wfn.org | NCCCUSA Leader Sees Opportunity for New

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCCCUSA, 212-870-2227
NCC4/30/97 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Partnerships Out of Philadelphia Summit
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Internet: c/o carol_fouke.parti@ecunet.org

 PHILADELPHIA, April 30 ---- An interfaith group 
including the National Council of Churches (NCC) 
General Secretary agreed in a panel held here on 
April 28 during the Presidents' Summit for America's 
Future that the Summit will only be meaningful if 
new partnerships can be forged and power structures 
can be challenged.

 NCC General Secretary the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown 
Campbell was one of eight religious leaders, 
laypeople and one state governor who discussed "the 
role of communities of faith" in meeting the goals 
of the Summit with an audience of Summit 
participants numbering about 150.  The leaders 
highlighted church-based programs with youth and 
opportunities for serving children while also 
offering prophetic critiques of the Summit coming 
out of their religious traditions.

 All agreed that religious communities will have 
to challenge divisions if the Summit is to be more 
than a passing event.  "The exciting thing about the 
Summit is the opportunity for new partnerships to be 
forged, both among religious groups and between 
religious groups and other sectors such as business 
and government," said Dr. Campbell.  "Communities of 
faith make good partners.  They have a lot to offer, 
including hundreds of buildings, trained leadership 
and access to 150 million people," she said.  "But 
they have to work together."

 At the same time, Dr. Campbell stressed that 
partnerships and service cannot replace sound public 
policy.  "If we're talking from womb to tomb, the 
only way to give children a chance is to provide 
health care, day care and jobs for their parents," 
she said.  "The undergirding value system of 
communities of faith must be put forward to support 
excellent, compassionate public policy."

 Father John Bakas of the Greek Orthodox Church 
in America, who leads a congregation in Los Angeles, 
California, pointed to the historic role communities 
of faith have played in areas of voluntarism and 
service.  "We can be a catalyst (for change) if we 
put aside our theologies and agendas and help people 
not because they agree with us but just because they 
are people."

 The Rev. Dr. Eugene Rivers, Pastor of the Azusa 
Christian Community Church in Boston, called on 
Summit participants to "shift from platitudes to the 
real" and to "challenge wealth and power."  In order 
to be "morally consistent," he argued, it must be 
acknowledged that "religious communities mirror 
ecnomic disparities in the larger culture."  He also 
encouraged the religious community to put the racial 
dimension "on the table" in Summit discussions about 
youth.

 "I have heard more racism and bigotry inside 
houses of worship as I have anywhere else," said 
Salam Al-Marayati, Director of the Muslim Public 
Affairs Council based in Los Angeles, Calif.  He 
encouraged religious communities to instead question 
the cultural obsession with status in America, to 
critique unjust policies and to bridge religious 
divisions.  Mr. Al-Marayati suggested an interfaith 
youth summit which would bring youth together to 
learn from one another.

 "We do not have a `youth crisis'," said Jim 
Wallis, an ecumenical activist and editor of 
Sojourners magazine.  "We have a societal crisis and 
young people are bearing the brunt of our 
contradictions."  Mr. Wallis said that although many 
religious communities are doing good work with 
youth, they are "islands of work" and the culture is 
not supporting them.  He called on the religious 
community to go beyond being a service provider to 
be a "prophetic interrogator of power."

Kenneth Klothen, a member of the Board of 
Directors of the National Jewish Democratic Council, 
said the Jewish experience can provide a good 
example of a notion of service incorporated into a 
notion of citizenship.  He encouraged a "holistic 
approach" and pointed to a successful programs such 
as one in the Middle East that brings Israeli and 
Palestianian youths together just to talk and 
another from Philadelphia that brings African 
American and Jewish high school students to Israel 
and Africa to talk about the respective histories of 
their people.

Governor Don Sundquist of Tennessee expressed 
enthusiasm about partnerships in the religious 
community and pointed to his state to show how the 
religious community can help provide day care in the 
wake of welfare reform.

 Dr. Campbell pointed out that communities of 
faith are the largest single providers of day care 
in the United States and said that new money 
available for child care to help single parents go 
to work might be used for church providers.  
Although she said there needs to be caution in these 
areas so that the constitutional separation between 
Church and State will be respected, Dr. Campbell 
encouraged creativity so that churches aren't locked 
out of the discussion.

 A number of members of the enthusiastic 
audience representing many different religious 
faiths responded to the panel, many pointing out the 
contradictions in religious communities as well as 
in corporate culture.

 Dr. Campbell said she was especially encouraged 
that people continued talking after the panel and 
that other panel participants came up to her 
afterwards to suggest future meetings.  "We need to 
keep the conversation going," she said.

-end-
 -0-