The once-prominent National Council of Churches in the USA (NCC) launched its 75th anniversary celebration on May 16, with a worship service at National City Christian Church in Washington, DC.
Founded in 1950, the ecumenical council will not actually turn 75 for another two years. This was recognized during the service, as the Rev. Margaret Rose, Episcopal Church Deputy to the Presiding Bishop for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations, clarified the event was about “launching into the deep waters of the future of the NCC to see where God is calling us in the next 75 years.”
Given the NCC’s precipitous decline in influence and size, it is not apparent that the organization will last another 75 years. The NCC website lists seven staff members, and while the organization counts 37 member communions that once claimed a membership of more than 35 million people, this number has shrunk in recent years as liberal mainline denominations like the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shed members at an alarming rate.
The lightly attended NCC anniversary service (viewable in entirety below) contained readings and comments from various denominational leaders, interspersed with hymns. The Ebenezer A.M.E. Church choir was prominently featured, performing gospel-style songs that made no mention of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection – the core of the biblical Gospel.
African Methodist Episcopal Church Retired Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie was announced at the service as the new President and General Secretary of the NCC after holding the position in interim since April 2022 following the departure of former NCC General Secretary and past United Methodist lobby chief Jim Winkler.
McKenzie spoke on Judges 7:13-15, focusing on Gideon’s command to “get up” and defeat Midian.
Like Gideon, McKenzie said, Americans today must “get up, step up, and make it happen.” That is, Americans must “push the refresh button on a justice agenda where we can join hands and heart and intellect and inclusion and voice and vision to push back the entrenched disparities, disrupt systemic racism, and bring about positive social change for all of us and not just some of us.”
In addition to a host of generic liberal platitudes like the ones above, McKenzie also appealed to the story of Gideon’s army being shrunk by God earlier in Judges chapter 7: “the fight wasn’t about numbers, it was about God. It wasn’t about getting enough soldiers, it was about getting the right soldiers. We need to get the right soldiers in the right place to do the right things.” There is some truth to McKenzie’s point, but it mostly seems a thinly veiled excuse for the NCC’s dwindling numbers and relevance.
Despite a generally optimistic attitude among speakers at the anniversary service, there seem to be few legitimate reasons for optimism, as seen in the NCC member communions’ own membership declines. Though McKenzie quoted Romans 12:2, charging service attendees to “not be conformed to this world,” many liberal NCC member denominations including the PC(USA) and United Methodist Church have done just that, bowing to worldly religious and political agendas.
The fate of theologically and politically liberal groups like NCC and its constituents should serve as a cautionary story for other Christians. Despite aligning themselves with the priorities of secular liberal philanthropies, organizations like the NCC are shrinking, not growing. It is likely only a matter of time until they vanish and are unable to celebrate impending anniversaries. There is, however, a problem with these groups even greater than their numeric failures: a rejection of the timeless truths of Scripture, which will never cease to be celebrated by the true Church.
The NCC anniversary service is viewable in its entirely via the NCC Facebook page and is linked below:
Comment by Loren J Golden on May 21, 2023 at 12:48 am
“The fight wasn’t about numbers, it was about God. It wasn’t about getting enough soldiers, it was about getting the right soldiers. We need to get the right soldiers in the right place to do the right things.”
Oh yes—lapping water like a dog truly made those 300 men “the right soldiers,” whereas the 9,700 men who knelt down to drink water clearly were not.
Hogwash. Unvarnished hogwash.
Had the Right Rev. (perhaps that should be the Wrong Rev.) McKenzie stopped after the first sentence (or at least after the first half of the second), he would not have utterly embarrassed himself. As it is, he clearly missed the point of the passage.
