wfn.org | NCCCUSA Assembly on Iraq Crisis; Other Business

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2252
Internet: news@ncccusa.org; Web: http://www.ncccusa.org

NCC ASSEMBLY ASKS CLINTON'S "RESTRAINT" IN DEALING WITH 
IRAQ
Report of Other Business During Nov. 11-13 Annual 
Meeting Follows

CHICAGO, Nov. 13 -- The General Assembly of the 
National Council of Churches has agreed unanimously to 
send a letter to President Clinton asking for restraint 
in dealing with Iraq.  The letter asks Clinton to 
pursue non-military solutions to Iraq's non-compliance 
with United Nations resolutions while lifting current 
sanctions against the Middle East nation.

	Earlier in its meeting, Nov. 11-13, the Assembly 
received a report clarifying the NCC's understanding of 
sanctions.  The report from Church World Service 
commended World Council of Churches guidelines for 
evaluating the ethical use of economic sanctions, 
including that humanitarian exemptions be made for 
food, medicine, basic school supplies and agricultural 
needs.

	The team that drafted the letter corresponded with 
the Middle East Council of Churches and consulted 
another document of the Assembly that listed seven 
"pillars of peace" that supported the work of the 
United Nations to ensure "peace rooted in justice."

	The text of the letter follows:

November 13, 1998

Dear Mr. President,

The General Assembly of the National Council of 
Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., meeting in Chicago 
November 11-13, has heard with apprehension the reports 
of the escalating crisis between Iraq and the United 
Nations and of the threat of the use of U.S. military 
force against Iraq.  We call upon you to seek every way 
to avoid the use of force and to resolve the matter of 
this conflict by peaceful means.  In doing so, we join 
our voices with those of our brothers and sisters in 
the churches of the Middle East, who through our sister 
organization, the Middle East Council of Churches, have 
stated their opposition to the use of military force 
against Iraq.

As in previous confrontations between Iraq and the 
United States, this one involves the issue of United 
Nations weapons inspections and the continuation of 
sanctions against Iraq.  The NCCCUSA has called upon 
and still calls upon Iraq to comply fully with United 
Nations resolutions and cooperate with United Nations 
weapons inspection teams.  At the same time, we are 
acutely aware of the immorally massive level of 
suffering that the economic sanctions have imposed upon 
the people of Iraq, especially the most vulnerable 
among them, including children, women, the elderly and 
the sick.  According to the United Nations and other 
studies, in the past eight years, as many as 1 million 
people have died as a result of these sanctions.  Many 
more have experienced severe deprivation and disruption 
of their lives.  In partnership with the churches in 
the region, the NCCCUSA has provided humanitarian 
relief to alleviate their suffering.  During Holy Week 
this year, members of our body have visited Iraq and 
seen first hand the human devastation that the 
sanctions have wrought.  Having seen such visions, the 
depiction of Iraqis in the media as enemies is 
repugnant to us.

Last February, when military conflict then seemed 
imminent, the NCCCUSA and its member churches called 
upon you not to attack Iraq, but instead to seek a new 
policy that would end economic sanctions against Iraq, 
end the unconscionable and fruitless suffering of the 
Iraqi people, and seek new ways to return Iraq to the 
community of nations.  We repeat that call now.  Seek 
peace, and pursue it.

AMBASSADOR YOUNG BRINGS CHINA DELEGATION REPORT

	The Honorable Andrew Young, president-elect of the 
National Council of Churches of the USA (NCC), shared 
reflections of a recent trip to China with delegates of 
the General Assembly meeting here Nov. 11-13.  Young 
was a part of an NCC delegation that visited China 
earlier this year.

	"Just listening to the news and thinking of myself 
as fairly well informed, I thought I was going into a 
rather hostile and dangerous situation, going to China 
as a Christian minister, representing the National 
Council of Churches of Christ.  I was filled with fears 
even though I had gone to China on two other separate 
occasions," said Young.  

	"My fears about the religious situation in China 
were shaped by the conventional wisdom of the United 
States.  I was shocked to find that I was invited to 
preach and some 4,000 people showed up," he said.

	"Once we finished preaching and the music stopped, 
the other preachers came down we knelt in prayers and 
in tears, spoke with the kind of authenticity that I 
did not expect to see.  I felt very much at home in 
that church.  It was a post-denominational church, and 
I do not know what the heritage and history was, but 
they came together and represented a vibrant spiritual 
force that was truly a resurrection church," Young 
said.

	"Prior to the cultural revolution there were less 
than a million Christians in China. The people's spirit 
sought to curtail a radical old relentlessness that not 
only sought to destroy the church but sought to destroy 
anything modern and visionary," he said.

