National Council of Churches

SVS Poverty Conference Challenges Progressive Economic Ideas [AUDIO]

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Challenging the Progressive Captivity of Orthodoxy in America

The St. Vladimir’s Seminary Conference on Poverty held during the last weekend of May, 2013 may portend a loosening of the Progressive grip on Orthodox thinking about morality and culture in America. Let’s face it: the Orthodox contribution to American cultural discourse has been meager, often swept along by shallow bromides that conform to popular notions of the common good rather than substantive engagement of the moral tradition within the dominant cultural ethos.

The Progressive Captivity leads to all sorts of mischief — from weakening the teachings of the Orthodox moral tradition (see: A Patriarch who ‘Generally Speaking, Respects Human Life’), to lending the imprimatur of Orthodox moral authority to marginal groups like the National Council of Churches (see: NCC EXIT POLL: Why One Orthodox Church Left the National Council of Churches).

St. Vladimir’s Seminary, to their credit (and to the consternation of some faculty and ecclesiastical higher-ups), challenged Progressive Orthodoxy and the easy platitudes that characterize so much Orthodox reflection on cultural questions. The invitation to the Acton Institute (Acton is known for its rigorous thinking on economics and culture) was sure to raise hackles. It did — but hackles need to be raised.

Progressive ideology is seductive. We must care for the poor the scriptures teach and often Progressive thinkers (including Orthodox Progressives) wrap their ideas in the language of moral tradition in order to present them as cultural imperatives and bypass critical engagement with the ideas themselves. It’s a crude but effective technique. Who can argue against helping the poor?

Yet many of the policies that deal with poverty at home and the developing world are predicated on making the donor feel good about his contribution rather than concern for the poor themselves. As a result the policies fail. Instead, policies that address poverty have to both draw from and affirm the inherent dignity of the person.

Human dignity is the ground of human flourishing. Remove the barriers that allow people to flourish and the poor themselves will establish systems and markets by which their poverty can be alleviated. One only has to look to S. Korea, or Malaysia, or other countries to see how this works.

How do we know that this is true? We examine the ideas. We listen to the rationale. Most important we test results. Listen to the audio below and see for yourself if the ideas are 1) compelling, 2) confirmed by real world examples, and 3) economically, morally and theologically sound.

Audio courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio: Voices From St Vladimir’s Seminary

Conference background

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and noted author Jay Richards was the keynote speaker. Co-hosted by the Acton Institute, the event featured speakers from diverse backgrounds and disciplines who offered fresh ideas for Orthodox Christians on how to effectively minister to the poor. Other speakers and panelists included Dr. Antionios Kiriopoulos, St. Vlad’s alumnus and officer in the National Council of Churches; Seminary Trustee Dr. Nicholas Pandelidis; Fr Phililp LeMaster, Dean of Social Sciences and Religion at McMurry University in Abilene, TX; Michael Miller of the Poverty Cure at Acton; John Couretas of Acton; and director of FOCUS North America in Pittsburgh, Subdeacon Paul Abernathy.

Introduction — Welcome by SVS Chancellor Fr. Chad Hatfield

Fr. Chad Hatfield explains the purpose of the conference and how the “ugliness” of Christian charity in the Third World and developing countries needs to be reexamined and addressed. The SVS conferences are designed to examine different perspectives on thorny issues. Fr. Hatfield explained that he finds it “perplexing and puzzling” that people objected to the conference and affirmed that SVS “believes in free speech.”

Session #1 — KEYNOTE: Jay Richards

Jay Richards, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute where he directs the Center on Wealth, Poverty and Morality, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics. Most recently he is the co-author with James Robison of the best-selling Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late.

Jay Richards discusses the abject failure of poverty programs from the Great Society forward and asks how do we create the prosperity that alleviates poverty? What is the difference between localized poverty and widespread poverty?

Session #2 — Rev. Fr. Philip LeMasters, Ph.D.

