Update from Washington Post: Bob Edgar gets cocky at IRD news conference: "I was brought in to do three things: raise money, raise money and raise money. Thank you for highlighting that secular as well as religious organizations now recognize the importance of the National Council of Churches."
The Institute on Religion and Democracy, the conservative religio-political watchdog group, has released a report detailing the funding sources for the National Council of Churches. The report details how actual financial contributions from member churches has declined while the shortfall has been made up by non-religious foundations with clear political motives. The report is significant since the National Council of Churches and it's leadership has not been transparent at all about the sources of funding it receives. From the executive summary of the report:
For 25 years the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) has questioned whether the NCC truly speaks for the 45 million believers in its 35 member denominations. The council's uniformly liberal positions have not corresponded to the moderate and conservative views of most active church members.
Inevitably, the political alienation between the NCC and its claimed constituency begot a financial alienation. Gifts from member denominations dropped through the 1980s and 1990s. By 1999 the NCC was in desperate financial straits. Amidst multi-million dollar debt, unsustainable deficit spending, and open talk of the council's possible dissolution, the NCC brought in a new general secretary, the Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar.
Edgar has been widely credited with rescuing the dying church council from collapse. But the NCC's fiscal stabilization has not resulted from a renewed surge of support among member denominations committed to Christian unity. In fact, those gifts have continued to decline, from $2.9 million in fiscal year 2000-2001 to $1.75 million in 2004-2005—a drop of 40 percent in four years.
Instead the council was saved by other means-means that have brought about a little-noticed transformation in the NCC's identity. First, Edgar granted financial and administrative independence to the NCC-affiliated Church World Service relief agency. Then he sharply trimmed expenses and staffing in what remained of the council. Most important, Edgar has pursued new income from non-church sources. The NCC's "other" income has grown from $800,000 in 2000-2001 to $2.9 million in 2004-2005-a more than threefold increase.
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The NCC has also sought and received funding from secular foundations and other non-church organizations. In fact, in the fiscal year ending June 2005, it received $1.76 million from such organizations. This total surpassed the $1.75 million that year from member communions, signaling a radical new development in the council's history.
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 NetworkThese gifts are far greater than the donations that the NCC receives from most of its member denominations. They suggest, for instance, that the council is more dependent financially upon the Ford Foundation than upon 32 of its 35 member denominations.
For years, the National Council of Churches and leaders of Protestant denominations have attacked the Institute on Religion and Democracy as being part of a right-wing conspiracy against mainline churches. UCC President John Thomas last year called the Institute on Religion and Democracy "a sophisticated 'inside the beltway' organization well funded by conservative foundations and closely aligned with a neo-conservative political agenda" and "encourages grass roots dissenting movements within denominations using classic political organizing around 'wedge issues,' issues such as gay marriage or ordination, or Middle East policy." As we mentioned last June, the IRD is hardly "well funded". According to GuideStar.org, which provides financial information on 1.5 million non-profit organizations, the "well funded" Institute on Religion & Democracy generated $1.1 million in contributions in 2004 (the most recent IRS 990 form available online). Contributions to the "well funded" IRD equate to less than 10% of the UCC's OCWM basic support for the same year and less than 1% of all mainline churches combined. More from the report:
It is curious, in light of the NCC's own funding and programmatic partnerships, that the council has faulted the IRD for receiving support from conservative foundations. One wonders if NCC leaders would be willing to subject their own funding to similar scrutiny.
It should be noted that there are some important differences between the NCC and the IRD: The NCC is a church body, supposedly focused on achieving unity among all Christian churches and believers in the United States. The IRD is a parachurch group devoted to advancing a particular set of convictions about democracy and Christian faith.
The NCC receives very few donations directly from individual church members—most of whom would not support its one-sided political focus. The IRD receives most of its funding from church members who know and support the IRD's theological and political positions.
The NCC lobbies for and against legislation on dozens of different issues every year. By contrast, it is rare that the IRD takes positions on specific pieces of legislation.
In its lobbying, the NCC claims to speak for "the churches." The IRD has never claimed to speak for anyone other than its own friends and supporters.
The NCC and its allies have been trying to influence the outcome of elections. The IRD avoids any activity that would imply endorsement or opposition to particular candidates or parties.
We should be clear that there is no necessary sin in a Christian organization—the NCC, the IRD, or the Salvation Army—accepting contributions from or forming alliances with persons or groups who may not themselves be Christians. The problems come when the non-church funding and alliances loom so large that they cannot help but change the nature of a Christian organization. Then serious questions arise: Are the non-church funders and allies determining the programs and positions of the Christian organization? Or are organization leaders reshaping their programs to fit the priorities of the funders and allies?These sorts of questions have surfaced within NCC circles on at least four occasions in recent years—without receiving a clear answer. So the questions remain open: Is the NCC still fundamentally "a community of Christian communions"?
Regardless of your opinion of the IRD or the NCC, the report raises serious questions about the National Council of Churches and it's sources of funding. Bob Edgar, like the UCC's John Thomas, doesn't like to have his motives questioned and will undoubtedly respond by claiming a right-wing conspiracy instead of actually explaining why the National Council of Churches hasn't been more transparent about it's sources of funding. In September, 2005, the United Methodist Church (Edgar's own church and the largest member of the National Council of Churches) sent a "letter of concern" to the NCC over the departure of the Antiochian Orthodox Church and called for “immediate steps to understand” why the Orthodox church left the NCC. In the same letter, the United Methodist Church also expressed it's "disdain" over a politically loaded fund raising letter that Edgar sent out in June of 2005.
Edgar's initial reaction to the criticism he received from the letter was to suggest a conspiracy by "those who try to dilute our witness and mislead our friends by suggesting that the National Council of Churches is a partisan, left-leaning organization." However, his tune changed after the UMC letter. Thomas Hoyt, then President of the National Council of Churches, said that Edgar now “has acknowledged that the letter was sent from the development office without proper review."
The IRD, on the other hand, has a clear political agenda. Unlike the National Council of Churches, their agenda is transparent and their sources of funding are very public. But the biggest difference between the NCC and the IRD is their constituency. Whether you love them or hate them, the IRD's members voluntarily and directly subscribe to their values and principles. The 45 million members that the NCC claims to represent are buried under multiple levels of bureaucracy between their local churches, associations, conferences and denomination offices that there is literally no connection between the NCC and it's members. Further, since the NCC claims to speak with a prophetic voice on a range of issues, it has a moral obligation to publicly disclose it's sources of funding and political alliances - but it does not. At a minimum, the IRD report provides a level of transparency that the NCC won't disclose on it's own.
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