Wow, here’s the National Council of Churches, heading a movement with a website similar in spirit to the Call To Renewal speaheaded by Jim Wallis and others like Tony Campolo. I hear criticism of them , usually in the same breath, from Religious Right fundamentalists, including Southern Baptists, who disdain and cast aspersion on all things ecumenical. I think it has to do with “getting along” and finding common ground, which they just can’t bring their dogmatic theologies to recognize. Besides, they’re too wrapped up in all this “liberal”, “anti-American” stuff.
Just listen to this “dangerous stuff”:
Drawing on our country’s founding values and the profound social justice message at the heart of every major religion, we stand for:
* Respecting the dignity and equality of all people as part of a single human family;
* Working to end human suffering in all forms and in all places;
* Promoting unity, inclusion and peace among all people and all faiths;
* Acting as stewards of God’s creation;
* Practicing and promoting respectful, sincere political & religious debate that looks for truth on all sides and seeks only the common good;
* Striving in our own lives, as a community and as a nation to live up to the values we proclaim and being honest with ourselves when we do not.
FaithfulAmerica.org is a project of the National Council of Churches with support from TrueMajority and Res Publica.
William Sloane Coffin is its Honorary Chairperson.