Posted on 06/26/2005 7:28:40 PM PDT by ChallengetheChristianLeft
National Council of Churches(NCC): Celebrate July 4th by Slamming the War, Calling for Withdrawal, Caving to the Jihadists
From the NCC website:
The Governing Board of the National Council of Churches USA invites you to join them in this call to pursue peace and justice in Iraq.
A Call to Speak Out. July 4, 2005
This year our nation is at war as we observe the 4th of July, a day that honors those founders who spoke out for independence from tyranny. Today in Iraq a cruel dictator has been deposed, yet the suffering of the Iraqi people continues. Mandated elections have been held, yet the future of Iraq remains as uncertain as ever. Day by day the cost of this war for the United States, for Iraq, for peace grows clearer. No weapons of mass destruction have been found; no link to the attacks on September 11, 2001 has been shown. It has become clear that the rationale for invasion was at best a tragic mistake, at worst a clever deception. As people of faith, we believe in the transcendent sovereignty and love of God for creation, and that the responsibility of human beings is thus to pursue justice and peace for all. We also believe that, as the biblical prophets of old, who in faithfulness to God spoke out to a people and a nation they loved, in humility before God we too are to speak to a land and people we love. As religious leaders we invite others who share our affections and dismay to recognize the time has come to speak out.
The time has come to say:
- NO to leaders who have sent many honorable sons and daughters to fight a dishonorable war;
- NO to the violence that has cost over sixteen hundred American lives, left thousands grievously injured, and killed untold numbers of Iraqis whose deaths we are unwilling to acknowledge or count;
- NO to the abuse of prisoners that has shamed our nation and damaged our reputation throughout the world;
- NO to the price tag for this war that has rendered our federal budget incapable of adequately caring for the poorest of our own citizens; and,
- NO to theologies that demonize other nations and religions while arrogantly claiming righteousness for ourselves as if we share no complicity in human evil.
The time has come to say:
- YES to foreign policies that seek justice rather than domination, compassion rather than control;
- YES to an early fixed timetable for the withdrawal of United States troops and the establishment of a credible multinational peacekeeping force;
- YES to the honoring of human rights even for our enemies and for a restoration of our reputation as a people committed to the rule of law;
- YES to spending and taxing priorities that put the poor first, providing health care, housing, employment, and quality education for all, not just the few; and,
- YES to a restoration of truth telling in the public square and to “last resort” rather than “first strike” as the criterion for the use of force to restrain evil.
On the day we celebrate our freedom, we acknowledge that the freedom promised in the toppling of a dictator has been replaced by the humiliation of occupation and the violence of a civil war.
The sacrifice of brave men and women has been used to serve policies that have diminished our nation’s prestige and our capacity to be agents of justice in the world.
It is time to speak out that this 4th of July will celebrate the best ideals of our nation for our sake and for the sake of the world.
As a member of a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), I can say the NCC does not reflect my views nor the views of many other Christians in the ELCA. Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the ELCA needs to bring the issue of NCC membership to the member churches. This affiliation with the NCC is a disgrace and does NOT reflect the viewpoints of the majority of Christians per Gallop and Pew polls.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 8765 W. Higgins Road Chicago, IL 60631
Tel: 800/638-3522 or 773/380-2700 Fax: 773/380-1465
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES DENOMINAION MEMBERS:
African Methodist Episcopal Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
Alliance of Baptists
American Baptist Churches in the USA
The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
Church of the Brethren
The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America
The Episcopal Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Friends United Meeting
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Hungarian Reformed Church in America
International Council of Community Churches
Korean Presbyterian Church in America
Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
Mar Thoma Church
Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province
National Baptist Convention of America
National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
Orthodox Church in America
Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Polish National Catholic Church of America
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
Reformed Church in America
Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada
The Swedenborgian Church
Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America
United Church of Christ
The United Methodist Church See also:
The Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA)
FROM: http://www.ncccusa.org/members/index.html
NCC Officers for 2004-2005
President: The Rev. Dr. Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., Shreveport, La., Bishop of the Fourth Episcopal District, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (Mississippi and Louisiana).
