Methodists approve NCC money not knowing Edgar backed out of marriage letter
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 21, 2000
The United Methodist official in charge of following up on her denomination’s pledges to the National Council of Churches expressed surprise Nov. 21 when she learned that the NCC’s Robert Edgar had withdrawn his signature from a broadly ecumenical statement on the sanctity of marriage.
Claire Chapman, executive director of the Methodists’ General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, said news about Edgar’s remarks to the NCC’s General Assembly was not available when the denomination approved a $400,000 loan to the NCC during a meeting in Albuquerque.
The Albuquerque decision, by the Methodists’ General Council on Finance and Administration, was made the same day, Nov. 17, that Edgar announced that he was withdrawing his signature from the new Christian Declaration on Marriage. One of the people arguing for the $400,000 was the denomination’s ecumenical officer, retired Bishop Melvin Talbert, who also opposed the marriage statement because it did not support gay unions and marriages.
The views of Talbert, however, are contrary to those of the United Methodist Church, which voted overwhelmingly at its quadrennial conference in June against homosexual unions.
Chapman said the retraction by Edgar, a United Methodist minister and former president of the Methodists’ Claremont School of Theology, could become a factor in consideration of fulfilling the remainder of the denomination’s pledge to the NCC. But she did not express an opinion about Edgar’s statement.
Methodist officials initially pledged a $700,000 gift to the NCC’s deficit-reduction fund to clean up its 1999 books. Only $82,000 had been sent to the NCC before the denomination approved the $400,000 loan. Chapman says she is working with a variety of Methodist agencies to raise the remaining $218,000. She said it could be accomplished before the end of the year, but that would be difficult because of the holidays.
Without the $218,000, the NCC would begin an already precarious six-month budget period, January-June 2001, about $100,000 in the hole. Furthermore, more than $1 million of the $3.5 million budget includes funds that are not assured.
NCC finance and budget leaders have stressed that meeting the six-month revenue goals is essential for the organization to continue surviving without additional deep cuts in staff and program. On Nov. 20, 17 of the 64 NCC employees were scheduled to be laid off to meet the revenue projections.
Chapman said she could not predict what impact Edgar’s statement would have on her efforts to increase the Methodist deficit-reduction assistance. But she did note that one of the central themes in Albuquerque discussions was Edgar’s commitment to expand the ecumenical table by working with Catholics, Pentecostals and Evangelicals.
Representatives of those groups expressed outrage that he would back off the marriage statement. They did not sound encouraging about further ecumenical cooperation.