wfn.org | NCC installs Young, elects Edgar

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 12, 1999 News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-21-31-71B{610}

NOTE: For other coverage of the National Council of Churches meeting, see
UMNS stories #604, 605 and 606.

CLEVELAND (UMNS) - The 50th anniversary celebration of the National Council
of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) ended with new leadership stepping up
to guide the organization.

The Rev. Andrew Young was installed as the council's president for the next
two years during a symbolic Nov. 11 ceremony at the Roman Catholic Cathedral
of St. John the Evangelist. Celebrants who packed the 1,200-seat cathedral
joined representatives of the council's 35 member communions in a service of
tribute, commitment and faithfulness.

The ordained United Church of Christ minister has credited his early NCC
experiences with shaping his future work, which has included serving as a
civil rights leader, mayor, congressman and ambassador.

On Nov. 12, the NCC's General Assembly elected the Rev. Robert Edgar -- a
United Methodist pastor and former congressman now serving as president of
Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology - as the council's next general
secretary, or top staff executive. He will succeed the Rev. Joan Brown
Campbell. Both Edgar and Young will take office on Jan. 1.

The council's need for transformation is great because of its recent
financial and administrative problems, said United Methodist Bishop Melvin
Talbert, a former NCC president. "When I look at the incoming leadership of
the council, especially the president and general secretary, I am hopeful,"
he told United Methodist News Service.

Edgar "has a history of taking organizations that are at a point of crisis
and providing vision and leadership," Talbert added.

Vision and leadership are traits that many attribute to Young. At his
installation ceremony, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called Young "one of the
authentic links to Martin Luther King Jr."

Young, in turn, has spoken highly of the men and women who have led the
ecumenical movement over the years. During a press conference, he said that
his life "seems to have been influenced and shaped by the few years I spent
with the youth department of the National Council of Churches."

The first life-changing contact came when Young, at age 19, attended an
NCC-sponsored youth conference in 1951. The experience led him to examine
his own faith and to enter seminary. Six years later, he went to work for
the council's Youth Division of Christian Education.

Young left the council to join King in 1961, and he said his NCC experience
helped prepare him for his work in the civil rights movement. A decade
later, in 1972, he became the first black U.S. representative from Georgia
since Reconstruction. He served three terms in Congress until President
Jimmy Carter named him ambassador to the United Nations in 1977. A two-term
mayor of Atlanta, Young was co-chairman of the Olympic Games there in 1996.

"I have seen the history of the latter half of the 20th century shaped by
the National Council of Churches," Young declared at the press conference.
He noted its involvement in everything from working to get the post-World
War II Marshall Plan in place to advocating for civil rights to helping
bring down the Berlin Wall.

Young pointed out that both he and Edgar were part of a post-Watergate
Congress that helped end the war in Vietnam, passed the first campaign
finance reform legislation and made other significant reforms.

"We worked very well together in Congress," Young said. "I look forward to
working with him (at the NCC)."

The long-time ecumenist seems confident that the council's economic woes can
be resolved. He is advocating the NCC target a much larger issue: the
elimination of poverty. In a video shown during the anniversary banquet
after his installation, Young summarized his goal: "Poverty has to become as
morally repugnant as slavery is now."

That goal fits perfectly with what the council's all about, according to
retired United Methodist Bishop James K. Mathews, who was present at the
NCC's founding in 1950. The NCC always has served as a voice for the
voiceless, he noted.

"It's had a perfectly tremendous record of which we need not be ashamed."

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United Methodist News Service
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