1997 NCC General Assembly, Nov. 11-14, 1997, Washington, D.C.

November 13, 1997 -- Day Two
National Council of Churches General Assembly

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 13 ---- Following is a synopsis of news from the second day of business of the National Council of Churches' Nov. 12-14 annual General Assembly, meeting in Washington, D.C. The 270-member assembly is the highest governing body of the NCC and is made up of official delegates from the Councils' 34 member communions (denominations), which in turn have 52 million members.

Assembly Welcomes Nobel Laureate, Reaffirms Call for Ban on Landmines

Jody Williams thanked the NCC for its work against anti-personnel landmines and repeated her call on President Clinton to sign the Ottawa Treaty next month. It was her first formal public appearance since she was named co-winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize along with the organization she leads.

The Assembly responded by unanimously renewing its call for a complete ban on anti-personnel landmines. And, the NCC's humanitarian response ministry, Church World Service, announced an additional appeal for $200,000 for CWS mine awareness and demining programs. Noted the CWS Executive Director, the Rev. Dr. Rodney Page, "with this $200,000, we will have garnered over $2 million for these programs."

Ms. Williams commented, "Too often, the effort to ban landmines has been called 'one woman's campaign.' It isn't. I am honored to work with a broad coalition, including the churches' work through CWS." She singled out for appreciation Linda Hartke, CWS Director of Operations, who was the CWS Country Director in Cambodia for many years.

"Her contribution, through the demining and mine education program and the 'Cambodia Campaign,' was pivotal" to the international campaign, Ms. Williams said.

In her challenge to President Clinton sign on to the International Landmines Ban Treaty in Ottawa next month, she commented, "I understand the President's need to confer with the Pentagon. But if he hears only the voices of generals and not the voices of the poorest of the poor, then he has forgotten that as our head statesman, he needs to listen to all the people.

"It is his choice," Ms. Williams said. "He can either stand on the side of humanity and sign on to the international ban in Ottawa ­ which will probably be signed by 120 governments ­ or he can stand outside the tide of history."

Assembly Urges NCC Members to More Deeply Share Struggles, Joys

Five years of study culminated in the presentation of a redirected understanding of the purpose and goals of the nation's preeminent ecumenical body, which one delegate called "one of the most important internal documents the National Council of Churches has considered in years."

The Assembly accepted the final report from its Ecclesiology Study Task Force that, if actively pursued, will refocus the Council on closer relationships, both internally and externally.

The task force grew, in part, out of the Eastern Orthodox churches' concern that other churches did not seem to be sufficiently invested, that they did not take seriously enough what happened within each other's fellowship," said the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the task force's chair and Dean of the Lexington Theological Seminary.

"For example, right now the Presbyterian Church is wrestling with concerns about human sexuality, yet we do not talk about it in our common life together," he commented. "We could be sharing these kinds of things and lifting them up in prayer. Just as the joys of one should become the joys of another, so should the struggles of one become the struggles of another."

The report calls for a deepened commitment of member churches to one another. Dr. Kinnamon introduced the document by quoting from it, "The essence of a council of churches is not the relationship of the churches to the structure of the council, but their relationship to one another."

Among the report's specific proposals: that the NCC invite the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Pentecostal Conference of North America and others to work with NCC representatives in drafting and publishing a statement on "Living the Gospel in the U.S. in the Third Millennium."

Visit to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Rev. Paul Schneider, a Protestant pastor in Germany. Mother Maria, a Russian Orthodox nun. A Japanese Orthodox Christian diplomat. The NCC General Assembly today honored these and other Protestant and Orthodox Christians who were among those who resisted the Nazi Holocaust and rescued those it targetted for extermination.

They were described and celebrated in a special program and tour at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Speakers led the Assembly in taking an honest and sobering look at the fact that, among Christians, there were some who actively collaborated, and many were complicit in their silence with the large-scale abandonment of Jews and others to persecution and extermination.

But there also were some who had the courage to rescue and resist, and, speakers said, we must remember them. Said the program's moderator, John Roth, a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, "Without them, it would be too much to face our history and ourselves. They tear to shreds the excuses, the neutrality, the indifference that the perpetrators of destruction ­ in the Holocaust then, in other places even now ­ always need and count upon.

"So let us remember them this afternoon and allow ourselves through recollection to be challenged in ways that can mend the world," Mr. Roth said.

The General Assembly heard about:

The Rev. Paul Schneider, a German Christian whose outspokenness against Nazism provoked the wrath of both church and state. Arrested repeatedly (12 times in 1935-6 alone) and finally taken to Buchenwald in 1937, he continued to shout his protests even from his solitary cell, giving hope and strength to the other prisoners until he was murdered in 1939. The Rev. Schneider's son, Paul Jr., came to Washington, D.C., to be present for the program and testified to the Assembly of both his parents' witness against evil. His mother, 93, who lives in Germany, wanted to come but was advised by her doctor not to travel.

Mother Maria, a Russian Orthodox nun who refused to be cloistered. Her house in Paris was a house of refuge for Jews. The house's director, Father Dimitri, provided baptismal certificates to many Jews, a document that meant life rather than death for many. In 1945, Mother Maria died at Ravensbrook, Father Dimitri in Buchenwald.

A Japanese diplomat ­ who was an Orthodox Christian ­ who provided many visas for Jews out of Lithuania, and many others who stood in the way of the death trains, refused to identify Jewish neighbors to the authorities and otherwise resisted Nazism to the point that many of them also were killed.

50^th Anniversary, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The NCC General Assembly today voted unanimously to sponsor observances of the 50^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and called on the U.S. government to reaffirm its commitment to universal human rights.

The Assembly called on the Council's units and member communions to celebrate 1998 as Universal Human Rights Year. It urged the U.S. government to work toward ratification and implementation of several other human rights documents including those dealing with the rights of women and children.