The Rev. Fr. Philip LeMasters, Ph.D., is the pastor of St. Luke Orthodox Church. He also serves as Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Religion, Professor of Religion, and Director of the Honors Program at McMurry University. In addition, Fr. Philip is the Corporate Secretary of the Board of Trustees of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

Fr. LeMasters discusses “Fasting and the Poor.” Giving to the poor imitates God’s generosity to mankind. Giving to the poor by the rich (those who have a sufficient amount of the world’s goods) requires to the rich to give up things they don’t need. The moral dimension of taking care of the poor.

Session #3 — Michael Matheson Miller

Michael Matheson Miller is Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute. He is the Director and Host of the PovertyCure DVD Series and has appeared in various video curricula including Doing the Right Thing, Effective Stewardship, and the Birth of Freedom. Visit the Michael Matheson Miller website.

Michael Matheson Miller discusses re-framing the discussion about poverty around the centrality of the human person created in the image of God. Too often our first response to poverty is to ask what we can do, but the better is question is “How can people in the developing world create prosperity for the families and communities?” Miller develops this theme throughout the talk. One warning: At about 3 minutes in Miller showed a trailer for the PovertyCure DVD Series and you will only be able to hear the audio, so skip forward to around 7 min or so for the rest of the lecture.

Session #4 — What is Social Justice in an Orthodox Christian Context?

Four speakers with Q & A. Dr. Antonios Kiriopoulos, National Council of Churches; Dr. Nicholas Pandelidis, Board of Trustees, St. Vladimir’s Seminary; John Couretas, Acton Institute, Director of Communications, Executive Editor, Religion & Liberty Quarterly; Subdeacon Paul Abernathy, local director of FOCUS North America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Public discussion begins at: 38:57.

Why Do Eastern Orthodox Churches Continue Enabling Opposition to Orthodox Values on Abortion, Sexual Morality?

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It’s biting criticism folks — but all true. From the essay:

What I have observed rather consistently (and had this confirmed by other trustworthy observers) is that Eastern Orthodox leaders participating in NCC meetings have shown little to no interest in openly defending Christian values (particularly on life and sexuality) when confronted by the aggressively secular values of Liberalprotestantism, instead choosing to remain meekly passive. This includes what I have observed of those few Eastern Orthodox individuals who have obtained staff or leadership positions in the council.

My response to the full essay (published on Juicy Ecumenicism) blog is reprinted below. The essay is excerpted. Read the full essay on the Juicy Ecumencism blog.

Source: Juicy Ecumenicism | John Lomperis

Christian churches of any sort are right to be careful and thoughtful about the specific causes and organizations to which they do and do not give their public support, as such decisions are important part of what they tell a watching world about their faith and about the triune God. And if a church cannot or will not take the time to examine what a given organization actually does, it makes little sense to bestow a blank-check ecclesial endorsement on the organization’s activities.

So what exactly is accomplished by most of Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States being affiliated with the National Council of Churches (NCC)?

First, we must ask what the effective purpose of the NCC is today. Its member communions include neither the Roman Catholic Church nor more than an increasingly narrow fraction of American Protestants. Given its growing narrowness, penchant for divisive rhetoric, and the rather unloving, disdainful ways in which NCC leaders take pains to distance themselves from other Christians, especially evangelicals, it is clear that the NCC’s noble founding goal of Christian unity is not much of a priority for current NCC leaders.

The NCC has served a purpose in the past with its New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible translation and its annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. But the former is a fait accompli while the latter represents only a tiny fraction of the NCC’s work. So neither of these is the council’s raison d’être.

No, the first and foremost effective purpose of the modern NCC is to promote the values of theologically liberal/heterodox Protestantism and to use the name and resources of churches as a politically convenient tool to promote partisan public-policy agendas, including ones that directly oppose clear Scriptural teachings.

Devout Eastern Orthodox prize their church’s identity as the bearer of what they see as unbroken Christian tradition. Of course, important parts of this tradition’s moral teachings are the basic Christian moral values of valuing the lives of unborn children and honoring the God-given boundaries of sex only within man-woman marriage.

