From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org
Joan Brown Campbell Meets the Press
From
PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>
Date
19 Jun 1998 21:13:24
Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
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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