layoffs and a bailout fundraising campaign focused on the NCC's major contributors, mainline Protestants. Despite the protests of hundreds of Presbyterians, the PCUSA contributed an extra $500,000 to help resolve the crisis. Today, as the report to the General Assembly notes, the NCC is back on its feet, thanks largely to a $6 million bequest from an anonymous woman. The report notes that the PCUSA gave the NCC $421,000 in 2002 and 2003 each through the NCC's Ecumenical Commitment Fund – second only to the United Methodist Church. The PCUSA and the United Methodist Church have been the financial lifeline for the NCC, contributing two-thirds of Ecumenical Commitment Fund, which is essentially the administrative budget. Most of its 36 members give little or nothing. In addition, the PCUSA gave $125,000 in 2002-03 to a number of NCC programs and provided in-kind staff services, including the salary of a full-time NCC staff member. Nonetheless, the report says, the NCC "staff that once numbered in the hundreds, at the present time has been reduced to approximately forty." The report also speaks highly of Church World Service, which, before the NCC's financial crisis, was responsible to the NCC. But after the NCC financial crisis was revealed, NCC leaders attempted to divert money from Church World Service, a global relief program, to cover their losses. That led to independent boards for the two organizations. Unlike the NCC, which is dominated by mainline, liberal factions, Church World Service is broadly ecumenical, particularly through annual fundraising efforts called CROP Walks, which raise money for hunger and disaster relief. Members of denominations and congregations that would never affiliate with the NCC participate in the CROP Walks. Church World Service raises about $65 million annually. The total budget for the NCC is $5.8 million, about 70 percent from grants. The report says the NCC leadership "has recently been influential in helping fashion a new, more broadly ecumenical body, Christian Churches Together, which would bring together Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Orthodox, Evangelical and Pentecostal." But Christian Churches Together is unlikely, as the report adds, to result in "united action and advocacy in the foreseeable future." A previous attempt at a broader ecumenical table came in 2000, when Robert Edgar, the NCC's general secretary, agreed with leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Roman Catholic bishops, and the National Association of Evangelicals to sign a statement titled "A Christian Declaration of Marriage." But two days after he signed the statement, he retracted his signature under pressure from members of the NCC General Assembly. Their argument was that the statement did not allow for a "Christian" sanction of marriage between two people of the same gender. Edgar's retraction effectively ended the NCC's attempt then to forge a broad ecumenical alliance. The report gives scant attention to some of the controversies in the NCC – and then in a positive vein: "A courageous voice is likely also to be a controversial one." It calls some of the NCC's advocacy efforts, including urging "the recognition of the Peoples Republic of China," "simply ahead of their time." There is no mention of one of the NCC's major fundraising successes: the organization's national campaign that evolved around fires that destroyed a number of black churches in the South. The Wall Street Journal described that campaign as a hoax. Mostly, the 10-page report is a pat on the back for the involvement of the PCUSA in the NCC, including Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick's.

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