Religion
National Council of Churches getting up to speed

By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter

LESLIE TUNE / NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES The Rev. Bob Edgar does not shy away from controversy. He was arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., in July while calling attention to genocide in the African country.

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The Rev. Bob Edgar knows the rap on religious liberals and moderates in general and on his group — the National Council of Churches — in particular.

He's heard it before: that they're too diffuse, scattering their attention on too many issues; that their positions are so nuanced it's hard for them to produce a clear message; that while they do plenty of good works, they are too modest to talk about the values that drive that work.

The rap is somewhat deserved, Edgar believes.

For decades, mainline churches and groups like the council "haven't been able to speak as relevantly, effectively and faithfully" to the broad religious middle in America as he would like, he says. Now he's in a position to do something about it.

Edgar, 61, is general secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCC), a 54-year-old umbrella organization of 36 Protestant denominations. He was in town this week for a Church Council of Greater Seattle benefit dinner.

Since taking over in 2000, Edgar, a United Methodist minister and former six-term congressman from Pennsylvania, has focused the group on a few top priorities. Chief among them is alleviating poverty, clarifying the council's message, and giving clergy the tools to compete with the religious right in getting their voices heard, uniting their members and reaching their goals.

"The NCC, like other parts of the ecumenical movement, has struggled in the last couple of decades to define its mission," said the Rev. Sanford Brown, director of Seattle's Church Council. "I think Bob is going in exactly the right direction."

In the 1980s, during the rise of groups such as the Moral Majority, "we coasted," Edgar said. "We didn't think the religious right had much of a foothold. We kept preaching from the pulpits, and they kept preaching from television. They mastered the 30-second sound bite."

So Edgar's organization is providing media tools to clergy to get their message across. For instance, the NCC has started www.faithfulamerica.org as a way of gathering like-minded faithful online.

Edgar himself is no stranger to publicity. He made the news helping Elian Gonzalez's Cuban father and grandmothers in their international custody battle; getting arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to genocide in that country; and offering his views on the role religion played in the election.
 
The NCC also is focusing on innovative yet doable ideas such as a computer program that would allow people in states with electronic tax filing to automatically apply for welfare benefits. The program is operating in Pennsylvania and will be up in about five other states next spring.

The idea is to tap into about $35 billion of available welfare funds Edgar says recipients haven't known how to access.

On a grander scale, Edgar's vision of broader cooperation among Christian groups made a big leap forward this week. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted Wednesday to join Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A., which seeks participation from mainline Protestant, Catholic, historically ethnic, Orthodox Christian and evangelical churches.

Edgar said the idea began about three years ago when he met with a high-ranking Catholic bishop and a Salvation Army leader. Although its member denominations will be part of this new group, the NCC itself will not be, Edgar says. "We knew evangelicals wouldn't take part if they knew the 'flaky, liberal NCC' was a part of it."

Edgar, a pastor since age 19, says his passion stems from biblical verses exhorting the faithful to care for the Earth and the poor — "the least of these our brothers and sisters." Those clear injunctions, he says, are often missing from recent post-election talk about what constitutes biblical moral values.

What makes Edgar the right man to lead the NCC now, some say, is his pragmatic approach, honed from years in Congress and in college administration.

In 1975, he was the first Democrat in 120 years elected from his heavily Republican district in Pennsylvania. His constituents returned him for five more terms. And before heading the NCC, he served for 10 years as president of Claremont Theological School in Claremont, Calif.

In Congress, Edgar "was liked on both sides of the aisle because of his commitment to straightforward answers to challenges," said former Washington Gov. Mike Lowry, whose congressional terms overlapped with Edgar's.

Under Edgar, the NCC has clarified its priorities, concentrating on what he calls the three P's: poverty, peace and planet Earth.

Those priorities mean the group does not take stands on some issues that are tearing mainline denominations apart, such as homosexuality.

While those issues are important, Edgar says, he sees greater urgency in fighting against, say, the war in Iraq. "We can't be everything to everyone."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com