General Secretary: The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, a United Methodist, re-elected to a second, four-year term (2004-7) as NCC General Secretary, with headquarters in New York City.
President Elect: The Rev. Michael E. Livingston, of Trenton, N.J., Executive Director, International Council of Community Churches, as NCC President Elect for 2004-2005. He will serve as the Council’s President in 2006-2007.
Vice President: Ms Clare J. Chapman, Executive Director of Finance and Administration, General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, United Methodist Church, New York City, and Chair of the NCC’s Administration and Finance Committee.
Vice President: Ms Betty Voskuil, Coordinator for Diaconal Ministries, Hunger Education and Reformed Church World Service, Reformed Church in America, Grand Rapids, Mich., Chair of the Church World Service Board of Directors.
Vice President At Large: The Rev. Dr. Randall R. Lee, Assistant to the Bishop and Director, Department for Ecumenical Affairs, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago, Ill.
Vice President at Large: The Rev. Dr. Thelma Chambers-Young, Director of Christian Education, Holy Temple Baptist Church, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., Oklahoma City, Okla; Immediate Past President of the PNBC Women’s Department.
Secretary: Bishop Vicken Aykazian, Diocesan Legate and Ecumenical Officer, Diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church of America, Washington, D.C.
Immediate Past President: Elenie K. Huszagh, Esq., a Greek Orthodox laywoman from Nehalem, Ore., concluding her 2002-2003 term as the NCC's President, continues in 2004-2005 in the office of NCC Immediate Past President.
FROM: http://www.ncccusa.org/news/03officers.html
What, they want Saddam back?
Some people might want to check and see if their local churches are members of the NCC - and if they are, make a motion to withdraw at the next business meeting / church council meeting.
www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 6/26/2005 10:32:40 PM
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
475 Riverside Drive
Suite 880
New York, NY
10115
Phone :212-870-2227
URL :http://www.ncccusa.org/
Largest coalition of leftwing religious denominations in the United States
Has long record of financial support for Communist regimes
Remains faithful ally of Communist Cuba
Reserves criticism on moral issues for Israel and the United States
Makes common cause with environmentalist radicals
Masks leftist politics in faith-based declarations
Earlier this month, the National Council of Churches condemned Israel – a nation plagued in recent years by an epidemic of Palestinian suicide bombings aimed at civilians – for having “established hundreds upon hundreds of checkpoints, roadblocks, and gates across the Occupied Territories, making daily life and travel extremely difficult for ordinary Palestinians.” Proclaiming that “[s]tereotypes of all Palestinians as terrorists must be broken,” the Council explained that “[t]he crushing burden of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory contributes to deep anger and violent resistance, which contributes to fear throughout Israeli society.” The Council lamented that while “[a]t least half of the Palestinian people live in poverty, . . . too many Israelis have little or no knowledge of the human rights abuses experienced by Palestinians.”
In making the these statements, the National Council of Churches offered neither social nor historical context. For example, it did not mention that fully 70 percent of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza approve of the murder of Jews via suicide bombings; that there is no trace of an Arab peace movement urging the cessation of such terror attacks (a stark contrast to Israel, where the movement demanding concessions to Arabs in the name of peace is a formidable political force); that Palestinians in Israel enjoy more civil and human rights than their counterparts in any Arab nation on earth; that Israel came to occupy the West Bank and Gaza not as a result of expansionist impulses, but rather because of its victory in the 1967 war that was ignited when Israel was attacked by Egypt, Syria and Jordan; that in 1973, yet another coalition of Arab armies attacked Israel and were defeated; and that when Egypt (the spearhead of that 1973 assault) became the lone nation to agree to a formal peace with Israel, it was rewarded by Israel with the return of the entire captured Sinai with all its oil riches.
