- Aug 18, 2003
- 20,145
- 1,430
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Republican
Strange Yokefellows - 1. Executive Summary
John Lomperis and Alan Wisdom
The Institute for Religion and Democracy
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) defines itself as "a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord." It boasts of being "the preeminent expression in the United States of the movement toward Christian unity." But the council spends much of its time and resources on political advocacy in the name of "the churches," "the religious community," and "people of faith." . . .
In analyzing the council's financial statements, we found a number of surprising funding sources for a church group that has as its primary purpose seeking Christian unity. Among those institutions contributing at least $50,000 to the NCC in 2004-2005, ten of the sixteen were non-church bodies. These included:
Most of the NCC-supporting groups share several characteristics: (a) They are not affiliated with an NCC member communion, or any other church body. (b) Christian unity and common witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ do not appear to be among their principal aims. (c) They have a much stronger interest in addressing social and political issues. (d) Their positions on those issues, insofar as they can be discerned, lean overwhelmingly toward the left. Several of the groups are so patently partisan that they can be described accurately as belonging to what journalists have called "the shadow Democratic Party."
The same political pattern holds true for other non-church organizations from which the council has received smaller gifts, or gifts in earlier years, or from which it has received pledges of financial support, or from which it is openly seeking support. In addition, there are groups that do not fund the NCC but that have been acknowledged by the council as its close partners in joint political efforts. These include:
More on the National Council of Churches from the Institute for Religion and Democracy:
John Lomperis and Alan Wisdom
The Institute for Religion and Democracy
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) defines itself as "a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord." It boasts of being "the preeminent expression in the United States of the movement toward Christian unity." But the council spends much of its time and resources on political advocacy in the name of "the churches," "the religious community," and "people of faith." . . .
In analyzing the council's financial statements, we found a number of surprising funding sources for a church group that has as its primary purpose seeking Christian unity. Among those institutions contributing at least $50,000 to the NCC in 2004-2005, ten of the sixteen were non-church bodies. These included:
- $344,514 from the National Religious Partnership for the Environment
- $300,000 from the Knight Foundation
- $225,000 from the Tides Foundation
- $150,000 from the Ford Foundation
- $141,450 from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
- $100,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
- $85,000 from the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons)
- $80,000 from the Wyss Foundation
- $60,000 from the Sierra Club
- $50,000 from the Connect US Network
Most of the NCC-supporting groups share several characteristics: (a) They are not affiliated with an NCC member communion, or any other church body. (b) Christian unity and common witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ do not appear to be among their principal aims. (c) They have a much stronger interest in addressing social and political issues. (d) Their positions on those issues, insofar as they can be discerned, lean overwhelmingly toward the left. Several of the groups are so patently partisan that they can be described accurately as belonging to what journalists have called "the shadow Democratic Party."
The same political pattern holds true for other non-church organizations from which the council has received smaller gifts, or gifts in earlier years, or from which it has received pledges of financial support, or from which it is openly seeking support. In addition, there are groups that do not fund the NCC but that have been acknowledged by the council as its close partners in joint political efforts. These include:
- MoveOn.org, the political activist group founded in 1998 to oppose the impeachment of President Clinton
- TrueMajority, a leftist internet activist group established by ice cream magnate Ben Cohen.
- The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group that attempts to organize poor and minority communities to press for a liberal economic agenda.
- People for the American Way (PFAW), the organization founded in 1981 by Hollywood producer Norman Lear to oppose the emerging "Religious Right." . . .
More on the National Council of Churches from the Institute for Religion and Democracy:
- Introduction: An Organization at Odds with its Stated Purpose
- An Obstacle to Christian Unity
- A Steep Fall, and then a Financial Turnaround
- Sources and Methods
- All Non-Church Groups and Individuals Giving the NCC More than $10,000
- Groups from which the NCC Seeks Funding
- Programmatic Partners of the NCC
- Questions Raised About the NCC's Mission
- Questions Ducked
- A Hard and Necessary Choice
