c. 1998 Religion News Service

CHICAGO _ The highs and the lows of U.S. efforts at church unity were symbolically demonstrated in one long afternoon of the three-day general assembly of the National Council of Churches that ended Friday (Nov. 13).

Delegates from Orthodox, Presbyterian, Lutheran Congregational and other denominations joined in a worship service Thursday honoring what NCC President Bishop Craig Anderson called”the unity of the church at its very best”_ local church councils bringing congregations together to solve local problems.

Among those receiving awards were people providing emergency food to struggling residents in the Seattle area and a theater troupe that teaches youth in Schenectady, N.Y., about AIDS.

But much of the rest of the afternoon, delegates were in closed-door sessions dealing with the future leadership of the New York-based ecumenical body poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary at next year’s general assembly in Cleveland.

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC’s general secretary _ the day-to-day head of the council _ since 1989, is scheduled to retire at the end of next year, but is expected to stay on an additional year until a successor is chosen to replace her in 2001.

In addition, however, the council is faced with a number of current or pending vacancies in such key positions as chief financial officer, director of ecumenical networks and the head of the organization’s Washington office. Even as the NCC struggles with its identity _ which includes a staff of more than 300, 35 member communions and units dealing with national ministries and relief efforts _ many of its member denominations are facing membership declines, funding cutbacks and questions of their own identity.”We’re like an aging city with infrastructure problems,”said Campbell just after the meeting concluded Friday.”For 50 years, we have not paid sufficient attention to … financial management, the management of our human resources, our information technology, and we now have to make a priority of these.” Campbell said she hopes that even as there is success with grassroots church cooperation, people in local congregations will still see the need for national ecumenical work.

While Campbell and Anderson acknowledge the grappling that is going on at the bureaucratic level, they and others point to the fruits of their labor, including a letter sent Friday to President Clinton urging peaceful resolution to the conflict with Iraq.

They also cite the role the council has played in gathering humanitarian aid for the victims of Hurricane Mitch through Church World Service, the NCC’s relief agency.”There’s an irony in that we talk about the unity of all of these other bodies and the wonderful things that we try to do and we have a house in some ways divided,”said Anderson, an Episcopal bishop in Concord, N.H.”Because it has to do with who is the NCC?” On top of the administrative challenges, NCC officials are encouraging an openness to ecumenical relations with groups outside the traditional Protestant and Orthodox member communions currently affiliated with the council. But all of the institutions that have fostered ecumenical work are evolving.”I see it not only in the World Council of Churches and in the National Council of Churches,”said the Rev. Eileen Lindner, the NCC’s associate general secretary for Christian unity.”We certainly see it in the National Association of Evangelicals and in the Pentecostal movement and we don’t know where the Spirit is leading us at this moment.” The WCC, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, finds some Orthodox and some evangelicals criticizing what they see as the liberal leanings of the organization, prompting questions about the future of the global ecumenical movement. The NAE, facing an aging delegate body, is in the midst of a search for a new president. Pentecostals disbanded one organization in the early 1990s to start a different group that aimed to be more racially inclusive.

In the midst of what she calls the NCC’s”climate of change,”Lindner proudly points to the address at this year’s assembly of Pentecostal expert David Daniels of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and the following table discussions on how NCC member churches relate to Pentecostals in their local communities.”That would have been unheard of five years ago,”she said.

For the second time, a representative of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops greeted the NCC during its meeting this year, and in 1996, the group was greeted for the first time by the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals.

In addition, for the last three years, the NCC, the evangelical association and the bishops’ conference have worked together with”not one eyelash of difference between them”on such issues as trying to control pornography on the Internet and child sex tourism abroad.

But even within the NCC, difference of opinion is sharp on some social issues, such as homosexuality.

Although the national ecumenical officer of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community churches, a predominantly gay denomination, brought greetings at this year’s assembly, that group has not gained membership status in the NCC.”I think that an application for membership would in general provoke the same reactions (now) that it has had in the past, with some churches being absolutely opposed, some churches absolutely for and many, many churches deeply divided within themselves,”said Lindner.”So that is by definition a very divisive matter.” Public education, an issue on which the NCC is currently trying to develop a policy statement, also divides member churches. Some denominations with parochial schools argue for the benefit of the voucher system in which public funds are used to help parents pay tuition while others believe such a system undermines public education.

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While the NCC rejoices in its successes at unity and grapples with its differences and troubled bureaucracy, the work at the local level is in a similar circumstance.

On the one hand, state councils of churches sometimes find themselves struggling but also report churches involved in the councils find working together comes naturally.”Ecumenism is happening at every level, especially the local level,”said the Rev. Leo A. Walsh, a Roman Catholic priest who is secretary of the Alaska Christian Conference.”It’s so permeated the ethos of the churches, they don’t realize they’re doing it.” The Rev. Fred Morris, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches, said while some churches and jurisdictions have cut state ecumenical groups from their budgets, others are warming to the idea of ecumenism.”People are tired of church fights and churches bad mouthing each other,”he said.”At the grassroots level, there is a lot of encouragement for ecumenism.” During the assembly, delegates paused to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the international sister organization, the World Council of Churches, which is also in the midst of a sometimes re-evaluation of its role, identity and organization.

But the Rev. Emilio Castro, a former general secretary of the WCC, urged continuing support for unity efforts _ here and abroad _ during a sermon Wednesday at the First United Methodist Church in Evanston, Ill.

The church was the site of some of the meetings of the WCC’s second assembly in 1954. The eighth assembly is in December in Harare, Zimbabwe.”We go to the next assembly with fear and trembling but … God, who created the people of his church, will be (there) also,”Castro said.”With that kind of delegate on our side, who could be afraid?” DEA END BANKS