The foregoing facts notwithstanding, the National Council of Churches betrays no recognition of the fact that Israel has demonstrated a remarkable willingness to negotiate peace with, and relinquish land to, even defeated aggressors who have previously demonstrated a burning desire to destroy the Jewish state. “[I]t is clear,” maintains the Council, that “the overriding problem is Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian territory.” The Council’s critical stance on Israel is mirrored by its history of consistently opposing U.S. policies as well. These two nations are singled out for rebuke by the Council with greater frequency than any others.
Since its founding in 1950, the New York City-based National Council of Churches (NCC) has remained faithful to the legacy of its predecessor, the Communist front-group known as the Federal Council of Churches, which the NCC absorbed in 1950. At one time an unabashed apostle of the Communist cause, the NCC has today recast itself as a leading representative of the so-called religious Left. Adhering to what it has described as “liberation theology”—that is, Marxist ideology disguised as Christianity—the NCC lays claim to a membership of 36 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox Christian denominations, and some 50 million members in over 140,000 congregations.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the NCC has soft-pedaled its radical message, dressing up its demands for global collectivization and its rejection of democratic capitalism in the garb of religious teachings. Yet the organization’s history suggests that it was—and remains—a devout backer of a gallery of socialist governments. In the 1950s and 1960s, under cover of charity, the NCC provided financial succor to the Communist regimes in Yugoslavia and Poland, funneling money to both through its relief agency, the Church World Service. In the 1970s, working with its Geneva-based parent organization, the World Council of Churches, the NCC supplied financial support for Soviet-sponsored incursions into Africa, aiding the terrorist rampages of Communist guerrillas in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, and Angola.
As one of the leading contributors to the Program to Combat Racism (a program created in 1939 by the NCC-parent group, the World Council of Churches, and discontinued in 1996), the NCC played a central role in subsidizing revolutionary Communist movements in the Third World. Sensitive to the controversy which over the years has enveloped the Program to Combat Racism (PCR), the WCC has consistently declined to divulge both the contributors to, and the recipients of, the program. The WCC has gone so far as to establish an independent budget, the Special Fund to Combat Racism, in order to conceal details about the funding of the program. Despite these efforts, the WCC has not been entirely successful in obscuring the PCR’s paper trail. An August 1982 report by Reader’s Digest revealed that during the 1970s the PCR disbursed over $5 million to some 130 organizations in 30 countries. While the WCC held fast to the claim that the funds were directed solely toward those organizations dedicated to fighting racism, the facts suggested otherwise. According to the Reader’s Digest report, more than half of the money that went to the PCR wound up in the hands of Communist guerrillas. The report further traced PCR funds to a series of Communist rampages in Africa. During the 1970s, over $78,000 went to Cuba’s Soviet-sponsored MPLA to foment Communist revolution in Angola; some $120,000 went to the Marxist FRELIMO in Mozambique; and another $832,000 to Namibia’s Communist regime, the SWAPO; another grant, for $108,000, was funneled to the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), a Communist guerrilla force whose campaign of indiscriminate terror claimed the lives of 207 white civilians, 1,721 blacks, and nine missionaries as well as their children. In the face of this grim evidence, PCR administrators—many of whom were culled from the ranks of the NCC—continued to push the line that, rather than bankrolling Communist death squads, the organization was simply supporting “liberation movements.” From this position the WCC has never wavered. In an archival overview of the PRC, published in 2004, the WCC dusted off its claim that “the main aim of the PCR is to define, propose and carry out ecumenical policies and programs that substantially contribute to the liberation of the victims of racism.”
Other beneficiaries of the NCC’s leftist philanthropy included El Salvador’s Sandinista guerrillas. Using the Evangelical Committee for Aid to Development (CEPAD), an organization established to distribute the charity donations collected by U.S. churches in Latin America—and whose leadership openly professed solidarity with the Sandinistas’ Marxist aims—the NCC made common cause with the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, contributing nearly $400,000 to the Sandinista Party between 1981 and 1983. Documents seized from El Salvador’s guerrillas in 1983 revealed yet another Communist group on the take from the NCC’s collection plate.
