NCC Exit Poll
Why One Orthodox Church Left the National Council of Churches
by Johannes L. Jacobse
Few people noticed when the 390,000-member Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese (AOA) withdrew from the National Council of Churches (NCC) last summer. But the importance of the move was not lost on ecumenical observers. When a long-term member walks out of the NCC, it indicates deep problems—in this case, that an Orthodox jurisdiction felt that the politicization of the NCC was hampering it from preaching the gospel in American society. If the Antiochians acted, how many others among the 35 member churches (and not just among the Orthodox) felt the same way?
Mixed Results
The NCC is no stranger to controversy, often mixing politics with religion, with consistently mixed results. It pursues a smorgasbord of policy objectives, from tsunami relief to support for a mandatory minimum wage and the Kyoto Global Climate Accords to opposition to the Bush administration’s Social Security reforms. While both sides of the political aisle agree on some of these goals, the conservative members complain that the NCC has become increasingly more political than religious, and that its politics has a decidedly leftward slant.
The organization had also become increasingly associated with pro-homosexual and anti-marriage causes.
In 2000, the NCC’s General Secretary, the Reverend Bob Edgar, signed and then under pressure withdrew his name from A Christian Declaration of Marriage, “expressing concern that a statement meant to support married couples is being misused to attack gays and lesbians,” in the words of an NCC press release. “I would not want this statement to be misconstrued as if it were an oblique comment on same-sex unions,” which he supports, he said.
The NCC’s politicization and defense of immoral causes was a frequent complaint that the AOA had considered for quite some time. Last summer, however, a line was crossed with the release of a fundraising letter written by Edgar, a United Methodist minister and former Democratic congressman. The letter identified the NCC with the political left and characterized his opponents—mostly religious conservatives—in terms that were at best unbecoming to an ecumenical organization like the NCC, and at worst crass party politics.
The letter compared President Bush and his supporters to “committed Communists” who had “liquidated” millions, “convinced National Socialists” who had prepared the way for the Holocaust, and “Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombers.” It also boasted that the NCC “worked closely” with the leftist groups MoveOn.org and TrueMajority.org.
At its Archdiocesan Assembly in Dearborn, Michigan, last summer, the archdiocese decided it was time to pull out.
Practical Orthodox
Johannes L. Jacobse pastors St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church in Naples, Florida, and edits the website Orthodoxy Today (www.ortho doxytoday.org). A past fellow of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, he has written for Front Page Magazine, Break Point, Town Hall, and other magazines and websites. He lives in Naples with his wife and daughter.
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