Is the National Council of Churches Headed for Bankruptcy?

"Lack of financial support from over one third of NCC member churches further undermines this aging dinosaur of stale politics and bureaucratic inertia."

Once the leading association of Christian churches in the United States, the National Council of Churches USA (NCC) continues to financially struggle. On May 17 the NCC Governing Board adopted its seventh deficit budget in as many years. According to NCC General Secretary Dr. Michael Kinnamon, the organization's unrestricted reserves will dip below $3 million by the end of the next fiscal year absent new support.

While Kinnamon emphasized relationship building among member churches as well as distancing the council from the perception of being purely political, the NCC began work on an Afghanistan resolution that labels the war against the Taliban as unjust.

Kinnamon cautioned the Governing Board that the council is not an organization centered upon ecumenical cooperation, but rather a community of member communions seeking greater church unity "otherwise we become like Vichy France, existing solely to make the pain of defeat more tolerable."

Institute on Religion & Democracy President Mark Tooley commented:

"During the past fiscal year, 13 of the NCC's 36 member communions made no contribution to the council. Lack of financial support from over one third of NCC member churches further undermines this aging dinosaur of stale politics and bureaucratic inertia.

"Former NCC chief Bob Edgar's intense liberal political activism gained secular foundation support but seems to have further undermined church support. Over the past decade, undesignated contributions by member churches to the NCC dropped 25 percent, and designated church contributions dropped an astounding 65 percent.

"Absent liberal foundation support, Dr. Kinnamon now has to pick up the pieces. If the NCC can't reverse the decline in church giving and foundation support, its days may be numbered.

"Evangelical groups such as the National Association of Evangelicals should take the NCC's disastrous tenure under Edgar as a cautionary tale against embracing divisive, liberal political activism over church unity."