wfn.org | Re: United Methodist Daily News note 460

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Reply-to: owner-umethnews@ecunet.org (United Methodist News list)
"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (461
notes).

Note 461 by UMNS on Nov. 18, 1997 at 09:11 Eastern (6397 characters).

TITLE:	NCC Adds New Member

Contact:  Joretta Purdue  		649(10-71B){461}
		Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722  	Nov. 17, 1997

National Council of Churches
welcomes new member at assembly

	WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- The National Council of Churches became 34 communions
with the addition of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of India early in the Nov.
12-14 annual General Assembly here.
	The Rev. Bruce Robbins, chair of the membership and ecclesial relations
committee and a United Methodist, introduced the church, noting their "rich
history dating back to Thomas the Apostle." 
	NCC President Melvin Talbert, a United Methodist bishop concluding a two-year
term, greeted the delegation of the million-member church that is found in 25
states. Talbert said, "Personally, I do not welcome a stranger, since Bishop
Zacharias and I have served together on the Central Committee of the World
Council of Churches."
	Widening and deepening the circles of relationship both inside and outside
the NCC was a theme found in the conclusion of a five-year study on the
organization's purpose and goals.
	The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, chairman of the Ecclesiology Study Task Force and
dean of the Lexington Theological Seminary, quoted the study in introducing
it, saying, "The essence of a council of churches is not the relationship of
the churches to the structure of the council, but their relationship to one
another."
	The task force also advised that the NCC seek partnership with other churches
with less attention to increasing its membership.
	Keynote speaker, Diana Eck, a United Methodist laywoman who directs Harvard
University's Pluralism Project, illustrated the extensive contemporary mix of
religions found in the United States. The "multi-religious reality" goes far
beyond Christian, Muslim and Jew, she said.
	The question, she observed, is "how to shape a society of neighbors rather
than strangers." 
	She warned against "narrow and exclusivistic theologies that try to circle
the wagons around God. God is not ours, but indeed we are God's," she declared
urging the churches to "take the lead in constructive dialogue."
	Her presentation stimulated small-group discussion designed to begin creating
a new NCC policy statement on interfaith relations. The process will take at
least two years to provide first and second readings.
	Another speaker, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos, House of Cilicia, Armenian
Apostolic Church, said that ecumenism, or relations between different
communions or faiths, too often is delegated to an elite -- in some made up of
clergy and in others an elite made up of bishops.
	"The whole people of God must become part and parcel of ecumenism," he
insisted. 
	As moderator of the World Council of Churches Central Committee, he suggested
redefining ecumenism. "We need local ecumenism, and we also need global
ecumenism," he said and declared that ecumenical dialogue must be flexible and
relevant.
	High officials of the NCC and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops
(NCCB), meeting the same week in the same city, exchanged greetings before
their seated assemblies for the first time. They have met frequently in other
settings.
	Catholic Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, NCCB vice president, addressed the NCC's
General Assembly, whose 270 delegates represent a combined membership of 52
million Protestant and Orthodox Christians.
	At the same time, across town, Talbert told the Catholics, "We are all
related, all brothers and sisters in Christ."
	In a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral, Episcopal Bishop Craig B.
Anderson was installed as president of the NCC for 1998-99. His two-year term
begins Jan. 1.
	Vice President Albert Gore recognized the NCC's diversity and work with other
faiths. He praised the churches' leadership in civil rights and environmental
concerns, and mentioned NCC work for burned churches.
	In an earlier report on the NCC Burned Churches Program, the Rev. Joan Brown
Campbell, NCC general secretary, had noted that 30 churches, of the more than
120 burned, have been rebuilt and rededicated. "This is ongoing work. This is
not finished," she said.
	She presented a copy of the Out of the Ashes: Burned Churches and the
Community of Faith, a just-published account of the NCC-led response, to
Talbert, under whose presidency the program was begun and pursued with more
than $10 million collected for rebuilding.
	In a separate report to the council, Campbell focused on ecumenism. "For the
ecumenical movement to be faithful, there must be gifts that differ that are
then shared to build up the body of Christ," she said.
	The first reading of a proposed policy on public education prompted
discussion, much of which centered around the part of the document that stated
public money should only be used for public schools.
	Several speakers, while endorsing the paper as a whole, wanted some public
money available for experimentation, possibly including charter schools. The
policy also includes a list of suggestions for local churches and others for
national attention.
	The assembly heard Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, who told them the effort to
abolish landmines is not one woman's campaign.
"I am honored to work with a broad coalition, including the churches' work
through Church World Service," she said. The assembly renewed its call for a
complete ban on anti-personnel landmines.
	In other actions, the assembly also:
	*  adopted a policy encouraging organ and tissue donations for
transplantation;
	*  celebrated the 50th anniversary	of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human
Rights;
	*  began plans to observe its own 50th anniversary in 1999;
	*  affirmed continued support for affirmative action;
	*  unanimously adopted a policy urging the removal of church barriers to deaf
people and those who are hard of hearing;
	*  presented eight ecumenical/interfaith awards, including four in honor of
the late Rev. Mac Charles Jones, NCC deputy general secretary, to groups that
build unity;
	*  observed the 70th anniversary of the Faith and Order Movement by hearing
from Mary Tanner, moderator of the World Council of Churches' commission on
faith and order;
	*  celebrated the peace agreement reached the preceding week for Sierra
Leone;
	*  participated in a ceremony at the Holocaust Museum that honored Protestant
and Orthodox Christians who resisted the Nazi program to exterminate the Jews.
	#  #  #

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