wfn.org | Joan Brown Campbell Meets the Press

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17-June-1998 
GA98079 
 
    Joan Brown Campbell Meets the Press 
 
    by Nancy Rodman 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--"God has given great gifts to women and churches need to 
take this seriously.  There is still a long way for churches to go," was 
Joan Brown Campbell's reflection on the just-concluded Ecumenical Decade of 
Churches in Solidarity with Women at a Wednesday afternoon press 
conference.  For example, no member church of the National Council of 
Churches has a woman as its head.  One of her sorrows is that the Decade 
was more effective in other countries than it was here.  For instance, she 
said, the Decade helped to change abusive marriage laws in India.  But in 
the United States, it was difficult to develop a sustainable ten-year-long 
program and it is hard to say what the results have been here. 
    Campbell reflected on the fifty-year history of the NCC and World 
Council of Churches (WCC) - the NCC's anniversary is in 1999, the WCC's is 
this year - and said that while there has been re-tooling of infrastructure 
their ministries haven't changed.  Both have a vision of the day when 
membership is broader.  This greater membership won't come quickly because 
there are still more rivers to cross, she said. 
    The NCC is one of the few councils of churches in which the Roman 
Catholic Church does not participate as it does in councils in other parts 
of the world.  To add the Roman Catholic Church would not be simple, she 
said, but "we need to set a table for regular conversation."  However, when 
viewed from the sweep of history, the NCC has had a tremendous program for 
over 50 years and made great progress from the days when Protestants and 
Catholics wouldn't even go into each others' churches, she said. 
    Asked about the impact of full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America on local churches, Campbell said that is where the 
importance is.  We've made people so comfortable with each other that full 
communion existed de facto even when it did not exist de jure.  Go to a 
baptism, she said, and you will find people from several denominations 
gathered.  But local church members need the churches to recognize each 
other formally, she added.  "Church by church by church we will finally 
come together."  To bring full communion home to the layperson, Campbell 
said, it is important to recognize the ministers of the denominations.  It 
is important to share at table.  "What people don't understand," she said, 
"is when the words are the same, why we can't be together." 
    "One of the tragedies of our time is that we have to define churches as 
ecumenical or evangelical," Campbell said.  It is important to remember 
when this question is discussed, she said, that the evangelical groups are 
self-defined as evangelical.  Member churches of the NCC are prohibited 
from belonging to the National Association of Evangelicals, by NAE policy. 
Such a policy institutionalizes separation, Campbell believes. 
    The recent statement by the Southern Baptists on the role of women was 
"very unfortunate," Campbell said in answer to a question, "and will lead 
to misunderstanding."  Such a statement is "out of touch and not faithful 
to our understanding of the Gospel."  Perhaps even more unfortunate, she 
said, and not as publicized was the door-to-door proselytizing done by the 
Southern Baptists in Salt Lake City.  This was so disturbing to the Church 
of Jesus Christ of  Latter Day Saints that LDS representatives called the 
NCC for help, even though neither denomination is a member. 

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