The action also called for strengthening the international judicial system to include an international criminal court with jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. Member communions and individuals are urged to attend to contemporary threats to national, ethnic, racial and religious groups -- through the revival of ancient hatreds and the fostering of fear ­ with a potential for genocidal consequences.

Assembly Celebrates Peace Agreement in Sierra Leone

Mr. Alimamy Koroma, General Secretary of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone, and the NCC's General Assembly today joined in celebrating the peace agreement signed Nov. 5 that promises restoration of his nation's democratically elected government within six months.

That government, democratically elected in 1996, was forced into exile by a coup in May 1997. "The coup was condemned by the churches and other groups," Mr. Koroma reported, but the coup leaders initially ignored this and the objections of various international bodies.

Although the situation in the nation's capital became so bad that government and aid agency personnel were withdrawn, church leaders remained to work for peace, he said. In the end, the various pressures helped bring about a peace agreement.

The NCC's Church World Service and Witness Unit had planned to place before the General Assembly a resolution addressing the crisis, but withdrew it in light of the agreement, which also includes cessation of hostilities, disarmament of combatants and reinstatement of humanitarian assistance. (A General Assembly member's motion to reconsider the withdrawal of the resolution was defeated.)

Mr. Koroma called on churches in the United States and around the world for support through advocacy and financial assistance for his country.

"Out of the Ashes" -- Rebuilding Burned Churches, Communities

NCC General Secretary Joan B. Campbell today presented the Council's President, Bishop Melvin Talbert, with a just-off-the-press copy of the book "Out of the Ashes: Burned Churches and the Community of Faith."

The book's editor, the Rev. Norman A. Hjelm, said this collection of essays is "an attempt to tell the story of the NCC's response to the burning of African American churches, and then to reflect on the story of what all this means in terms of our quest for the unity of the church."

"Out of the Ashes" comes out of the NCC's Faith and Order Commission. Issues like racism also are issues of the unity of the church, said Mr. Hjelm, a former Commission director. "Churches are divided by theology and by racism."

"Out of the Ashes" is published by Thomas Nelson Publishers and includes contributions by the NCC's President and General Secretary, African Methodist Episcopal Bishop McKinley Young, two African American journalists, the NCC's Faith and Order Commission director and others who were involved in responding to the church burnings.

Dr. Campbell told the NCC General Assembly that the work to rebuild burned churches and to restore broken communities is not finished. Since June 1996, the NCC has raised more than $10 million to rebuild more than 120 burned churches; of those, 30 have been completed and dedicated.

"There are still churches needing to be rebuilt," she declared. The effort to replace churches that had been burned has been a very important ministry of the Council, but more important is what it has meant to the communities, she said.

Dr. Diane Porter of the Episcopal Church, who chaired the NCC's Burned Churches Program Committee, said that in this work, she has seen the NCC at its very best. She reported that the Council brought the pastors of burned churches together in Washington, D.C., in June on the first anniversary of their visit with the President and recently held a training event for young white pastors.

Churches are still burning Dr. Porter reported, citing one the last week of October and another the first week of November.

70^th Anniversary, Faith and Order Movement

The 70^th anniversary of the Faith and Order Movement brings with it much to celebrate, Dr. Mary Tanner told the NCC General Assembly today: 70 years of "Spirit-led conversation," bilateral and multilateral agreements between and among communions, and new partnerships among churches.

Christians in the United States have brought their particular contributions, said Dr. Tanner, Moderator of the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission. For example, American women "have opened up what was a male-dominated movement."

But many challenges remain. "New divisions are threatening the life of many churches," she warned. Yet to be realized is a renewed determination to be "ever more inclusive" and a facing up to the "seemingly intractable differences" that separate the churches.

Also needed: the persistence to forge theological insights into agreements. "Convergence in faith must be received in convergence in life," Dr. Tanner said.

The first World Conference on Faith and Order was held in 1927 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Programs that Build Unity are Honored

Eight Ecumenical/Interfaith Service awards were presented today to persons who "seek the unity of people in creative, compassionate and sensitive ministries that build hope."

Said Barbara George, Director of the NCC's Ecumenical Networks Commission, said, "We recognize these efforts with the certain knowing that others will be inspired to adapt the models in communities across this nation."

This year, four awards were given in honor of the Rev. Dr. Mac Charles Jones, NCC Deputy General Secretary for Racial Justice who died in March of this year.

Those awards went to: Project Rebuild of the Council of Churches of Greater Springfield (Mass); The Rhode Island State Council of Churches' Interfaith Coalition/Burned Churches; A Call for Racial Justice by the West Virginia Council of Churches, and the Minnesota Council of Churches' Minnesota Churches Initiative Against Racism.

This year's other recipients are: The Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport (Ct.) for its Project on Aging; All Congregations Together, a partnership of 18 San Diego, Calif., churches with local social services; The Greater Lawrence (Mass.) Vacation Bible School; Point Tacoma/Pierce Beautiful, a low-income housing rehab program of Associated Ministries, Tacoma, Wash.

NCC Plans 50^th Anniversary Observances for 1999

"The 50^th anniversary of the NCC marks a significant ecumenical moment in the life of the institution, the member communions and indeed the entire Christian community in this nation," said the Rev. Dr. Gordon Sommers, immediate past president of the NCC, who will chair the Anniversary Celebration Committee now in formation.

The celebration is planned for Nov. 7-12, 1999, in Cleveland, Ohio, the site of the NCC's founding in 1950.

Dr. Sommers initiated discussions with heads of NCC-member communions at a breakfast meeting Nov. 12, during this year's General Assembly. Those present requested anniversary preparation resources for use at national meetings of member communions in 1998 and 1999.