c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ As the festive installation service of the Rev. Andrew Young as the 20th president of the National Council of Churches began Thursday evening (Nov. 11), a small but symbolic hitch developed.

Several leaders of the 35 member communions on hand at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist had trouble lighting candles meant to burn as a sign of unity.

The candle lighting ceremony was an emotional highlight of the NCC’s 50th anniversary meeting, linking the council’s distinguished past _ Young’s career began in the NCC’s youth department _ with what its leaders hope will be a renewed future.

But the troublesome candles were a poignant reminder that the current state of the nation’s preeminent ecumenical body is one of crisis marked by deep financial and structural problems, and extending to the NCC’s most fundamental sense of purpose and mission.

There also are strong tensions within the body over inclusion and power between the various NCC”families”_ the seven largely white Protestant denominations who provide 90 percent of the council’s funding, the historic black churches, the Orthodox communions, and smaller bodies such as the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends and the Swedenborgians. Together, said the Rev. Robert Edgar, the council’s new general secretary, they created what he likened to a”35-hump camel.” In addition, there are strong rivalries between Church World Service, the council’s overseas relief and development agency and its largest unit, and other NCC divisions, such as its national ministries unit, which takes on such issues as racism, public education and health care.

Even before Young’s installation, council leaders took steps to meet the financial and structural problems, adopting a plan to radically downsize the council’s New York and Washington staff by as much of a third.

With Young, whose role in the civil rights movement and past posts that include being Atlanta’s mayor and U.S. United Nations ambassador, the council has a leader who can bring a new high-profile visibility to the agency. And with Friday’s formal affirmation of Edgar, currently president of the Claremont School of Theology and a former congressman from Pennsylvania, it has a proven administrator and also fundraiser.

But while many of the some 270 members of the NCC General Assembly _ its highest policy-making body _ are cautiously optimistic about the new leadership team and the slimmed down structure unveiled this week, the underlying tensions over what vision of church unity the NCC can bring to the next millennium remain unresolved.

Young and Edgar are both theologically trained politicians and bring strong social justice agendas to the council. Young has said he would like to see the NCC’s member communions focus on ending poverty. Edgar, in an interview, said he would like to see that emphasis linked to children.”If at the end of five years it (the NCC) was known for having helped end childhood poverty, that would be worth it,”he said

Bringing a liberal moral voice to public policy deliberations has always been the NCC’s strong suit. It stood against McCarthyism in the 1950s and was an early supporter of the civil rights movement. Today, it advocates ending U.S. economic embargoes against Cuba and Iraq and supports public education and universal health care.

That will certainly continue. During its meeting this week, the council adopted a new policy statement on public education, vowed to continue its work to combat racism, and provided a forum for advocates of prison reform, debt relief for poor nations and refugee resettlement.

But with many of the barriers to church unity that once balkanized the American religious landscape now broken or removed, and local ecumenism and street-level cooperation taking place on a regular basis, the council finds itself facing the issue of what role it might play.

One potential answer was provided by what council officials labeled”the great conversation,”an evening forum of NCC members with representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pentecostal movement and the National Association of Evangelicals _ groups not formally part of the ecumenical movement.

For some, the council could serve as a venue, without membership as a requisite, for bringing these disparate groups together and pointing to places where they can cooperate.

The Rev. Kevin Mannoia, NAE president, for example, pointed to current joint efforts to combat sex trafficking and added fighting divorce as another potential area of cooperation.”Marriage is the foundation of the kingdom principle of interdependence, yet in our country the divorce rate is high,”he said.”The church can come together in all its diversity and we can see the divorce rate drop.” The Rev. John Akers, a special assistant to Billy Graham, pointed to local cooperation.”Evangelicals sense that a lot of ecumenism is local and that is the place to start,”he said.

For the council, however, the future remains uncertain.

Sighed Episcopal Bishop Craig Anderson, the NCC’s outgoing president, the council is”trying to ride a bicycle while we’re still trying to build it.” IR END ANDERSON