 NCC is example of an ecumenical movement that deserves a funeral By Rev. Robert A. Sirico President of The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty Wednesday, November 24 , 1999
Without making undue compromises, each side removed mutual condemnations and agreed on overriding truth. This is the way the ecumenical movement is supposed to work: serious theological reflection in an attempt to approach religious truth thus leading to the elimination of unnecessary sources of division. Consider the contrast with the National Council of Churches (NCC). Though the NCC celebrated its 50th anniversary in November, one wonders what its ecumenical mission has accomplished. Instead, its partisan political preoccupation has managed to divide the religious community more than bring it together. And its financial mismanagement has even its own members running for the exits. During the 1980s and '90s, the religious right discovered the dangers associated with politicizing the gospel. Its public image suffered as its opponents scored debating points by asking such questions as: Where does the Bible say we should only vote for Republicans? Somehow, however, a double standard exists. The NCC is as politicized as the Moral Majority ever was, and yet it has escaped serious public scrutiny. An example: One of the NCC's major projects in recent years has been to promote "eco-justice" in religious communities around the country. It urges pastors to sign its "Environmental Justice Covenant," which includes the following statement: "...our congregation will witness to and participate in God's redemption of creation by supporting public efforts and policies which support vulnerable people and protect and restore the degraded earth." Does the organization really think government policies are God's only instrument in the redemption of creation? In fact, the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, the council's general secretary, has said the issue of global warming and support for the Kyoto Protocol is "a litmus test for the faith community." Unlike the approach of the Catholic-Lutheran accord, for Campbell it is not the truth of the doctrine of justification by faith that forms the basis for Christian unity, but rather political issues on which Christians are entitled to have legitimately varying viewpoints. Isn't it possible to have legitimate differences on these issues without implying that those who disagree are heretics? Such a stance is indistinguishable from the positions taken by any number of environmental organizations, and these positions have been countered by scientists, economists and theologians who have grave doubts about the merit of the Kyoto Protocol and the rest of this regulatory agenda. Besides, what has any of this to do with ecumenism? Moving down the list of issues, the NCC also has a special program titled "That All Might Have Healing." Spiritual healing? Actually, no. The program is a lobbying effort on behalf of universal health care, with all the attendant demonizations of health maintenance organizations and imaginings of a new utopia if only we spread the resources more thinly across the entire population. So it goes down the list of political issues: Cuba (victim of U.S. aggression), foreign aid (increase it everywhere), church burnings (a consequence of an inherently racist society), communism (never heard of it), Bill Clinton's AmeriCorps (needs more funding), the U.S. military (can do nothing right). The point isn't that every position that the National Council of Churches takes is wrong. Sanctions on Iraq and Cuba are indeed creating undue and unjust hardship. But this is a matter for public debate, not doctrinaire policy pronouncement in the name of Christian ecumenism. It's fine, even essential, that religious organizations address the public life of a nation, but they need to do so modestly and remain alert to the important distinctions between theology and politics. Even the NCC's membership is far from being inclusive of all strains of American Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church has, wisely, never been a member. And the NCC formally represents only one-third of American churchgoers overall, a consequence of the rise of evangelical churches, which are not members, and the relative decline of mainline churches, which are members. It is doubtful that the NCC's extreme political positions genuinely represent those members who remain as a matter of custom and habit. On top of these ideological concerns, the fiscal instability of the NCC has led to an immediate institutional crisis. In a dramatic move in October, the United Methodist Church suspended funding to the NCC due to "questions related to past and future fiscal policies and management." The Rev. Bruce Robbins, a United Methodist ecumenical officer, has even raised the question of whether the NCC is viable into the future, given an operating deficit of nearly $4 million this year. Thus, we see that while the NCC has been offering all kinds of moral and economic advice the world over, it has had difficulty managing its own assets. Partisan politics, financial mismanagement and a lack of internal reflection on the core of its mission are all indications of an institution in decline. All this is why the Association for Church Renewal and the Institute for Religion and Democracy, groups made up of a spectrum of mainline church activists, have called for the 50th anniversary of the NCC to be a memorial service instead of a celebration. If the NCC would only step aside, perhaps a worthier kind of ecumenism might develop that allows for the kind of genuine reconciliation that has been observed in recent days between Lutherans and Catholics. The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is located in Grand Rapids, Mich. Its mission is to promote a free society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles. |
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