wfn.org | Campbell Tells NCC, "Struggles Not a Sign of Weakness"

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	50th Anniversary Newsroom - Nov. 8-12, 1999 call 216-696-8490

NCC11/11/99	                                             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STRUGGLES `NOT A SIGN OF WEAKNESS,'
DEPARTING GENERAL SECRETARY TELLS NCC

Nov. 11, 1999, CLEVELAND, Ohio - Striking the same optimistic chord that 
has characterized her nine years in office, retiring National Council of 
Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC) General Secretary Rev. Dr. Joan 
Brown Campbell told the Council's General Assembly today that the search 
for Christian unity is "a worthy struggle."
	
Dr. Campbell, as the NCC's top staff person, has served as the lightening 
rod for criticism of Council policy and management.  She acknowledged that 
she "values courage and imagination more than caution and efficiency." She 
added, "You have given us difficult challenges and we're not done yet, but 
we know we'll overcome - we always do."

She said her nine years at the head of the NCC "have been incredibly 
rewarding and incredibly difficult and painful," but she thanked the 
venerable ecumenical organization for entrusting its leadership to her.

"You have proved that you can treat an ordained woman with real equality," 
said Dr. Campbell, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister.  "You 
have viewed me as strong enough to take any and all criticism, you have 
never patronized me and you have never done me any favors."  She said the 
Council has demonstrated that women can be trusted with power "and I pray," 
she said, "that you believe I have laced it with love and passion."

Dr. Campbell recounted the high points of her years in office - the NCC's 
unflagging support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa; her role 
in freeing American soldiers held hostage in Belgrade; the recent No Gun Ri 
reconciliation efforts between South Korean war victims and U.S. soldiers; 
the campaign to rebuild burned churches - and said that, even though many 
of the Council's activities have been criticized, "we have proven that we 
can be agents of reconciliation and an alternative to destruction."
	
As is her wont, Dr. Campbell tackled the problem of the NCC's current 
financial crisis head on.  "The Council has never been flush with funds," 
she said.  "The needs of the poor are too great, the expectations of the 
world are too high, the heart of the church is too empathetic.  We say 
`Yes' because God demands it of us."

Dr. Campbell reserved special words of thanks for the NCC's historic 
African American and Orthodox churches that, she said, "have sheltered and 
fed and inspired me during my years of ministry."

Those churches, she said, play a different role in the lives of their 
people than the mainline churches of the NCC.  "They have helped their 
people survive.  They have kept faith alive," she said.  "And the Orthodox 
have borne witness in the midst of war and famine, pagan rites and 
communist governments."

Dr. Campbell said the seven historic African American churches, 
"conservative theologically and progressive socially, have inspired the 
soul of the Council."

She also had heartening words for the mainline churches of the NCC - seven 
of whom give more than 90 percent of the organization's budget. "We would 
not be here without their support in people and dollars," she said.

However, she continued, "The mainline churches mourn their loss of power 
and influence in the ecumenical movement" and must realize that "the soul 
of the ecumenical movement is not in a return to a familiar hegemony but in 
finding our way forward together."

The NCC's deficit "is not only in dollars," Dr. Campbell insisted, "but is 
in our inability to see in each other promise and potential.

"We are more than the sum of our parts," she said.  "Our shared witness and 
our common voice can change the world.  We can be the moral force that ends 
poverty as we know it but first we must forgive and embrace one 
another.  The ecumenical call is for the ages.  It is God's gift to this 
and every generation."

                  -end-