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

Introduction—Ecumenism and the Vietnam War

I n t r o d u c t i o n Ecumenism and the Vietnam War The fire will test what sort of work each has done. —I Corinthians 12:13 The Christian Bible speaks of tests or trials by fire.1 ordeals test character, priorities, and perseverance. Fire can burn away surfaces, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the core. The Vietnam War and the era that encompassed it were the most divisive since the Civil War, tearing Americans apart and violently unleashing their frustrations. For the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), which was motivated by its ecumenical Christian vision to oppose that war and unify people, Vietnam and its convulsive era became the fire that challenged, splintered, and changed it.2 The Council’s efforts on the war exposed its strengths and imploded its weaknesses in ways instructive for religious institutions that bring their faith into politics. This book explores the ecumenical vision, anti–Vietnam War efforts, and consequent legacy of the NCC, serving as a window into mainline Protestants’ manner of engaging political issues at a unique time of national crisis and religious transformation. It also strives to illuminate an ecumenical institution, a vision, and a movement that have been largely misrepresented by the religious right, dismissed by the secular left, misunderstood by laity, and ignored by scholars outside of ecumenical circles. 4 E m b a t t l e d E c u m e n i s m The Turning Point, 1965 As 1965 dawned, the kum-ba-ya spirit of the early 1960s was wearing off. But the nation didn’t yet know it. The civil rights movement was achieving major legislative victories, to which the NCC contributed.3 With expansive optimism, President Lyndon Johnson promised to help create a Great Society that would eliminate poverty in America. Big government was in vogue; bureaucracies were tributes to modern managerial methods of problem-solving. The liberal establishment had reached its peak of cultural and political power. So too had the liberal mainline churches and their premier ecumenical organization, the National Council of Churches. The NCC represented over thirty Protestant and orthodox denominations comprising more than forty million members, almost half of America’s voters.4 In service to the broader ecumenical movement, which fostered Christian unity, the NCC developed cooperative Christian responses to important social issues and personified the bureaucratic ideal. It also enjoyed a close working relationship with the White House on several measures and could get audiences with presidential administrations upon request. In fact, for decades, top politicians had recognized the Council as an influential organization to court. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower traveled to New york City to lay the cornerstone of the NCC’s new headquarters, the Interchurch Center, in 1958. Going back at least to Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, the NCC and its predecessor, the Federal Council of Churches, enjoyed presidential meetings, cabinet-level visits, and an intimate working relationship with those in the rising liberal establishment on a range of issues from labor unions to the United Nations, and from nuclear test ban treaties to civil rights. This study ushers one into the prestigious “God Box,” nickname for the InterchurchCenter,wheretheNCCandseveralotherchurchorganizations generalled their operations. The location, 475 Riverside Drive in upper Manhattan, New york City, sat at the center of liberal religious power in America. Across the street stood the cathedral-like Riverside Church built by John D. Rockefeller. Its podium became a platform for such prominent liberal clergy as the Reverends Harry Emerson Fosdick, William Sloane Coffin Jr., and James Forbes. other notables including Martin Luther King Jr. utilized it to make important speeches. Across the intersection, and kitty-corner to the NCC, cutting-edge theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, and John Bennett trained young ministers at Union I N T R o D U C T I o N / Ecumenism and the Vietnam War 5 Theological Seminary. In the 1950s and 1960s, its reputation was among the finest, and most activist, in the nation. The influential Protestant journal Christianity and Crisis was published there.5 Across the street from Union beamed another bastion of liberal thought, the Jewish Theological Seminary, which boasted a cadre of activist leaders including the esteemed Rabbi Abraham Heschel. In 1965 that two-block square of real estate was home to some of the most powerful religious entities in the nation...