	"The church came through that largely because the 
church acted like Christians under persecution.  They 
did not turn in their neighbors.  When their neighbors 
were put in prison, they took care of the children and 
expressed the love of God that they had known," said 
Young.  "They acted like Christians."

IN OTHER BUSINESS, THE NCC GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

" Gave "first reading" to "Seven Pillars of Peace for 
the 21st Century" and expressed support for the 
United Nations.  "Peace rooted in justice" is the 
foundation of seven "Pillars of Peace for the 21st 
Century" that the General Assembly of the National 
Council of Churches (NCC) gave first reading Nov. 
12.  The document will be circulated for review and 
feedback and come back to the Assembly for final 
action in November 1999.  

	This proposed document - to become a new NCC 
policy statement on the United Nations -- will update 
"Six Pillars of Peace" the Federal Council of Churches 
studied in the midst of World War II.  The Federal 
Council of Churches was a predecessor body to the NCC.  
"All six of those pillars of peace, bar none, were 
included in the charter of the United Nations," said 
Mia Adjali, executive secretary for global concerns of 
the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church, 
introducing the proposed document.  She said the update 
will address concerns that were not necessarily the 
priorities they are today: the environment, women, 
human rights, non-military threats to society, and 
poverty.

	"A new world vision is needed, a vision of peace 
rooted in justice," says the document.  "The National 
Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA renews its 
support for the United Nations, calls upon the United 
States government to fully support the United Nations 
and affirms the following principles."  The document 
will return to the NCC's 1999 General Assembly for 
adoption.  In the coming year, the NCC's member 
communions will study it with the help of a study guide 
and video the council is producing.  They will be 
available at the beginning of 1999.  The nation-wide 
study will examine requirements for global peace and 
the international institutions that are needed to carry 
out these requirements.

The seven pillars are: International Political 
Framework for Continuing Collaboration; International 
Economic Accountability; Comprehensive International 
Legal System; Liberation and Empowerment; Conflict 
Resolution and Building a Culture of Peace; Human 
Dignity and Rights; Protection and Preservation of the 
Environment.. 

" Celebrated (Nov. 11) the 50th anniversary of the 
World Council of Churches in a festive service held 
at First United Methodist Church in Evanston, Ill., 
where the WCC held its Second Assembly in 1954.

	Former WCC General Secretary Emilio Castro, in his 
sermon, described an ecumenical movement "extended to 
the breaking point" over differences in belief and 
behavior.  "What's natural and normal for some is out 
of touch totally for others." He expressed his hope 
that participants in the WCC's Eighth Assembly, to take 
place in Harare, Zimbabwe, in December, will use the 
occasion "to build relationships, recognizing others as 
trying to be as faithful a Christian as I am trying to 
be."  He also challenged ecumenists "to work to build a 
little more justice in a world where people are trying 
to convince us how to be a better consumer day by day."

	First United Methodist's senior minister, the Rev. 
Dean Francis, welcomed the Assembly and the 
representatives of Northern Illinois judicatories who 
took part in the celebration.  The service included 
liturgical elements from resources prepared for the 
Harare Assembly and testimonies to the WCC's witness to 
unity by the Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, Orthodox 
Church in America and a former NCC president; Rev. Dr. 
Joan B. Campbell, NCC General Secretary, and Bishop 
Vinton Anderson, African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
the first WCC President from an historic Black church.

" Welcomed many special guest speakers, including 
three from ecumenical and denominational ministries 
with refugees in Togo, South Africa and Kenya; Dr. 
Gert van Maanen, general manager of the Ecumenical 
Development Cooperative Society; the Rev. David A. 
Anderson, Executive Director of the Illinois 
Conference of Churches; and a Native American 
leader, who (at the Interfaith Breakfast) asked 
churches to support self-determination for Indian 
peoples; and the Rev. Cynthia Campbell, who 
described the recent Lutheran/Reformed relationship 
of full communion.

" elected Rebecca Cruz, a lay member of the Christian 
Church (Disciples of Christ), Chicago, to serve out 
the unexpired term of the Rev. Joan Parrott as vice-
president at large of the NCC Executive Board.  The 
Rev. Parrott of the American Baptist Churches in the 
USA resigned her position with the Executive Board 
in January of this year, indicating a desire to 
focus more on local church involvement.  Ms. Cruz 
currently serves as chair of the Inclusiveness and 
Justice Standing Committee of the Council.  She has 
served on the General Board of the Christian Church 
(Disciples of Christ) and is moderator-elect of the 
denomination's regional board for Illinois and 
Wisconsin.  

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