November 13, 1999

Campbell meets Patriarch Pavle, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, during an NCC mission to Yugoslavia during the Kosovo conflict. Joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other Christian leaders from the United States, the NCC mission returned with U.S. servicemen who had been captured by the Serbian army.

CLEVELAND—Striking the same optimistic chord that has characterized her nine years in office, retiring National Council of Churches General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell told the NCC General Assembly Thursday (Nov. 11) that the search for Christian unity is "a worthy struggle."

Dr. Campbell, as the NCC's top staff person, has served as the lightning rod for criticism of Council finance and administration. She acknowledged that she "values courage and imagination more than caution and efficiency," adding, "You have given us difficult challenges and we're not done yet, but we know we'll overcome—we always do."

She said her nine years at the head of the NCC "have been incredibly rewarding and incredibly difficult and painful," but she thanked the venerable ecumenical organization for entrusting its leadership to her.

"You have proved that you can treat an ordained woman with real equality," said Dr. Campbell, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister. "You have viewed me as strong enough to take any and all criticism, you have never patronized me and you have never done me any favors." She said the Council has demonstrated that women can be trusted with power "and I pray," she said, "that you believe I have laced it with love and passion."

Dr. Campbell recounted some of the high points of her years in office—the NCC's unflagging suppport of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, her role in freeing American soldiers held hostage in Belgrade, the recent No Gun Ri reconciliation efforts between South Korean war victims and U.S. soldiers, the campaign to rebuild burned churches—and said that, even though many of the Council's activities have been criticized, "we have proven that we can be agents of reconciliation and an alternative to destruction."

As is her wont, Dr. Campbell tackled the problem of the NCC's current financial crisis head on. "The Council has never been flush with funds," she said. "The needs of the poor are too great, the expectations of the world are too high, the heart of the church is too empathetic. We say yes because God demands it of us."

Dr. Campbell reserved special words of thanks for the NCC's historic African American and Orthodox member churches who, she said, "have sheltered and fed and inspired me during my years of ministry."

Those churches, she said, play a different role in the lives of their people than the mainline churches of the NCC. "They have helped their people survive. They have kept faith alive," she said. "And the Orthodox have borne witness in the midst of war and famine, pagan rites and communist governments."

Dr. Campbell said the seven historically African American churches, "conservative theologically and progressive socially, have inspired the soul of the Council."

She also had heartening words for the mainline churches of the NCC—seven of whom give more than 90 percent of the organization's budget. "We would not be here without their support in people and dollars," she said.

However, she continued, "The mainline churches mourn their loss of power and influence in the ecumenical movement" and must realize that "the soul of the ecumenical movement is not in a return to a familiar hegemony but in finding our way forward together."

The NCC's deficit "is not only in dollars," Dr. Campbell insisted, "but is in our inability to see in each other promise and potential.

"We are more than the sum of our parts," she said. "Our shared witness and our common voice can change the world. We can be the moral force that ends poverty as we know it but first we must forgive and embrace one another. The ecumenical call is for the ages. It is God's gift to this and every generation."