Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left

11—Fighting Nixon and Seeking a New Strategy, January 1970–March 1971

C h a p t e r E l e v e n Fighting Nixon and Seeking a New Strategy, January 1970–March 1971 Besieged The Council stepped into the new decade punch-drunk from the frontal assaults it had absorbed at the recent General Assembly. Declining budgets hurt too. These forced it to explore questions about revamping itself and its relationships with various groups. Nevertheless, it retained enough forward momentum to continue attempts at transforming government policy as well as Americans’ hearts and minds. In 1970 the Council grew more aware that its place within the establishment was shifting as Nixon treated it like others on his enemies list. His behavior toward the NCC and his actions related to the war baffled ecumenical leaders. Despite feeling more frustrated and ineffectual than ever before, the Council members kept trying to make a meaningful, public, ecumenical witness. Still buffeted by the assembly’s wake, in January, the General Board attended to lingering issues. First, it turned to the contentious job of restructuring the NCC. The board assembled a fifteen-member task force to evaluate the criticisms, suggestions, and long-range planning report “Mission in the 70s.”1 In mid-1970, the NCC weighed four different restructuring options proposed by this task force, which ranged from 298 E m b a t t l e d E c u m e n i s m increasing centralization in the General Board to transforming the Council into a social justice coalition ministry. None was adopted. Restructural planning continued for three long years, culminating at the next triennial General Assembly in 1972. The January board also expanded the number of youth, women, and ethnic and racial minorities in the NCC’s legislative bodies. Theressa Hoover’s nominating committee selected over five hundred people to serve potentially on the Council’s program boards and committees, guided by the directive to “arrange a more equitable distribution of minority groups in decision-making positions of the Council.”2 The NCC’s shrinking budget , which left several of its units in the red, forced the board to explore stricter financial controls as well. Finally, the NCC had to cope with a new surge of criticism from those within the ecumenical movement who saw the recent assembly as symptomatic of the institution’s maladies. Back in mid-1968, Alan Geyer had succeeded Kyle Haselden as editor of the Christian Century. He began using its opening editorial page as a vehicle through which to assess the Council and coax it toward certain reforms. Shortly after the assembly, Geyer summarized some widespread doubts about the NCC. For example, while he praised Espy’s personal integrity, he described Espy’s leadership as weak, passive, and unimaginative. He blasted the Council’s inefficient bureaucracy, audacious array of programs, and wasteful spending. Like the Pentagon and other administrative bureaucracies that ballooned chaotically after World War II, the NCC needed streamlining, belt-tightening, and stronger centralized management. He questioned whether the Council’s rapid additions of minorities to power positions were token gestures. But, of all its problems, Geyer most rebuked the Council’s communication methods and style.3 To him, communication ability could make or break the ecumenical movement. The NCC’s overreliance on pronouncements, study papers, reports, and resolutions to share its work failed to connect with those in “the hinterland.” It aimed its messages primarily at clergy and executives rather than laity. Its communication and programs were not well integrated with or inclusive of local church councils. All of this resulted in disconnections at various levels of the ecumenical community.4 Geyer’s editorials displeased Espy, and their relationship grew strained, but the Century’s new editor hoped to influence the Council’s restructuring process in a positive manner. Fighting Nixon and Seeking a New Strategy, January 1970–March 1971 299 Geyer did recognize that the NCC’s troubles reflected those within its member denominations.5 The United Presbyterian Church was a prime example. By 1967 panic had erupted over declining memberships and budgets, which the denomination attributed largely to lay protests against its social policies.6 In 1970 it laid off 113 overseas staffers and an additional thirty within its home office, for its budget fell a million dollars short of the previous year. Church income had dropped 15 percent in three years, with inflation robbing an additional 18 percent of buying power. Things worsened the following year when...