Another of the NCC’s leftist faith-based initiatives is support for Communist Cuba. Having pushed for the United States to normalize relations with the Castro regime since 1968, the NCC throughout the Cold War pressed its considerable authority on moral issues into the service of whitewashing the hard-line regime’s record of oppression. In 1977, after heading a delegation of American church officials to Cuba, the Methodist bishop James Armstrong, who would be elected NCC president the following year, issued a report that may justifiably be described as supportive of the murderous dictatorship. “There is a significant difference,” Armstrong insisted, “between situations where people are imprisoned for opposing regimes designed to perpetuate inequities, as in Chile and Brazil, for example, and situations were people are imprisoned for opposing regimes designed to remove inequities, as in Cuba.”
On the rare occasions that the NCC was unforthcoming with a public rationalization for Communist repression, it communicated its support through silence. For example, despite its oft-declared commitment to human rights, the NCC could find little to say about the ascension to power of Ethiopia’s Marxist government, which left 10,000 dead and shuttered 200 churches. Likewise, on the matter of the Soviet Union’s 1978 invasion of Afghanistan, the NCC kept conspicuously mum.
Not until the Soviet Union’s collapse did the NCC see it fit to weigh in on the subject of Communist oppression. In 1993, Joan Brown Campbell, a former NCC General Secretary, made a striking admission. Acknowledging that the NCC had failed to challenge the brutality of Communist rule, she explained, “We did not understand the depth of the suffering of Christians under Communism. And we failed to really cry out under the Communist oppression.”
Campbell’s comments, however, did not prompt the NCC to withdraw its support for Communist totalitarianism. On the contrary, to this day the NCC remains an unwavering ally of the Cuban government. Still pressing for the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, the NCC continues to evince scant concern for the plight of victims of the Castro regime. On occasion, the NCC has even turned against them. No sooner had the NCC used its charity arm, the Church World Service, to establish a Cuban Refugee Emergency Center in Miami, than it soured on the center. The reason was that Cuban refugees had regularly denounced the Cuban government—an outcry that was intolerable to the NCC’s Castro-friendly executives. Kenneth Lloyd, the author of a history of the NCC called From Mainline to Sideline: The Social Witness of the National Council of Churches, noted that one NCC declaration condemned the anti-Castro recriminations of the refugees because they “abetted our government’s effort to discredit Cuba” and “encouraged humanitarian sentiment that generated hostile attitudes toward Cuba among U.S. congregations.”
In January of 2000, eager to affirm its Castroite sympathies, the NCC forced itself into the controversy over the fate of Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez, becoming one of the loudest voices demanding that the boy be sent back to Cuba. Most recently, in January of 2004, the NCC dispatched a delegation of church leaders to Cuba for a six-day visit. NCC spokesmen claimed that, in addition to paying a visit to Havana churches, the delegates intended to discuss with Castro himself the fate of 75 political prisoners jailed by the dictator in 2003. But if an NCC statement was any indication, the delegates had no intention of seriously pressing for the prisoners’ release. The NCC’s only bone of contention was, “We find [their] sentences excessive.”
This should not be taken to mean that the NCC has been wholly silent on the issue of human rights. The organization continues to issue press releases decrying abhorrent human rights conditions around the world. However, the countries that the NCC chooses to single out for opprobrium evidence the extent to which the organization’s religious mission has been corrupted by its radical leftist politics. One study, conducted by the Institute of Religion and Democracy in September 2004, found that “of the seven human rights criticisms it issued from 2000-2003, Israel received four, the United States two, and Sudan one.” Moreover, the study noted, “Fully 80 percent of the NCC resolutions targeting foreign nations for human rights abuses were aimed at Israel.”
