Posted by Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff
(frjonathan) on 1/2/2008, 5:45 pm
Dear St. Andrew Forum members:
Happy New Year!
I recently rec'd an email from a gentleman who wanted to bring to my attention a new report on the National Council of Churches (NCC). The link is below, along with a link to a response to the report by my good friend, Fr. John Reeves.
We need to have a healthy debate within Orthodoxy in America on our corporate involvement with this organization, but, unfortunately, that has not yet happened as openly and honestly as it needs to. Perhaps this report will generate more interest in furthering such.
I hope you find it as interesting as I did.
In Christ,
Fr. Jonathan Ivanoff+
Original message begins:
[snip] My name is John Lomperis, and I am the co-author of a recent report on the National Council of Churches (NCC), with which the OCA and most other Orthodox jurisdictions in the U.S. are affiliated.
Our report, entitled "Strange Yokefellows: The National Council of Churches and its Growing Non-Church Constituency," explains the development and analyzes the significance of the NCC has becoming so alienated from its professed constituency of Orthodox and Protestant churches that its funding from member communions has come to be exceeded from largely secular and politically driven foundations and activist groups, such as the Ford Foundation, the Sierra Club, and George Soros. The report also documents some of the instances of the NCC using the support of its affiliated churches to advance pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality agendas, despite the Council's official neutrality on those issues.
It is available online:
www.ird-renew.org/yokefellows
One of the speakers at our public release of the report was Fr. John Reeves of the OCA:
http://www.ird-renew.org/atf/cf/%7B8548C466-7ECE-4AF1-B844-49C289CE5165%7D/FR%20REEVES%20STMT.PDF
The report has been endorsed by the Episcopal Church's Bishop of Pittsburgh, several other prominent figures in NCC-affiliated Protestant denominations, as well as several Orthodox: Bishop Basil of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, columnist Frederica Mathewes-Green, Fr. Johannes Jacobse (the Greek Orthodox editor of OrthodoxyToday.org), Jim Kushiner (editor of Touchstone magazine), and the Very Rev. Olof H. Scott (Chairman of the Antiochians' Department of Inter-Orthodox and Inter-Faith Relations). The latter said in his endorsement that our report "fleshes out the primary reason for the withdrawal of the Antiochian Orthodox from" the NCC.
[snip] And by all means, please feel free to forward this on to others in the OCA who may be interested.
Wishing you God's blessings in the new year,
John Lomperis
Research Associate
The Institute on Religion and Democracy
1023 15th Street NW, Suite 601
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 682-4131
(202) 682-4136 (Fax)
www.ird-renew.org
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