“The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into your hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, “My own hand has saved me.”’ … And (Gideon) returned to the cap of Israel and said, ‘Arise, for the LORD has given the host of Midian into your hand.’” (Judg. 7.2,15)
Says the Preacher (Heb. coheleth; that is, Solomon), “Again I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge.” (Eccl. 9.11, emphasis added) “Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s.” (II Chron. 20.15, emphasis added) And again, “The LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s.” (I Sam. 17.47)
The message of Israel’s victory over Midian in Judges 7 is the same as the message of Israel’s victory over the Egyptian army in Exodus 14, which is this: The Lord God, and the Lord God alone, saves us from our enemies, to the end that we should give Him the glory and not arrogate it to ourselves, as is the wicked, natural tendency of our sinful, selfish, fallen human hearts. And make no mistake, we have enemies far more powerful and insidious that Midian or Egypt, from which we desperately need to be saved: the world, the flesh, the Devil, sin, and death. These are enemies that we cannot conquer ourselves, even with God’s help, as if He were propping us up and cheering us on, as if fighting these enemies was somehow in our power. No: We cannot be our own saviors. God has fought the battle for us on our behalf, in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has prevailed over all these foes—He alone has prevailed, on our behalf, without so much as asking us to do anything to aid or assist Him in the fight. When on the Cross He said, “It is finished” (Jn. 19.30), the battle was over, completed by His death on our behalf and on the behalf of all who put their trust in Him alone—and not in themselves nor in anyone or anything else—for their salvation, and He was victorious. “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5.12)
Does God want His people to perform good works on behalf of others? Absolutely! After all, “Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Tit. 2.13-14) But a call to good works is not the message of Judges 7.
The message of Judges 7 points us to the One on the Cross, Who saves us from our sins—not to a call to “the right soldiers” to perform social work for its own end, which is the message of the NCC and the so-called “mainline” Protestant denominations that support it. For they use God as a mascot, in much the same way the U.S. Army used the image of Uncle Sam to recruit American men during the First and Second World Wars, in an effort to get Christians to perform social work, as approved by a politically left consensus, rather than as approved by God in His Word. But the Gospel message of salvation by faith alone in the person and work of the crucified Savior alone is shamefully undervalued, misinterpreted, and disregarded by the NCC and its supporters—they deny Him His glory.
And “if we deny him, he also will deny us.” (II Tim. 2.12) So, it is not at all surprising that the NCC and its constituent denominations have been waning fast for the past half century in a world that is perishing in its unsatiated hunger for the Gospel message. The Lord Jesus proclaimed to the crowds gathered under Him on the mountain, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Mt. 5.13) The proclamation of the Gospel message is the Church’s saltiness; yet the NCC and its constituent denominations have lost theirs, and they cannot get it back.
The Gospel message is true riches, represented in one of the Lord Jesus’ parables by minas (a monetary value equivalent to three months’ wages for a laborer). Of the servant to whom a single mina had been entrusted, but who had buried it in the ground and returned it to his master without having invested it, the master said, “‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’” (Mt. 19.24-26) Like the sower, the Church is called to plant the seed of the Gospel message in others, that the Lord might reap a harvest of men, women, and children (Mk. 4.1-8,14-20). Yet like the servant who buried his mina in the ground, the NCC and its constituent denominations have disdained the Gospel message, preferring instead to preach a message of good works, some of which, like advocacy for the normalization of sexually deviant behaviors or advocacy for the legalized destruction of unborn human life, really aren’t good at all and actually contradict the Gospel message.
Thus, for the past half century, we see men and women leaving the NCC’s constituent denominations in droves—those who still value and cherish the Gospel message (and who recognize the fundamental incompatibility of these denominations’ preferred alternative to it as ultimately incompatible with it) to churches or denominations that preach it, and those who do not value or cherish the Gospel message (and who recognize the spiritual bankruptcy in these denominations’ preferred alternative) to the world outside the pale of the Church. The Rt. Rev. McKenzie’s misinterpretation of the message of Judges 7 as, “about getting the right soldiers; we need to get the right soldiers in the right place to do the right things,” is, as young Mr. Hasbrouck wrote, “a thinly veiled excuse for the NCC’s dwindling numbers and relevance.”
The endemic membership losses the “mainline” Protestant denominations have endured over the past half century do not represent some kind of winnowing the Lord is employing to get down to those most dedicated to the work of the Lord. Rather, they are His judgment on a faithless servant who buried his mina in the ground.
Lord, I ask that You open the eyes of these blind guides of the blind, to allow them to see the destructiveness of their ways, and how these ways have alienated those who have left their denominations, and please have mercy on them and grant them repentance, to turn from their rebellion against You and against Your Gospel message, to seek Your forgiveness and reconciliation on Your terms, that they might be spared the destruction that awaits them if they do not. I pray this in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world. Amen.
Comment by Loren J Golden on May 21, 2023 at 9:16 am
Correction to the above post:
The reference to the Parable of the minas should be to Luke 19.24-26, not Matthew. I apologize for the error.
Comment by George on May 22, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Has the Global Methodist Church given any consideration of joining the World Council of Churches or the National Council of Churches ? If so, I will be disappointed to say the least.