Yet over the years, IRD has documented numerous instances of the NCC defending abortion and/or homosexual practice while demonizing those who stand up for Christian values (at least nominally shared by Eastern Orthodox leaders) on such issues. To say nothing of the over-the-top interpersonal rudeness that NCC staffers have been known to aim at Christians who do not share their liberal Protestant values.

[. . .]

Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with the direction and values of a church council of which they are a part being shaped by the input of people who deny the divinity of Christ, while Protestants who actually believe in the Nicene Creed are often disproportionately excluded from such discussions in the NCC? Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with their name, through the NCC, being associated with a radical group’s work to promote religious support for abortion and sexual immorality?

If Eastern Orthodox leaders choose to remain silent, this would tragically be consistent with their past behavior.

[. . .]

As any Greek readers may discern from my last name, Eastern Orthodoxy is part of my own family heritage. So I really do sympathize with how important it must have been decades ago for religious leaders of struggling new immigrant communities in an often very intolerant America to be invited to have a seat at the table with leaders of the cultural mainstream. But after a century of an established presence of Eastern Orthodoxy in America, shouldn’t such church leaders want more than merely being seen but not heard?

Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and other Eastern Orthodox members of the NCC could follow the example of their Antiochian Orthodox brethren by withdrawing their membership in the NCC and pursuing other areas of ecumenical engagement, a move that would be enthusiastically cheered by countless conservative Protestants within and beyond NCC member communions (including this United Methodist writer). Or they could try to use their seats at the table to seek genuinely meaningful dialogue by respectfully yet firmly challenging tablemates who have recently strayed from biblical moral values. At the very least, they could pro-actively make sure that as long as the council uses their names, the NCC will not say or do anything against Eastern Orthodox moral teaching.

[. . .]

But America’s NCC-endorsing Eastern Orthodox leaders (with the notable exception of the Antiochian Orthodox) have, by and large , chosen none of these things. Instead, they choose to continue their path of having no discernible moderating influence on the council (and having little to no apparent interest in doing so) while offering a blank-check endorsement of the NCC’s work, which the NCC’s Liberalprotestant staffers are all too eager to tout as a tool to shield the council from being dismissed as the decaying, ideologically narrow, Liberalprotestant dinosaur that it is.

[. . .]

Of course, I understand that Eastern Orthodox polity is fundamentally different from any Protestant body, and that, to the disappointment of the NCC and its allies like the Unitarian-led Religious Institute, no official Eastern Orthodox body is going to formally vote to, say, endorse abortion. And for what it’s worth, it is now widely agreed that the United Methodist Church is unlikely to change our official, conservative position on homosexuality for at least the foreseeable future.

But in both cases, there is a huge crisis of integrity when the church leadership chooses to shrink back from defending the very church values their offices charge them with promoting, and even passively allow their church’s name to be used to promote agendas directly contrary to the church’s own teachings.

Among U.S. leaders of both the United Methodist Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, there appear to be a number of leaders who love the Lord and accept the authority of Scripture, to whom God has given great opportunities to be witnesses for Christ and Christian truths affirmed in the on-paper position statements of both churches, but who inexplicably choose to bury their talents in the ground.

Read the entire article on the Juicy Ecumenicism blog.

My response:

This is a very fair critique of Orthodox involvement in the NCC. I would only add this clarification: most lay Orthodox simply have no knowledge of the NCC. They wouldn’t know what you were talking about if you mentioned it to them.

Nevertheless, it is still irresponsible for Orthodox leaders to lend the imprimatur of legitimacy to an organization that aggressively champions policies that violate the Orthodox moral tradition. The NCC’s love affair with tyrants is well known to anyone who has followed them over the years. In fact, after Communism fell then NCC General Secretary Joan Campbell Brown issued a collective apology for not doing enough to help the persecuted under Communist oppression.

