National Council of Churches

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The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (usually identified as National Council of Churches, or NCC) is an association of 35 Christian faith groups in the United States with 100,000 local congregations and 45,000,000 adherents. Its member communions (also variously called denominations, churches, conventions, or archdioceses) currently (2007) include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African-American, and historic Peace churches.

The NCC has long been a leading force in the Christian ecumenical movement in the United States. It is related fraternally to hundreds of local and state councils of churches, interfaith organizations, and to the World Council of Churches. Even though these councils may include many of the same member churches, they have no fiscal or administrative connections to each other.

The National Council of Churches was organized in 1950 as a merger of the Federal Council of Churches (formed in 1908) and the International Council of Religious Education. Its headquarters are located in the Interchurch Center on Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York, New York with a public-policy office on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. A sister organization, Church World Service, is a humanitarian and relief arm of the NCC's member communions.

Representatives of the NCC's member denominations meet together annually in a general assembly with several other meetings each year by a smaller governing board. Most of the Council's work is done through five ecumenical program commissions — Communication, Education and Leadership Ministries, Faith and Order, Interfaith Relations, and Justice and Advocacy. Membership in these commissions extends beyond the NCC's member communions to involve participants from more than 50 U.S. faith groups, including Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, and Pentecostals.

Leadership

The NCC's most recent General Secretary is Rev. Bob Edgar, a United Methodist and a former pastor, seminary president, and six-term member of Congress. He succeeded Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, a minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), on January 1, 2000.

In May 2007, Dr. Edgar was elected President and CEO of Common Cause, a national public policy advocacy organization founded by the late John W. Gardner and industrialist J. Irwin Miller, who was the first lay president of the NCC (1960-63). A search is underway for a new general secretary.

The current President of the Council is Rev. Michael Livingston of Trenton, N.J., executive director of the International Council of Community Churches and former dean of the chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Council's President-Elect, who will take office in January 2008, is Archbishop Vicken Aykasian of Washington, D.C., Turkish-born legate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern).

Theology

The Council's statement of faith, found in the preamble to its constitution, reads as follows:

"The National Council of Churches is a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord. These communions covenant with one another to manifest ever more fully the unity of the Church. Relying upon the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, the communions come together as the Council in common mission, serving in all creation to the glory of God."

This general statement is accepted by all of the NCC's member communions, which as Christian bodies hold these and many other beliefs in common. Each of the member communions also has a unique heritage, including teachings and practices that differ from those of other members.

Research and publishing contributions

RSV and NRSV Bible Translations

Main articles: Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version

The NCC holds the copyright on the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The RSV, completed in 1952, was intended by its translation team to be highly readable and literally accurate. It benefits from previously unavailable manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and from the collaborative insights of Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox translators. The NRSV was completed in 1989. These translations have been highly praised by Biblical scholars, pastors, and teachers.

Both translations have also been heavily criticized. Scholar R. Laird Harris derisively called the RSV "a monument of higher critical scholarship" when referring to the RSV's translation of Old Testament passages concerning Christian claims of Jesus's foretelling. The NRSV has also come under fire for its tendency toward gender-neutral language. The Orthodox bodies in the NCC have been hesitant to support either translation. The Orthodox Church in America has "found (the NRSV) to be so divergent from the Holy Scriptures traditionally read aloud in the sacred services of the Church as to render it impossible of acceptance as Holy Scriptures" and decided not to permit it for use in liturgical services or bible study.

Other Publications

• The NCC sponsors the research program on which the Uniform Sunday School Lesson Series is based. The long-running series that began in 1872 under the auspices of the National Sunday School Convention is now produced by 46 volunteer writers, editors and Bible scholars from 18 mainline, historic African American and evangelical denominations, ranging from United Methodist and National Baptist, to Church of God-Anderson and Cumberland Presbyterian. They meet in an annual session to determine curriculum topics and lesson design, followed by individual research and writing on assigned sections of the year's studies.

• The annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, a comprehensive directory of the religious life of North America, is published by the NCC.

• The Council operates Friendship Press, a publishing arm that fosters and distributes books, curriculum and other resources for church constituents.

Theological and Educational Dialogue

• The NCC Faith and Order Commission is an ongoing, scholarly, ecumenical dialogue among North American Christian theologians and church historians. Its participants represent more than 50 faith groups, including Evangelical, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, and African-American churches. In 2007, the Commission celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.

