Rev. Joan Campbell Takes Reins of National Council of Churches

The Rev. Joan B. Campbell was installed as the seventh general secretary of the National Council of Churches during a three-hour worship service here attended by top leaders of virtually all the major council-affiliated denominations and Jewish and Muslim representatives.

In a midweek service at cavernous Riverside Church that was marked by a lengthy processional, several brief sermons, singing and shouts of “Amen!” Campbell was praised for her dedication to the ecumenical movement and exhorted to greater heights.

But well-wishers also cautioned that the ecumenical path will continue to be full of the twists and turns that have characterized the movement for the past decade.

The Rev. Gardner Taylor, retired pastor of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, the featured preacher at the service, said of Campbell: “She brings to this responsibility a wisdom refined in the crucible of experience.”

But he warned too that Campbell is taking the reins of the council at “one of the trickiest and most treacherous periods in our nation’s life,” at a time when institutions, including the council, are “not only suspect but under indictment.”

Ordained in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Churches, Campbell comes to her new job after having served since 1985 as director of the U.S. office of the World Council of Churches.

In 1979-85, she was assistant general secretary of the National Council’s Commission on Regional and Local Ecumenism. Before that she was associate director of the Greater Cleveland Interchurch Council and pastor of the Euclid Baptist Church there.

She also worked for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, heading a social action agency.

Campbell is the second woman and first woman minister to head the National Council of Churches, which embraces 32 Protestant and Orthodox denominations, with total membership of more than 40 million.

The Rev. Emilio Castro, a Methodist from Uruguay who is general secretary of the World Council of Churches, spoke for the global community when he cautioned Campbell and the council to distinguish the National Council from political groups.

“It’s a place of prayer,” he said. “Keep that clearly in front of the American public.”

Castro also warned the council against being caught up in too many international concerns, to the exclusion of domestic issues. “Be first of all an American--a national--council of churches,” he urged.

Also among the featured speakers was the Rev. Bernice King, daughter of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

She praised the council for being on the “the cutting edge” but nonetheless criticized the churches generally for being “hesitant to reach out and get involved.”

King called on Christians to “come out of our colorful pews, roll up our sleeves and come out from behind the beautiful stained-glass windows. . . . The time has passed for timid, docile, passive, reticent Christians.”

Campbell was formally installed by the Rev. John Humbert, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

After she was installed, Campbell heard from the Rev. Albert Pennybacker, professor of homiletics at Lexington Seminary in Kentucky and pastor of the church Campbell attended in Cleveland.

“How sweet it is, how sweet it is,” said Pennybacker, recalling the active role Campbell played in his congregation. “I charge you to continue to be what you have long been.”

Finally, Campbell had a chance to speak. She chose first to call members of her family to join her at the chancel and thanked them for their support.

Turning to the audience, she said, “The task of our time is to live courageously. . . . We are called to strengthen the bonds of unity . . . even as we are called to advocate our diversity.”

The nation, she said, faces “a deep and profound spiritual crisis.”

“The signs of pain and poverty, greed and avarice, are all around us.”

Campbell, who is white, is an energetic advocate for minorities. During the service, an American Indian honor song was performed by Tolly Estes, a Crow Creek Dakota. And earlier in the day, during a worship service hosted by Indians at the Interchurch Center, Campbell was given an Indian name that translates Woman With Many Friends.