Andrew Young opposes NCC funding cut, backs gay causes
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, June 27, 2000
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, president of the National Council of Churches, on Monday urged members of a General Assembly Committee to vote against an overture to reduce Presbyterian funding for the NCC.
Young, appearing before the Committee on Catholicity and Ecumenical Relations of the Presbyterian Church (USA), also touched on a number of issues, including his support of gay causes.
He traced that support back to when he was a young man and worked for the National Council of Churches. “When I worked at the National Council of Churches, most of my colleagues were gay,” he said. “I should have been talking about sex on their behalf, but I didn’t know what to say except ‘judge not that you be not judged.'”
Young’s comment about gay issues was surprising in light of the NCC’s caution against involvement in such causes because of its precarious financial condition — a deficit of more than $6 million. Officially,the NCC has no policy on whether gays should be ordained or pastors should be permitted to conduct same-sex unions. The NCC directors have voted down proposals to admit the Metropolitan Community Church, a predominantly gay denomination, into the NCC membership.
Young spoke for about 30 minutes against an overture that would reduce PCUSA funding to the NCC and the World Council of Churches to a fraction of the current allocations. The PCUSA is the leading U.S. financial contributor to both organizations.
Young, to whom the committee alloted more time than all of the overture proponents combined, said there would be no ecumenical movement without the PCUSA. “Almost any time there is a threat to planet earth, there is a need for a moral voice,” Young said. “He indicated that the NCC and WCC had been that moral voice.
Another surprising development occurred at the hearing. Syngman Rhee, the new moderator of the 212th General Assembly and former president of the NCC, spoke against the overture to cut NCC funding.
And Rebecca McElroy, whom Rhee appointed vice moderator, spoke in favor of the overture.
Rhee reminisced about his experience in Korea during its civil war a half-century ago. Then, he said, Church World Service, an agency for the NCC, “came to share hope for hopeless people. I was one of them.” Involvement in the NCC’s ecumenical work, Rhee said, “is our work. It is not somebody else’s work.”
McElroy spoke from the perspective of the small, rural church that needs help for evangelism and development. She said many were told that there was no money available. So they were surprised and pained when the PCUSA’s Office of the General Assembly and General Assembly Council approved $500,000 to help bail the NCC out of its $3.9-million 1999 deficit.