The National Council of Churches likes to include Orthodox Christians among the people for whom it purports to speak. Most of the Orthodox jurisdictions in this country lend plausibility to that claim by keeping up membership in the group, regardless of the wide gap on issues of faith and morals between our beliefs and those that NCC officials regularly proclaim.
Maybe this practice of linking Orthodoxy publicly with modernist Protestantism served a purpose when the Orthodox in America were perceived as Arabs, Greeks and Slavs clinging to a quaint, anti-intellectual Old World denomination. It wasn’t irrational to think that a dollop of Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian respectability would rub off on us. Now, however, when Orthodoxy attracts converts of high spiritual caliber and is arguably the most dynamic non-evangelical Christian movement in the United States, while the mainline Protestant churches shrink, splinter and grow sterile, it is Orthodox participation in the NCC that makes that body credible as a “Christian” organization. Were the Orthodox to depart, no one would think of it as anything but a left-wing political lobby.
One can hope that, even to our risk-averse bishops, a conference recently co-sponsored by the NCC, at which its general secretary was a featured speaker, will be one provocation too many. John Lomperis of the Institute on Religion and Democracy describes the affair (hat tip to Midwest Conservative Journal):
On April 29 and 30, liberal activists gathered in New York City for a weekend conference on “Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right.” The program consisted of speeches with alarmist titles like “The Rise of Dominionism in U.S. Government,” “Is an Unholy American Theocracy Here?,” “Christian Jihad,” and “Fundamentalism: The Fear and The Rage.” There were no conservative Christians on the program.
The conference was sponsored by People for the American Way, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the National Council of Churches (NCC), along with the left-wing periodicals The Nation and The Village Voice. It was organized by the New York Open Center and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
A leading theme of the gathering was that “Dominionism”, a tiny, eccentric movement that hardly anyone had heard of until a couple of months ago, wields vast influence over conservative Christianity and the Bush Administration. The speakers viewed it with the same alarm as Birchers ranting about communist control of the United States. The difference is that communism in its heyday was backed by the world’s second most powerful nation, while Dominionism consists of a handful of obscure writers and a trickle of little-read books. Ironically, the only member of the cult ever to come close to the best seller lists is Gary North, author of None Dare Call It Conspiracy. That title would have fit the conference well.
”We’ve got a police state-plus going on here!” cried author Mark Crispin Miller. Miller also claimed that there was “significant Christian extremism in the Pentagon” and that the U.S. Air Force Academy is “like a madrassah.”
Without elaborating, writer Jeff Sharlet claimed that the government of Norway is controlled “through and through” by Doug Coe’s Virginia-based Christian group known as the International Foundation. [Has anyone informed BjørnStærk ?] . . .
An essay by columnist John Sugg, distributed at the conference, claimed that the “nationwide movement” of Reconstructionism has “established a beachhead in the White House.” The essay referred to the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as “Reconstruction-occupied territory.” Citing authors Frederick Clarkson and Daniel Levitas, Sugg reported that “Reconstructionists have taken over the Southern Baptist Convention’s national leadership” and that Reconstructionism “has been the driving force behind the Christian Right for some time.”
Speakers at the conference saw evidence of the vast power of the “theocrats” on every side: in the “Christian nation” rhetoric of some conservatives, in the expressed belief of some prominent officials that governments ultimately derive their authority from God, in President Bush’s description of terrorism as “evil,” in Bush’s promotion of a “culture of life,” in widespread opposition to euthanasia, in the Texas Republican Party platform’s support of a smaller federal government, in recent tax cuts and alleged declines in government social welfare spending, in the growth of the national debt, and in the elevation of Rick Santorum, a social conservative, to a leadership position among his fellow Senate Republicans.
”I think John Kerry won this election; I think that he won it handily!,” declared Miller to loud applause. He argued that “we have no evidence” that Bush won “other than the official counts,” but that “there’s several smoking guns” to cast doubt on Bush's victory. Miller also appeared to indicate his support for a revolution, provoking applause by saying, “It’s going to take what it took in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Ukraine, and this country hundreds of years ago.”
Did the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the NCC, try to stir sanity into this paranoid stew? Did he perhaps suggest that the Left approach its adversaries with the same ecumenical forbearance that his own organization displays for Fidel Castro and the Palestinian Authority? Ha and ha and ha-ha!
“Our liberties are at stake!” [he]declared. . . . Edgar added that “these may be the darkest times in ourhistory.” . . . According to the NCC leader, all of the gains of the civil rights movement are imperiled by “those in power in Washington” who are “taking us back to the1940s.” . . .
Edgar shared “The Gospel According to a Religious Progressive.” He faulted “the religious left” for having not been active enough in fighting “the religious right.” Recalling his previous career as “one of the top-ten most liberal congressmen,” the NCC general secretary spoke of how “proud” he had been when the Moral Majority called his uncompromising support of abortion “immoral.” Edgar said he “laughed at” that criticism and wore it as “a badge of honor.” The NCC, which describes itself as “the preeminent expression in the United States of the movement toward Christian unity,” ostensibly takes no position on abortion. Several of its member denominations [including, of course, all of the participating Orthodox jurisdictions] share the same moral reservations about abortion at which Edgarlaughed. . . .
Edgar indicated that he has no intention of finding common ground with conservative Christians. When asked by an audience member if “we” should try to reach out to “the religious right” or simply fight it, the NCC leader replied that since “the right already has its structure,” the “religious left” should instead focus on organizing itself, “infiltrat[ing] our seminaries,” and reaching out to “the middle church, the middle synagogue, the middle mosque.” Edgar told his audience of his policy when the NCC is criticized by conservatives. In such instances, he said, he simply sends a memo out to his staff with the instruction: “Find them [the conservatives] irrelevant.”
The general secretary’s venom was on this occasion directed toward anti-modernist Protestants, but can one doubt that he was also expressing his feelings toward traditional Christians of all stripes, including the Orthodox from whom his organization derives money (a little) and credibility (a lot)? We can be sure that he finds us “irrelevant”, too. We ought to be proud of that irrelevance and nurture it by cutting all ties with the NCC gang of conspiracy-mongering hysteriacs.
As I've written in greater length in response to this spurious charge on other blogs, I did indeed elaborate on the Family's involvement in Norwegian politics. No need to take my word, however; one can simply look at the Norwegian press, particularly the national daily, Dagbladet, which frontpaged this connection as a Watergate level scandal for about ten days running in December.
One would think that at least one conservative blogger would bother to do five minutes of research before denouncing someone. Or is google part of the vast liberal media conspiracy?
Me: For those who may wonder what Mr. Sharlet is talking about, Aftenposten has a summary, credulous but in English, of Dagbladet’s “investigation”. What it amounts to is that the prime minister of Norway and various high-ranking members of his party are affiliated with the organization that sponsors prayer breakfasts for public officials. That Dagbladet and speakers at NCC conferences regard that tie as a “Watergate level scandal” worthy of ten days of newspaper reportage tells us more about contemporary leftist bigotry and paranoia than Norwegian politics.
Posted by: Jeff Sharlet | Sunday, July 03, 2005 at 12:42 PM