wfn.org | Evangelicals and Mainstream Churches Improve Relations

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25-November-1996 
 
 
96473    Evangelicals and Mainstream Churches Improve Relations  
 
                          by Tracy Early 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK--A leading conservative evangelical group and the National Council 
of Churches (NCC) -- which has as members mainstream Protestant and 
Orthodox churches -- have taken a major step towards cooperation. 
 
     At the recent annual meeting in Chicago of the NCC, delegates heard an 
address by Don Argue, a minister of the (Pentecostal) Assemblies of God and 
president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in the United 
States. 
 
     The NAE, based in the Chicago suburb of Carol Stream, was founded in 
1942 in opposition to what the organizers saw as excessive liberalism and 
social activism of the mainline denominations in the Federal Council of 
Churches, a predecessor of the NCC.  
 
     aking the motto, "cooperation without compromise", the NAE established 
itself as a body defined by belief in the infallibility of the Bible and 
other basic points of conservative evangelicalism. It has also tended to 
take conservative positions on social and political issues. 
 
     Even today, NAE by-laws make it impossible for any church belonging to 
the NCC to be recognized as evangelical in the NAE sense and thus to be 
accepted as an NAE member. The only variation to this exclusivism, Argue 
told ENI in an interview, was the NAE membership of one regional unit, the 
Mid-America Synod of the Reformed Church in America, an NCC member. 
 
     Argue said he had developed a "good relationship" with NCC's general 
secretary, Joan Brown Campbell, working with her on causes such as 
religious liberty. She had told him he was the first NAE leader to address 
the NCC. 
 
     "The response was overwhelming," he said after his speech at the 
Chicago gathering. "They gave me a standing ovation." 
 
     The NCC general secretary has made other efforts to build ties with 
conservative evangelicals. Early in her tenure, she invited evangelist 
Billy Graham to visit the NCC's New York headquarters, where he held a 
private meeting with her and spoke at a chapel service. 
 
     While indicating openness to better relations, Argue said he had no 
specific plans for developing cooperative work with the NCC. "I don't know 
where this is going," he said. "I don't think things like this can be 
manufactured." 
 
     But, unlike some conservatives, Argue said he had no difficulty 
recognizing NCC leaders as fellow Christians. The NAE, his remarks 
suggested, wants to distance itself from the more combative and 
anti-intellectual fundamentalists. 
 
     Argue reported to the NCC that the NAE now embraced 48 denominations, 
and individual congregations from 10 others, making a total of 42 500 
congregations linked to the NAE. 
 
     "The membership of the association includes over 250 parachurch 
ministries and educational institutions," he added. The total constituency 
exceeded 27 million Christians, he said. 
 
     Argue said the NAE did not include such prominent conservatives as 
Jerry Falwell, a Baptist who led the Moral Majority that worked for 
politically conservative causes during the years of Ronald Reagan's 
presidency, or Pat Robertson, the Baptist founder and head of the Christian 
Coalition. 
 
     "I think it is very unfortunate that in the Christian Coalition Pat 
Robertson has politicized the words 'Christian' and 'evangelical'," Argue 
said.  "My task is to depoliticize them.  My assignment from our board and 
executive committee is to develop a position that is neither Republican nor 
Democratic, but reflects our values." 
 
     He pointed out that the NAE maintained an office in Washington, D.C., 
where it made the organization's views known. "I meet with President 
Clinton about every six weeks," he said. But the NAE did not try to 
influence elections by Christian Coalition methods such as distributing 
voter guides in churches, he said. 
 
     Asked about differences between the NAE and the NCC over social 
issues, Argue acknowledged that many white conservative evangelicals 
"stayed on the sidelines" during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 
1960s.  "We are now taking major steps to address that," he said, adding 
that more blacks now hold positions in the NAE leadership, which was 
strengthening ties with the National Black Evangelical Association.  The 
NAE had also been helping to rebuild black churches damaged by arson 
attacks in the last couple of years, he said. 

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