Assembly rejects proposals to cut NCC, WCC funding
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, June 29, 2000
LONG BEACH, Calif. – An effort to cut funding for the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches because of their political agendas and financial mismanagement by the NCC crashed Wednesday on the floor of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Commissioners voted 414-102, with 13 abstentions, to concur with the Committee on Catholicity and Ecumenical Relations in rejecting an overture from the Savannah Presbytery that would have reduced funding for the two ecumenical organizations to a fraction of the current amount.
This year, the PCUSA will give the NCC more than $2.7 million, including $500,000 toward bailing the council out of its $3.9-million 1999 deficit and accumulated debt of more than $6 million. The allocation to the WCC is about $1.2 million for 2000. In both cases, the PCUSA has been the leading U.S. contributor to the two groups. But the United Methodist Church – with more than triple the PCUSA’s membership – recently moved ahead of the PCUSA among NCC contributors because of a $700,000 bailout gift.
The full assembly also overwhelmingly defeated a “kinder, gentler” substitute motion that came to the floor as a minority report. The Savannah overture asked that contributions to the NCC and WCC be reduced to the average amount given by the next six denominations. That would have cut NCC and WCC contributions to less than a third of what they are now. The minority reported changed that formula to 110 percent of the average of the next six – so that although the PCUSA contribution would be reduced, it could stay ahead of its “fair share.”
Neither the overture nor the minority report sought to reduce support for ecumenical work, and both would have provided continued high-level funding for the NCC’s relief arm, Church World Service. Instead, they called for a broadening of ecumenical relations to include evangelical organizations, such as World Vision.
Debate on the floor of General Assembly was fairly brief. The most time was allotted to Robert Edgar, general secretary of the NCC, to answer questions from the commissioners. Edgar said the NCC had secured commitments (with a $500,000 bailout gift from the PCUSA) to eliminate the 1999 deficit. “We have had a balanced budget for the first six months of 2000,” Edgar said.
Jim Farrell of the Philadelphia Presbytery, one of the authors of the minority report, said the advocates of decreased funding were not seeking to reduce ecumenical support, “but there are some issues we have to address.” Those issues include fiscal responsibilities, the disproportionate level of support by the PCUSA, essential values, and uncertainty over the direction of the NCC and WCC, he said.
“That uncertainty breeds mistrust, and mistrust prevents the Church from being the faithful witness to the ends of the earth,” Farrell said.
But Commissioner William Hawkins of Coastal Carolina Presbytery, said essentially what many advocates of the NCC and WCC suggested: “This is no time for the richest nation in the world’s history to cut back on ecumenical support.”
And Robert W. Lowry, a theological student delegate from San Diego, said the annual support for the NCC amounted to only $1 per Presbyterian. “That’s less than a gallon of gas,” Lowry said. “We are sitting here complaining because we give a buck a head.”
A commissioner who advocated reduced funding gave another perspective. “Just as we are called to be light, we are also called to be salt.” And Martha Gerber of Muskingum Valley Presbytery, taking note of more than 1,000 letters, phone calls and emails protesting the PCUSA’s $500,000 bailout contribution, contended that the NCC takes little notice of the “views in the pew” when it gets involved in political issues, such as the Elian Gonzalez case.
Earlier this year, Edgar said the NCC’s involvement in the Gonzalez case was designed to encourage normalization of relations between the United States and Communist Cuba.