As Ecumenical Relations Mature, So May the NCC

WASHINGTON, May 29 (RNS)--At its 50th birthday party six months ago, the National Council of Churches announced with great fanfare that after teetering on the brink of extinction, the proud ecumenical body didn't need life support after all.

Faced with mounting debts, a multitiered bureaucracy and a staggering sense of aimlessness, the NCC cut costs, restructured and reshuffled in an effort to stay alive.

Now, however, the very people brought in to revitalize the dying organization are offering to pull the plug, bury the past and attempt a resurrection as an entirely new body.

The cause of death? Oddly enough, its own success.

At its recent executive board meeting in Washington, the NCC formally cemented what had been talked about for years--to consider a plan to first shut down and then reopen as a new organization that could attract the sought-after participation of Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals.

In the midst of this midlife crisis, the NCC also allowed its humanitarian arm--Church World Service--to become financially independent and largely run its own affairs. Like a mother facing an empty nest, the NCC started to wonder: Now what?

While the NCC's new staff has managed to "stop the hemorrhaging" there is a growing sense that the organization, and the religious landscape that molds it, is completely different than it was 50 years ago.

"The NCC should celebrate its past, but not recreate it," conceded the NCC's new general secretary, the Rev. Bob Edgar.

No one can say for sure what the new body would look like, or if it would mean the NCC would cease to exist entirely and a new body would take its place. An eight-member panel will study the issue, report back to the main body and a new organization could be up and running by 2003.

But what is for certain is a growing sense--and even bewilderment--that the times have changed so much that the NCC has served its purpose, and now it's time to move on. The past few years have seen major ecumenical advances that 50 years ago would have seemed impossible:

• Catholics and Lutherans last year signed an agreement on the major issue that led to the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago: salvation by faith, not works.
• Episcopalians will likely approve an agreement with Lutherans allowing both churches to share clergy, missions and sacraments.
• The United Church of Christ, Reformed Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA) and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America now share clergy between congregations under a new agreement.
• Catholics and Anglicans recently wrapped up a meeting in Toronto to assess 30 years of dialogue and recognize--at least for the Anglicans--the historic authority and importance of Catholic Church hierarchy.

Clearly, the ecumenical environment has shifted so dramatically over 50 years that a new model for dialogue is needed, many agree. And if that is to happen, perhaps its time for the NCC to step aside.

"Implicit in the call for a new organization is the closing of the National Council of Churches in order to give birth to something new," said the Rev. Bruce Robbins, the head of the ecumenical agency of the United Methodist Church, a major NCC contributor.

The New York-based agency was formed 50 years ago when mainline Protestantism was at the height of its prominence and influence. It brought together all the proud Protestant bodies, plus Orthodox and historically black churches.

Noticeably absent, however, were the Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals--all bodies that have grown in the past 50 years while most of the NCC's 35-member communions saw several decades of decline.

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