• The NCC Interfaith Relations Commission conducts dialogues and provides resources for Christians to explore the challenges and opportunities of living among people of other faiths in an increasingly pluralistic and multi-ethnic nation. The Commission produces study guides, newsletters and conferences. It also consults with congregations, denominational bodies, and community organizations about their interfaith relations concerns.

• The NCC Education and Leadership Ministries Commission is an umbrella organization for fifteen ecumenical program committees and two project teams made up of participants from dozens of denominations, working together to develop lesson materials, research, guidelines and demonstration projects that support local congregations in educational ministry.

Web and Television Production

• Worldwide Faith News, a religion news distribution website, was developed and is administered by the NCC Communication Commission. It holds more than 40,000 archived news stories and receives more than 10 million visits per month, with a record high of 18 million in June 2007. WFN grants reporters and editors full permission to reproduce, copy, or quote all documents submitted by participating faith groups.

• The NCC is one of the founding members of the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, a partnership fostering the production of documentaries and liturgical programs for the television affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS. The current IBC members include the NCC, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the New York Board of Rabbis, the Union for Reform Judaism, and the Islamic Society of North America.

• The NCC is also a founding member of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, now operating as Faith and Values Media. This consortium of about 70 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups produces and distributes programming through the Hallmark Channel and the FaithStreams website. NICC's early initiatives included the VISN/Odyssey cable channel.

Social and political advocacy

The NCC office in Washington DC addresses the moral and ethical dimensions of public policy issues, working from a policy base developed and approved by the member communions over many decades. Its activities are carried out under the guidance of the Council's Justice and Advocacy Commission. From its founding in 1950, the Council has sought to keep church constituencies informed about developments of interest in the realm of public policy, and has made the views of the ecumenical community known to government leaders and others in places of public leadership. Where its member communions have not reached a policy consensus on an issue, the NCC does not speak.

The Council has long voiced support for minimum wage laws, environmentalist policies, and affirmative action. The organization also played an important role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It partners with other groups, such as Bread for the World, Habitat for Humanity, and Children's Defense Fund, to press for broad policy initiatives that address poverty issues. The Council helped launch the Let Justice Roll grassroots anti-poverty campaign that has been successful in raising the minimum wage in a half-dozen states since 2005.

In July 2005, the Antiochian Orthodox Church withdrew from the NCC. Father George Kevorkian, an assistant to the denomination's senior cleric, said that the Church left because "the NCC...seems to have taken a turn toward political positioning."

Figures in the conservative movement accuse the NCC of holding a biased policy towards Cuba, and criticize relative silence by the NCC towards political and religious prisoners in countries with left-leaning and totalitarian leadership.

In spring 2007, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met in Tehran with a visiting delegation of Christian leaders from a number of U.S. faith groups, including some from the National Council of Churches. During the candid conversation, the group challenged Ahmadinejad's statements about the Holocaust and his alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, was among those who criticized the visit.

Member denominations (February 2007)

• African Methodist Episcopal Church -- [1]
• The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• Alliance of Baptists -- [2]
• American Baptist Churches USA -- [3]
• Diocese of the Armenian Church of America -- [4]
• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) -- [5]
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church -- [6]
• Church of the Brethren -- [7]
• The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America -- [8]
• The Episcopal Church in the United States of America -- [9]
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- [10]
• Friends United Meeting -- [11]
• Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America -- [12]
• Hungarian Reformed Church in America -- [13]
• International Council of Community Churches -- [14]
• Korean Presbyterian Church in America
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
• Mar Thoma Church
• Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province -- [15]
• National Baptist Convention of America -- [16]
• National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. -- [17]
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America -- [18]
• Orthodox Church in America -- [19]
• Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA -- [20]
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends -- [21]
• Polish National Catholic Church of America -- [22]
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- [23]
• Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. -- [24]
• Reformed Church in America -- [25]
• Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada -- [26]
• The Swedenborgian Church of North America -- [27]
• Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch -- [28]
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America -- [29]
• United Church of Christ -- [30]
• The United Methodist Church -- [31]

External links

• National Council of Churches USA home page
• FaithfulAmerica home page, a ministry of the NCC
• Church World Service home page