OrthodoxNet.com Blog

FrontPageMag | Mark D. Tooley | Apr. 3, 2008

Was it really an April Fools trick or did the World Council of Churches (WCC) actually admit that Christians in Islamist Sudan endure some unpleasantness? According to an April 1 report from the WCC news service, a WCC delegation recently visited Khartoum and was “shocked” to learn that a Christian cemetery in the nation’s capital is also being used as a used car lot. Continue Reading »

FrontPageMag | Mark D. Tooley | Feb. 21, 2008

The imploding National Council of Churches (NCC) is always flailing about for a new raison d’etre. This month, it took its Global Warming alarmism to Northern Ireland , where it hopes that fears about a climate catastrophe will “inform the peace and reconciliation process.” Even First Minister Ian Paisley, the once firebrand Ulsterman who is now an elderly pillar of the Ulster peace settlement, met with the ecclesiastical busybodies. Continue Reading »

FrontPage Mag | Mark D. Tooley | Feb. 7, 2008

In a remarkable January 22 letter, the head of the World Council of Churches (WCC) exclusively denounced Israel for the crisis in Gaza while avoiding all mention of Hamas’ misrule and its firing of Qassam rockets into Israeli border towns. Naturally, Kobia did not mention Egypt’s having joined Israel in its partial embargo against Gaza since Hamas’s June 2007 putsch there against the Palestinian Authority. Continue Reading »

FrontPageMagazine.com | Mark D. Tooley | September 10, 2007

At its recent convention in Chicago, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) honored the National Council of Churches’ top interfaith official with its “Interfaith Unity Award.”

Undoubtedly, the award was well deserved! The NCC, like most of the Religious Left, defends or accommodates radical Islam, even as it denounces “fundamentalist” Christianity and condemns Israel. Despite the Religious Left’s support for liberal social causes like same-sex unions and abortion rights, it prefers the supporters of Islamic “Sharia” law to Christians or Jews who might sometimes vote Republican.

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Ed. (Jacobse) The religious left is at it again.

FrontPageMagazine.com | Mark D. Tooley | July 31, 2007

Muslim Groups in the U.S. have joined with left-wing Protestants and Catholics in planning an “interfaith fast” on the upcoming “day officially known as ‘Columbus Day,’” according to fast organizers. Called “From Conquest to Community, From Violence to Reverence: An Interfaith Fast to End the War in Iraq,” the day of October 8, 2007 will conveniently synchronize with Islam’s “Night of Power” during Ramadan.

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Townhall.com Janice Shaw Crouse April 17, 2007

Jim Wallis has devoted his whole career to trying to force the round peg of leftist ideology into the square hole of biblical orthodoxy. When he wrote his “vision” designed to “transcend” the ideologies of the religious left and right, he ended up further polarizing instead of unifying the two evangelical movements. He rails against the “political language” of the right as well as the tendency of conservative evangelicals, in his opinion, to claim their use of scripture as authoritative. In so doing, Wallis hoists himself on his own petard.

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Acton’s Jordan Ballor jumps on the NCC’s silly “eco-justice” objections to bottled water

The IRD criticism of the NCC (discussed here earlier) is getting some good discussion at the Get Religion blog.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy released their report Yokefellows that examines the funding sources for the National Council of Churches (NCC). It’s not pretty. The Tides Foundation and other leftwing groups contribute a good chunk of change. Read the Executive Summary.

I got an advance copy a month or so ago. Read my comments.

FrontPageMagazine.com Mark D. Tooley September 29, 2006

The head of the U.S. National Council of Churches (NCC) has a burden on his heart for prison inmates…if they are former al-Qaeda or Taliban operatives at Guantanamo Bay.

In his www.middlechurch.net blog, NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar records his chagrin that the U.S. government has denied his request for a visit with the Gitmo prisoners.

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NCC PRESIDENT URGES COMMUNICATORS, TAKE ON ‘FALSE RELIGION’

New York, March 30, 2006–The president of the National Council of
Churches, the Rev. Michael Livingston, strongly urged church
communicators to, “Tell our story. By any means necessary.”

“Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches have been pounded
into irrelevancy by the media machine of a false religion,” Livingston
said. He described what passes as religion to be, “a political
philosophy masquerading as gospel; an economic principle wrapped in
religious rhetoric and painted red, white and blue.”

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Ed. Peace activists are rescued by the military they disdain. I hope they have the decency to thank the men and women in uniform who risked their lives to save them. Who best exemplifies Christian sacrifice here — the soldier or the activist?

New York Times Christine Hauser

Three Western peace workers who were held hostage in Iraq for four months were freed in a military operation today, two weeks after their American colleague was killed in captivity.

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Baltimore Sun Cal Thomas March 15, 2006

ARLINGTON, VA. — The death of “peace activist” Tom Fox, and the threatened execution of the three others held with him in Iraq, is doubly tragic.

It is tragic whenever an innocent person is murdered. It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Mr. Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none.

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Ed. You can print this article. Click the print link below.
OrthodoxEurope.org

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: Orthodox Participation in the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches

In the opinion of Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima (Patriarchate of Constantinople), the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Porto Alegre, Brazil, was an “Orthodox assembly”. Metropolitan Gennadios, one of the leading activists of the ecumenical movement, voiced this opinion at the inter-Orthodox meeting which took place during the course of the assembly.

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Ed. Now this . . .

Thessaloniki, 28 February 2006 (13:55 UTC+2)

Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and All Albania was unanimously elected World Council of Churches President in the 9th general
assembly meeting held at the Roman Catholic University of Porto Alegre in Brazil.

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Note how an Orthodox leader presumes to speak for all Orthodox.

Institute on Religion and Democracy Alan Wisdom

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil-Delegates representing U.S. denominations at the Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches issued a letter February 18 begging God’s forgiveness for their nation’s policies relating to war, the environment, and poverty. “From a place seduced by the lure of empire we come to you in penitence,” they said, “eager for grace, grace sufficient to transform spirits grown weary from the violence, degradation, and poverty our nation has sown, grace sufficient to transform spirits grown heavy with guilt, grace sufficient to transform the world.”

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AP BRIAN MURPHY

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of “raining down terror” and apologizing to other nations for “the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown.”

Ecumenical News International Jerry L. Van Marter

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Income and reserves have declined by 30 per cent since its last gathering, the Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) was told on Feb. 20 by its finance committee.

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My latest piece, published in Touchstone Magazine.

by Johannes L. Jacobse

Few people noticed when the 390,000-member Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese (AOA) withdrew from the National Council of Churches (NCC) last summer. But the importance of the move was not lost on ecumenical observers. When a long-term member walks out of the NCC, it indicates deep problems—in this case, that an Orthodox jurisdiction felt that the politicization of the NCC was hampering it from preaching the gospel in American society. If the Antiochians acted, how many others among the 35 member churches (and not just among the Orthodox) felt the same way?

. . . more

Ed. I will comment on this when I return. Look at The United Churches of Castro for a glimpse at the WCC’s track record on freedom and liberation. They fall all over themselves to apologize for everything except their own activities. Note too the religious language used. It lends an air of authority to their critique without having to defend their ideas. It is the same technique used when they crawled into bed with Marx three decades back.

US CHRISTIAN LEADERS APOLOGIZE TO ASSEMBLY PLENARY ON VIOLENCE, POVERTY AND
ECOLOGY

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