Council reneges on NCC funding requirement, approves $400,000
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, September 25, 2000
MONTREAT, N.C. – The General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA), reneging on conditions it adopted in February, voted overwhelmingly Sept. 23 to throw a $400,000 lifeline to the National Council of Churches.
But even with the Presbyterian money, the NCC’s days could be numbered if the United Methodist Church fails to give the NCC $500,000 it promised earlier this year. The Methodist contribution has been jeopardized by a conservative wave that surged during the denomination’s quadrennial meeting in June.
In approving the immediate payment to forestall bankruptcy by the NCC, the council reversed its requirement that the NCC must secure $2 million in firm commitments before the PCUSA would send its $400,000 to bail the NCC out of its self-made financial crisis.
The United Methodist Church, which once pledged $700,000 toward the NCC’s deficit bailout, has paid $200,000, but still must secure approval from the denomination’s mission and finance committees for the remaining $500,000.
John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, and Philip H. Young of the Presbyterian Foundation, treasurer of the NCC and chairman of its administrative committee, offered different views about whether the full Methodist contribution will be paid in 2000.
Detterick said he was confident it would be. Young said he thought the odds were 50-50.
“We have enough to meet obligations between now and December if and only if we receive money from the Methodists and Presbyterians,” Young said.
Without the $500,00 from the Methodists before the end of 2000, Young said, “It will be very difficult for us to sustain the National Council of Churches in any recognizable form.”
The vote came after some pleas from members of the council, including Clifford Sherrod of Midland, Texas, who opened the comments by opposing the PCUSA’s contribution to the NCC, and closed them by announcing that he had changed his mind.
Credibility on the line
“The credibility of this body and staff is squarely on the line,” Sherrod said. “We have been burned before … To paraphrase Casey Stengel, a deal is not a done deal until its done.” But at the end of the comment period Sherrod said, “We are called to act in faith … I changed my mind and I will support the motion.”
John Tracy of the Presbytery of Central Florida said he believed the General Assembly Council was obligated to act in accordance with the conditions approved in February. He reminded members of the council that it had “received certain assurances from NCC officials” and that hundreds of Presbyterians had notified that they opposed the bailout appropriation to the NCC. Tracy said dozens of sessions had adopted resolutions opposing the bailout.
Paul J. Masquelier Jr., executive of the San Jose Presbytery, discounted the outcry against the PCUSA’s contribution to the NCC. He said the protests were orchestrated by an “advocacy group with a long history of opposing the NCC. They brought these letters saying this is the voice of the church. We need to place much more importance on the General Assembly.”
In June, the General Assembly concurred with the decision by the General Assembly Council to make a contribution to the NCC’s bailout fund. However, that approval was based on the conditions that the council had adopted, including the requirement that the $2 million be fully committed before the PCUSA would release its contribution.
Tracy said those conditions were established to assure Presbyterians that the council would act responsibly. “The recommendation before you would remove what I consider the keystone to those conditions and to me makes the whole deal collapse.”
Tracy proposed that the council defer action until February 2001 – which would give the NCC a chance to die a natural death if it could not collect the Methodist money. That motion failed.
Young said the Presbyterian contribution is a “matter of extreme urgency” because of a cash-flow crisis. He said both the Methodist and Presbyterian contributions have been recorded as accounts receivable for the NCC’s 1999 fiscal year. The books balance with those contributions, but they would not balance without them he said. He told The Presbyterian Layman that the NCC has no additional reserves to draw on.
Doug Oldenburg, former moderator of the PCUSA, told the council that “Assembly after Assembly has very strongly supported the National Council of Churches … If we postpone this, it could close the National Council … They don’t have money to pay their bills….”