The NCC’s programmatic opposition to U.S. foreign policy is another manifestation of its deep-rooted leftist politics. Taking refuge in the counsel of the New Testament — “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9) — the NCC has repeatedly condemned U.S. military interventions. In 1991, the NCC played a central role in The Return of the Peace Movement, a coalition of leftwing religious groups arrayed against the first Gulf war, when American forces repulsed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. At that time, the leaders of 32 NCC churches announced that the risk of military intervention was “out of proportion to any conceivable gain.”
The NCC’s assessment of the second Gulf War was identical. In January of 2003, the NCC’s current president, the Methodist preacher Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, Jr., joined 46 other religious leaders in signing a letter to President Bush. The letter expressed the signatories’ “continuing uneasiness about the moral justification for war on Iraq,” and suggested that the President accord them the “opportunity to bring this message to you in person.” Citing scheduling conflicts, Mr. Bush, through a spokesman, politely declined. Having failed to thwart U.S. military intervention, the NCC did not reconsider its reflexive opposition to U.S. policy following the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Rejecting the notion that America could play the role of a post-war peacemaker, the NCC, in May of 2004, issued yet another letter (which it encouraged member pastors to read to their congregations) urging the U.S. to abdicate authority in Iraq in favor of the United Nations. “We would ask that members of our churches, as they feel appropriate, contact their respective congressional delegations to urge the U.S. to change course in Iraq,” the letter noted. The NCC is a member organization of the Win Without War and United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions.
Even as it has traduced U.S. foreign policy, the NCC has continuously injected itself into debates on domestic policy. Here, again, the NCC’s strategy involves veiling its leftwing politics in expressions of religious faith. On more than a few occasions, the NCC has preached the gospel of environmentalism. In 2002, the NCC was a party to an environmentalist campaign against the automobile industry. This campaign — called “What would Jesus drive?” — exhorted car manufactures to embrace stricter emissions standards. It was engineered by the Evangelical Environmental Network, a coalition of left-leaning religious groups that views “‘environmental’ problems as fundamentally spiritual problems.”
The NCC also levied an opposition campaign against the Bush administration’s environmental initiative, the Clean Air Act. In an ad placed in The New York Times, the NCC framed its agenda in the language of a concerned moral appeal. Wrote the NCC leadership, “In a spirit of shared faith and respect, we feel called to express grave moral concern about your ‘Clear Skies’ initiative—which we believe is the Administration’s continuous effort to weaken critical environmental standards to protect God’s creation.” Nor was this the first time that the NCC employed such tactics. While proclaiming the virtues of the Kyoto protocol in 1998, the NCC’s then-General Secretary, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, insisted that an acceptance of the (radical) environmentalist movement’s assertions about global warming ought to be made a “litmus test for the faith community.”
The NCC has also expressed concern that the Patriot Act constitutes a trampling on the civil liberties of those living in America, whether they live there legally or illegally. “We believe it is time for us to stop and think about where we should draw the line in our search for security,” said the NCC in 2004. “The 2004 Social Justice Sunday [September 26] theme invites us to consider this issue as a critical point in our history. . . . Only a self-obsessed society pursues security at all costs.”
Recently, some prominent religious figures have voiced concerns that the NCC is less a spiritual than a political organization, less concerned with ministering to the souls of its parishioners than with shaping a future that is in concordance with its leftist agenda. Mark Tooley, a director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, has taken the NCC to task for positioning itself as an impartial religious group. “We do not think the NCC is impartial. They have been openly sympathetic to the Cuban government for many years,” Tooley told the Washington Times in January 2000. The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a former Lutheran minister and now editor of the Catholic journal First Things, has observed that 50 years of rigid adherence to leftwing orthodoxy has taken its toll on the NCC. “The NCC is a shadow of what it once was,” Neuhaus has said. “It has been sidelined. Its 50th anniversary was more of a requiem than a celebration. It has lost the confidence of its membership.”
