A Matter of Conscience

A briefing paper on ECUMENICAL BODIES SUPPORTED THROUGH PER CAPITA APPORTIONMENTS

The Issue:
Will per capita apportionments, which presbyteries are required and congregations are expected to pay, continue to fund large unrestricted grants to controversial ecumenical bodies such as the National and World Councils of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches? Or will we give relief to the consciences of those who object to being forced to pay for political advocacy that offends them?

The Business:
Items 03-08 and 03-10 would direct that funding of the ecumenical bodies be transferred from the per capita budget to the mission budget. Item 03-11 would amend the Book of Order to state that “[b[enevolences, ministries, ecumenical dues, or other elective spending for the work and mission of the governing body shall not be funded by the per capita budget.”

Presbyterian Action Recommendation:
The activities of the ecumenical bodies fall mostly under the category of mission, and therefore should properly be shifted to the mission budget, supported through purely voluntary gifts. Item 03-08 is the cleanest way to accomplish the transfer, without an unnecessary constitutional amendment. But if the budgetary adjustments in 2009 would be too sudden, implementation could be delayed a bit.

An Overview of the Ecumenical Bodies:
The 2008 General Assembly per capita budget includes $1.1 million for “grants to ecumenical groups.” The largest line items are: $458,000 to the World Council of Churches (WCC), $300,000 to the National Council of Churches (NCC), and $233,000 to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). These three bodies, although differing in some obvious ways, have many common characteristics:

• All three emerged from movements toward Christian unity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were established to pursue a noble vision. For the NCC, it is to be “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.” For the WCC it is to be “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The WARC brought together Reformed churches around the world “holding the Word of God given in the Bible to be the ultimate authority in matters of faith and life, acknowledging Jesus Christ as the head of the church, and rejoicing in our fellowship with the whole church.”
• All three receive generous, disproportionate support from the PCUSA. We are the leading North American funder of the WCC and WARC. Our $400,000 total to the NCC in its fiscal year 2005-2006 represented the second-largest denominational contribution, even though there were four other member churches larger than our own. That $400,000 in PCUSA per capita and mission money amounted to almost 25 percent of the NCC’s $1.8 million in denominational grants. Most of the 35 NCC member communions made zero or minimal contributions.
• The NCC and WCC, despite their ambitions of Christian unity, represent only a shrinking minority of the Christian community. NCC denominations add up to about 27 percent of the 163 million reported U.S. church members. The WCC includes about a quarter of the world’s 2 billion Christians. The WARC, by contrast, does contain the vast majority of the world’s Reformed believers. Yet few of them know anything about WARC’s work, or even its existence. Likewise, the NCC and WCC are off the radar screens of most local congregations that those bodies claim as their constituency. And those who are aware are not always supportive.
• All three have had recurring financial difficulties, as support from member communions has been flat or declining. The NCC staff shrank from more than 100 in 2000 to fewer than 35 today. The falloff would have been even worse if the council had not picked up support from secular liberal foundations underwriting its political advocacy. By 2004-2005 outside foundation support exceeded contributions from the NCC’s own member denominations.
• All three have become increasingly focused on political advocacy. By far the largest category of NCC program expenses is “Justice and Advocacy” (39 percent in 2005-2006). In addition, much of the 23 percent for “Communications” and the 13 percent for “Education and Leadership” also address social and political issues. Only six percent of the NCC budget goes for “Faith and Order,” the pursuit of Christian unity that is supposed to be the council’s main objective. The relief and development work of Church World Service has been spun off as an administratively and financially autonomous entity, and is no longer under the NCC.
• That political advocacy all leans in one direction: leftward. It does not represent the views of the claimed church constituency, which includes many political conservatives and moderates. The Presbyterian Panel reports that Republicans outnumber Democrats b y 53 to 27 percent among our denomination’s members. When the ecumenical agencies attack more conservative Christians, they are alienating a significant part of their own constituency. They are bringing division rather than unity to the church. They are undermining their own stated ecumenical purpose.

Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with NCC, WCC, and WARC political advocacy, we should be able to understand why some churches and presbyteries have problems of conscience in being forced to support that advocacy through per capita. Consider some examples:

National Council of Churches:

• In January 2006 the NCC released an alternative “State of the Union” address. It compared Christian “fundamentalists” to “an arrogant dinner guest who seizes the conversation and shouts his proclamation so loudly that nobody else can speak.” It blasted the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terror as “a tragic sacrifice of our nation’s most cherished moral values upon the altar of arrogant self-interest.” Itl condemned the Iraq war as “an arrogant first strike—fueled by misinformation and perpetuated by fear.” The council lambasted Republican budget proposals as “one of the most immoral budgets in American history.” It characterized congressional Republicans as “feast[ing] on corporate greed” and “kneel[ing] agt the altar of an out-of-control war machine.”
• Other causes promoted by the NCC in recent years include: more liberal immigration policies, a steep increase in the minimum wage, strict government regulations on carbon dioxide emissions to forestall possible global warming, opposition to the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools, and reject of any use or threat of force to stop nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.
• In his 2006 book Middle Church, heavily promoted on the council’s website, then-NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar declared, “I do not—repeat, not—believe that there is anything unhealthy or unclean about homosexuality.” He added, “I believe abortion should remain each woman’s choice.” The NCC ostensibly has no position on abortion and homosexuality, but other top council officials have regularly let slip similar sentiments.
• In May 2004, NCC Interfaith Relations chair Rothang Chhangte denounced the “exclusivism” of evangelicals who believe that “Jesus is the only way” and want to see  “allthe world … come to Christ.”

World Council of Churches:
At its most recent Assembly, in 2006:

• The WCC declared that churches should resist “any attempt at meeting terror with military means.”
• The council condemned U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba while praising the Castro regime for “develop[ing] effect policies regarding health, education and culture.”
• A WCC statement urged churches to “take a firm stance against the hegemonic powers” and “make ourselves accountable to the victims of economic globalization.” A speaker introducing the statement called globalization “the new face of savage, barbarous capitalism in pursuit of a profit.” She described corporations as “wild beasts” that must be “mastered.” Another speaker labeled the “neoliberal development paradigm” (emphasizing free trade) as “the curse of our times.” He alleged that “[c]apitalism is based on greed” while “[s]ocialism is based upon a cooperative system.”
• WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia looked to affirm the equal validity of non-Christian religions: “The vision of many today is that God’s oikoumene [household] includes not just Christians, but people of all living faiths.” A council study document stated, “We see the plurality of religious traditions as both the result of the manifold ways in which God has related to peoples and nations as well as a manifestation of the richness and diversity of human response to God’s gracious gift.”
• One leader of a council study on sexuality summarized the conclusion that “we promote sexual rights [along with] the attendant responsibilities of being non-abusive within relationships, and faithful within whichever configuration of relationship one chooses to be in.” Another study leader clarified: “A sexual experience is a spiritual experience. If it is done in a spirit of mutual respect and love, it is a very beautiful experience—whether you are married or not.”

Presbyterian Action advises shifting ecumenical grants to the mission budget, where they can be funded voluntarily by those who support the controversial political advocacy of the NCC, WCC, and WARC.