Lomperis is also correct in his claim that the Orthodox who remained on the NCC have no moderating influence on NCC leadership. There were historical reasons* for Orthodox involvement in the NCC but they have long faded from relevance. The only reasonable explanation for continued involvement is that the leaders don’t mind being used (they trade the Orthodox imprimatur for the false patina of constructive cultural engagement) or they are simply clueless about the contribution that the Orthodox Church could and should make to the renewal of Christendom’s cultural foundations especially in America.

*I wrote an essay for Touchstone Magazine a while back that explains some of the historical reasons for early NCC involement that fits well with Lomperis’ fair and informed critique:

NCC Exit Poll: Why One Orthodox Church Left the National Council of Churches

John Couretas: National Council of Churches ‘Balancing the Budget on the Backs of the Poor’?

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Source: Acton Power Blog | John C. Couretas

A “budget is a moral document,” right?

The Institute on Religion & Democracy reports that following the loss of a major donor, the National Council of Churches (NCC) finds itself “closer than ever before to the precipice” of financial collapse. The progressive/liberal church coalition, comprised largely of mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches, is running out of dough. IRD’s Barton Gingerich:

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop told the NCC’s September board meeting: “We have 18 months sustainability.” All voting NCC board members were scrambling for “immediate sustainability,” mostly behind closed doors as they discussed the NCC’s audit and budget. Further highlighting the crisis was an interruption of the meeting by placard waving union employees distressed over benefit cuts to NCC staffers.

Meeting in secrecy? Workers protesting draconian budget cuts? In response, some NCC leaders suggested that the organization do nothing for a year but seek out prospective donors. Of course, they used the appropriate biblical vocabulary for “shutting this place down”:

At one point, the board broke up into small table groups to propose solutions to these besetting toils. One table, headed up by Bishop Mark Hanson and United Methodism’s Betty Gamble, even recommended the NCC take a “jubilee.” Under this plan, the NCC would withdraw from public activities and focus on fundraising. Many delegates pointed out that such a recess would negate any reasons for donors to contribute.

Faith leaders protest budget cuts (at U.S. Capitol, not NCC meeting)

But how strange that the same NCC leaders who signed onto the Circle of Protection’s faux-prophetic admonition to “resist budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity, and rights of poor and vulnerable people” are now looking at slashing pension and health care benefits for their own employees. Didn’t the NCC hear that our nation is facing a health care crisis? Wasn’t it General Secretary Dr. Michael Kinnamon who not so long ago reminded us all that with the troubled economic times, “millions more are finding increases in medical co-payments and participation requirements unmanageable or are losing health benefits with the loss of employment”?

Didn’t NCC’s president, the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, point out when she endorsed the Circle of Protection that Christians have sometimes failed to heed “the call to economic justice in our national life. Sometimes we have gotten so concerned about our personal lives we have neglected this very point”?

The employees of the NCC, and presumably their union steward, don’t care for the budget cutting idea at all:

Accentuating the tension was an interruption by the NCC staffers’ union, the Association of Ecumenical Employees, which marched into the board meeting waving placards. Ironically, the pro-union NCC has been trying to reduce retirement and health benefits with its own union. It seems that contract negotiations have lasted nearly eight months, prompting distressed unionists to conduct their silent interruption, after which they quietly marched out.

Maybe the memory is too fresh in their minds of NCC executives getting themselves arrested in the U.S Capitol Building last summer while they were offering “public prayers asking the Administration and Congress not to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.”

Is it finally sinking in among some on the religious left that you can’t just wish away a looming budget meltdown? Perhaps the NCC leadership would profit from a review of the Acton Institute’s Principles for Budget Reform or the website of Christians for a Sustainable Economy. They won’t find any fundraising tips on these pages but they might just start to better appreciate the virtue of fiscal prudence.

Soros Money to Fund NCC Lobbying Efforts

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Source: Institute for Religion and Democracy

The National Council of Churches will be using grant money from atheist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute to power its political agenda on Capitol Hill.