Complicating the NCC’s situation is its history of financial mismanagement. While doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of various leftist causes, the NCC been saddled with fiscal woes. The organization’s leadership has long spent beyond its means, and in 1998 the NCC found itself facing a deficit of $1.5 million. In 1999, NCC expenses exceeded total revenues by some $4 million. These budgetary shortfalls have compelled the NCC to appeal to its member denominations—seven of which account for 90 percent of the NCC’s budget—to step up their contributions. For instance, in 1999 the NCC requested that its chief sponsor, the United Methodist Church, increase its yearly contribution of $2.5 million by an additional $700,000.
Despite such stopgap measures, the NCC has proved incapable of reining in spending. In 2002, records showed that the NCC continued to spend 30 percent more than it received, with the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA responsible for 64 percent of NCC revenues. The support of the United Methodist Church is of particular importance to the NCC. According to the 2004 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, a chronicle of church membership published by the NCC and edited by the NCC Deputy General Secretary for Research and Planning, Rev. Dr. Eileen W. Lindner, the United Methodist Church has recently experienced small declines in membership. That sets it apart from other NCC member churches. Partially as a consequence of growing dissatisfaction with the radical agenda espoused by the NCC’s leadership, many of these churches have suffered a precipitous decline in their membership.
The NCC endorsed the Million Mom March, a May 2000 anti-gun rally in Washington, DC that drew some 750,000 participants and has since evolved into a national organization with the same name. Today Million Mom March is a member group of America Votes, a national coalition of 33 grassroots, get-out-the-vote organizations. America Votes is one of the seven groups forming the administrative core of the Democrat Shadow Party. Its get-out-the-vote efforts — and those of NCC — target likely Democratic voters, such as swing voters (working women and young people) and Democrat base voters (especially blacks and Hispanics). Among the causes America Votes promotes are environmental extremism, unregulated immigration (Open Borders), and the leftwing agendas of the teachers’ unions. By contrast, it opposes the Patriot Act and gun ownership rights. The coalition’s most pressing objective in 2004 was to defeat George W. Bush in the Presidential election. These are ideals to which NCC similarly subscribes.
Moreover, the NCC was a signatory to a November 1, 2001 document characterizing the 9/11 attacks as a legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather than military means. Ascribing the hijackers’ motives to alleged social injustices against which they were protesting, this document explained that “security and justice are mutually reinforcing goals that ultimately depend upon the promotion of all human rights for all people,” and called on the United States “to promote fundamental rights around the world.”
The NCC was also a signatory – along with more than 120 other leftwing organizations – to a 2000 campaign to increase the minimum wage.
Compensating somewhat for its sagging private donations of recent years, the NCC has received some funding from a handful of foundations, including: $100,000 from the Ford Foundation in 2000; $149,400 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2000-20001; $150,000 from the Beldon Fund in 2001; $500,000 from the Lilly Endowment in 2002; $50,000 from the Rasmussen Foundation in 2003; and $75,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 2003.
bttt
Just reading their list of what we should DO made me laugh harder than I have for a long time...
They want us to STOP trying to bring freedom to millions of people in these countries that have never known freedom, so that we can give that money to the poor, for their health care, housing, education, etc....these are people in the US, that have the freedom and opportunity to AFFECT their own futures....
But, these CHURCH leaders want us to give to them, and just let the Iraqis go back to living in tyranny!
Yeah, God is mightily blessing these leaders....blech
What a bunch of lefty goobly gok.
I guess next time they'll fly planes into churces.....
It would appear that the new order "global church" has spoken.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Remember, the ones who crow about having it questioned are the one's who have a sneering disdain for patriotism in the first place.
I implore you to find a congregation within a Bible believing Lutheran body. If one is not available find the nearest truly evangelical congregation.
As far as blowing up babies goes, I recall very danged few (if any) of the list of notables has come out foursquare against abortion...
Aha! You may be on to something!
"NO to theologies that demonize other nations and religions"...
Except of course for Islam and all its offshoots. Not a word about that from the NCC.
"Peace and justice" = "tyrants, communism, and statist oppression" in the leftist lexicon.
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