J. Martin Bailey

November 6, 1999

CLEVELAND—No one person or group of persons can adequately represent any institution—especially an ecumenical organization like the National Council of Churches.

Yet, because the God of the Incarnation acts through individuals, particular persons have shaped and embodied the Council. Take the seven men and women who have been our general secretaries. I have been blessed by knowing all seven. And I was privileged to serve under the leadership of four, beginning with Roy Ross and ending with Joan Campbell.

Each of the seven brought different styles and emphases. All were passionate ecumenists. Fifty years ago this month, the train to Cleveland on which Roy Ross was traveling from Chicago was stopped in a blizzard. The short-legged, well-rounded Roy Ross believed earnestly in what was to happen the next day; he wanted to get off the train and struggle through the drifting snow.

Representing what was then the International Council of Religious Education, Roy Ross did not want to be late for a meeting with the Federal Council of Churches’ Samuel McCrae Cavert. Those two shaped conciliar ecumenism in America; both were convinced that Christian witness would be inadequate without concern for a just and peaceful society and for future leadership of the churches.

Ed Espy led the Council during the turbulent Sixties; it was a gift that a layman with an inclusive world-view was the third general secretary. There were plenty of voices ready to blame the nation’s clergy for being unrealistic and soft when confrontation was experienced in the streets, on campuses and across the so-called Iron Curtain. Ed was experienced, strong, daring.

Ed was succeeded by Claire Randall who had headed a vast and influential women’s organization. She encouraged America’s churches to extend hands of friendship and welcome to the faithful in what was then called the Soviet Union. She introduced thousands of Americans to Baptist, Orthodox and other religious leaders from Eastern Europe.

That search for peace with a human face also was a passion of Arie Brouwer, who struggled (perhaps too hard and certainly too quickly) to cure the organizational and financial dilemmas that the Council had inherited from its very diverse member churches who could not prioritize their goals together. He was tough and visionary and was too far ahead of his staff and constituents.

Jim Hamilton, a careful lawyer by training, brought a measure of stability to the Council. He enjoyed the confidence of both constituents and staff. Jim knew the Council from the inside as perhaps no one else: he had headed the Washington office and worked long into many nights to balance budgets and constituency participation. A real gentleman.

Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell

Then came Joan Campbell. Indefatigable. Eloquent. She has been a gifted interpreter of the Council’s commitment to justice for all people and to the goal of Christian unity. The door to her office was seldom closed, generally because she was away from her desk working with the staff and speaking with the constituents. At the end of my work with the Council as at its beginning, the publication and utilization of the Bible in contemporary English were parts of the legacy of two general secretaries, Roy Ross and Joan Campbell.

As I look back across the fifty years that I have observed the leaders of the National Council of Churches, I see how each general secretary challenged me personally. There were moments of high exhilaration and joy. There were times of organizational tedium. There were hours of great tension and pain. There was education in every experience.

For half a century the Council has struggled to express a unity in Christ that often was at odds with the culture of the American religious community. Every general secretary learned to duck. They also learned to absorb much of the conflict that surged around them. All sought peace and justice as an expression of their commitment to the Gospel. Some were, by nature, more graceful than others in the ecclesiastical dance. But (to follow that metaphor) there was not a wallflower among them. Each knew the cost and the joy of leadership. I remember them all with fondness and awesome respect.

J. Martin Bailey began his work with the council on the staff of the International Journal of Religious Education. When he retired in 1994 he was Associate General Secretary for Education, Communication and Discipleship.