Even while sinking financially, the National Council of Churches – a group with the ostensible mandate to engender unity between disparate Christian denominations – continued its leftward track last week as its governing board met in New York City to discuss its advocacy initiatives for the coming fiscal year. The NCC has been forced to pare down its staff roster and budget for years in order to account for declining revenues from member denominations and foundations, and has had a history of making up these deficits by soliciting grants from politically charged, liberal institutions (to download IRD’s exposé of the NCC’s financing, click here).

Several left-leaning resolutions, including those aiming to promote relaxed immigration policies, were passed and other positions, such as its largely pacifist stance on the use of American military force and opposition to federal austerity measures, were affirmed. The grant from Soros’ Institute would be used specifically for its advocacy efforts to restructure the U.S. criminal justice system through the National Criminal Justice Commission Act (S. 306).

Pacifism Endorsed

Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the NCC, reiterated the Council’s opposition to U.S. conducted anti-terrorist operations.

Kinnamon lauded the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV), an initiative that was by and large very critical of U.S. military intervention in most of its forms over the past decade, particularly its anti-terrorist activities. Several representatives from the NCC were present for the WCC’s International Ecumenical Peace Convocation which began in Jamaica last week. The convocation aims to be a capstone to the WCC’s campaign to “eliminate global violence” – an initiative that has heavy-handedly scrutinized the U.S.’s military role in the world while largely skirting that of terrorist organizations and oppressive dictatorships.

“I hope that this convocation will remind us that peace is the message of all of our communions, not just the Friends, Brethren, and Mennonites,” said Kinnamon.

“There are various dimensions to our agenda that play in this” convocation, Kinnamon continued, citing causes the NCC has promoted such as the complete disarmament of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, scaling up of gun controls in the U.S., and the push to end U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The NCC will be presenting its study paper released last year, Christian Understanding of War in an Age of Terror(ism), which treats the Christian historical teaching of just war with skepticism and “seeks to make selective conscientious objection a priority for education and advocacy during the next five years.”

Attached to the paper is a study guide written by several NCC-affiliated members from Church of the Brethren, Mennonite and Quaker traditions.

“US military spending is more than 40% of the world’s total – equal to the next sixteen countries combined,” reads the study paper. “What future do we see for the cozy relationship between American Christians and the American imperial project?” The paper goes on to criticize the War on Terror as a “conflict with no clear beginning, without demarcated boundaries, against multiple (often invisible) adversaries… In this war, we soon encounter the limits of violence.”

Kinnamon noted that this was not the first time the Council has advocated conscientious objection. “I was told this of course would be a real stretch,” he said, “only to learn that the governing board of the National Council first endorsed selective conscientious objection in 1967, in the middle of the War in Vietnam.”

“We have struggled with this issue over the years, let’s struggle with it again,” Kinnamon said.

Specific resolutions spelling out the NCC’s “conscientious objector” stance on military service will be set before the Council during its September governing board meeting that will reflect conversations held at the Jamaican convocation, said Kinnamon. “We are likely to hear repeated assertions out of the anniversary of 9/11 of our need for security. What can we say about it?” he said.

Although historically critical the U.S. War on Terror, the NCC did release a statement following bin Laden’s death, calling it a “significant moment” in history but insisting the church should not “celebrate the loss of life under any circumstances.” While noting that “ultimate justice for this man’s soul – or any soul – is in the hands of God,” the statement did not explicitly address the state’s historical role in administering God’s justice.

The Council similarly never released a statement condemning or supporting Obama’s decision to involve the U.S. in the conflict in Libya.

Links to George Soros

The Justice and Advocacy Commission (JAC), the NCC’s lobby office in Washington, was busily at work on the Hill this year. According to the JAC’s report, the Commission pushed heavily for ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), wrote letters to the president condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine, and helped pass a resolution calling for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The NCC’s Faith and Action Criminal Justice Working Group was awarded a grant from leftist billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute to advocate on behalf of a bill that would seek to restructure the current U.S. criminal justice system. The money would specifically be used to cover all expenses, including air travel, for faith activists to promote the legislation on Capitol Hill on June 15^th and 16^th this year.

