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National Council of Churches

American Decades | Date: 2001

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

The Ecumenical Movement

The ecumenical movement gained strength during the 1950s as Christian churches joined together to attempt the formation of a single voice in support of peace and civil rights.

Founding of the NCC

On 1 January 1951 the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America (NCC) came into being. This organization brought the old Federal Council of Churches and eleven other interdenominational bodies into a coopera- tive body that included twenty-five Protestant denominations and four Eastern Orthodox churches. It was, as the Christian Century commented, "potentially one of the most influential bodies in American Protestantism." The following year the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America affiliated with the National Council. The largest bodies remaining outside the council included the Roman Catholic church and the Southern Baptist Convention.

Dedication of Headquarters

In 1958 President Eisenhower laid the cornerstone for the Interchurch Center, an eighteen-story building that occupies a city block on Morningside Heights in New York City near River-side Church, Union Seminary, and Columbia University. The first of the NCC agencies moved to the building the following year.

Controversy

The organization drew fire from conservative and fundamentalist faiths, which maintained that the NCC distorted biblical truths in the name of political goals, but it did much to engage the churches in ministering to lessen social problems.

Sources:

"Here We Stand," Christian Century, 75 (26 March 1958): 363-364;

Henry J. Pratt, The Liberalization of American Protestantism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972).

Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.