The working group also advocated for tighter control laws to cut down on domestic gun violence.

“Tackling that problem is going to be a priority for the National Council of Churches,” said NaKeisha Sylver, advocacy officer and staff member of the NCC’s Racial Justice Working Group. According to the JAC’s report before the board, the NCC has organized two national conference calls pushing for more stringent gun laws since adopting a gun control resolution last May.

“Circle of Protection” Promoted

Michael Livingston, former NCC president and current director of the NCC’s Poverty Initiative, heartily endorsed the religious left’s push to maintain government spending levels, naming the NCC as a cosigner of the “Circle of Protection” campaign driven by evangelical left pundit Jim Wallis and other religious activists in Washington.

Livingston fretted about congressional measures to bring down the deficit, complaining that the discussion has been focusing on budgetary austerity measures “that will unleash across-the-board cuts on government’s affecting the most vulnerable among us.”

“What the religious advocacy commission in Washington DC is trying to do is to change the nature of that discussion, so that we’re not talking exclusively about what in the domestic and international arena can be cut,” said Livingston,” but rather ways of generating revenue so that, honestly, not one single dollar of cuts to these programs really needs to be made.”

John McCullough, CEO of Church World Service, likewise called the proposed cuts “entirely too much, too deep for a nation that commits less than one percent for humanitarian assistance and poverty-focused foreign aid.”

Immigration Summit Planned

The Council passed a motion that would reconstitute its immigration task force, which will be charged with setting up a summit to gather advocates for relaxed U.S. immigration controls. The original group, created in 2008, was a joint task force of the NCC and Church World Service established to “disseminate theological and educational materials to congregations, support churches in serving immigrants, and [to] encourage churches to advocate with government for improved immigration policies,” which has usually translated into measures for general amnesty.

The task force counts immigration activist and United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcaño among its members and has thus far operated without internal funding from the NCC.

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Ecumenical Patriarch releases agenda for Mississippi Symposium

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The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese released the schedule for Ecumenical Patriarch Batholomew’s visit to the United States in October. Separately, a detailed agenda for his upcoming environmental symposium has been posted online.

The patriarch’s “Symposium VIII — Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River” offers a rare opportunity to present Orthodoxy’s distinctive, sacramental understanding of the stewardship of Creation to America and the world. And this trip, which will involve about 200 participants in all, will no doubt generate a huge volume of media attention. We will be following the symposium closely here on the Observer.

If the text accompanying the agenda is any indication, the work of the symposium will be heavily inflected by an environmentalist ethic that looks at humanity primarily as a source of pollution and largely ignores the benefits of balanced economic development that does not degrade or abuse Creation. There is the utopian dream of returning the Earth to its pristine, pre-industrial state. Example:

But the fate of the Mississippi waters is more than one aspect of global warming. It is also, very acutely, an ethical crisis. The exploitation of the great river – its pollution, the disastrous confinements of its course and the draining of its wetlands – is starting to produce catastrophic human and natural consequences. But it is not clear that the lessons of the Katrina hurricane have been learned. Development for short-term gain rushes ahead, especially in the Delta itself.

The Mississippi is a challenge not only to human responsibility for the environment, but to democracy. Many people know what should be done: a curb on development and a massive, costly programme to restore the river to something like its ancient health. But few are ready to vote for it. That is the real Mississippi crisis.

The Symposium agenda writer also notes, about a Day One stop in Memphis at the National Civil Rights Museum, that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of racial equality has been only partially realized with the election of President Barack Obama. “Yet fulfilling the dream of economic justice and what is termed today ecojustice, which is of particular concern to the Symposium, has not been realised,” we are told. Continue reading →

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