Guide to the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America Special Topics Records

When the National Council of Churches was founded in 1950 the agencies of which it was composed were located in eight buildings in New York City and in Chicago. The Constituting Convention in Cleveland directed the General Board

…to appoint a special committee…to study the question of Headquarters Location, and…to weigh carefully in that study the advantage and possibility of establishing such headquarters in an area reasonably adjacent to the population center of the United States.

An initial committee made general recommendations, proposing that New York be the temporary headquarters and that one or two centers be chosen for permanent location. A Headquarters Committee of Ten was then instructed to make final proposals. It met until 1954, engaging in extensive research and intensive discussion. In 1954 New York was chosen as the site for the single headquarters and subsequently 475 Riverside Drive, adjacent to Riverside Church, was chosen as the location on land given by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Rockefeller provided a loan of $15,000,000 toward the building costs.

In 1956 the Protestant Center, Inc. renamed itself The Interchurch Center, Inc. and prepared to build the new headquarters building with the National Council and several denominational agencies as stockholders. Groundbreaking was on November 17, 1957 and President Eisenhower laid the cornerstone on October 12, 1958. Tenants began to occupy the building a year later, and the dedication of the entire eighteen story structure was held on May 29, 1960.

The building, which cost in excess of $20,000,000 housed when it opened 43 agencies, nine of them denominational offices. There was intense controversy over the location of the headquarters and the site chosen in New York. There were also many complexities in organizing an institution with many diverse tenants. It is important to remember that although the Interchurch Center was the result of the need for a unified headquarters for the NCC, the Council was not the owner but a tenant in a building owned by an independent corporation.

In 1955 Walter Van Kirk of the Department of International Affairs, NCC, proposed an NCC delegation to visit the churches of the Soviet Union. This proposal was expressed as an implementation of the appeal of the second General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1954:

…to the representatives of the churches in those countries between which tension exists to visit one another, so that they may gain a better understanding of one another, and of the countries in which they live, and thus strengthen the bonds of fellowship, and promote the reconciliation of the nations.

Later authorization for these exchanges was also claimed from President Eisenhower's "People to People" program.

National Council delegations visited churches in the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1962 and return visits were paid by Soviet church leaders in 1956 and 1963. An exchange of theological students was also arranged as a result of these visits.

The setting which made these visits occasions of drama included both the Cold War and the initial hostility of the Eastern European Orthodox churches, led by the Russian Orthodox Church, to the World Council of Churches, which they saw as the ecclesiastical counterpart of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. An especially important incentive for the American visit was to dispel the impression that the American churches opposed disarmament and the easing of international tensions. This impression was common in Eastern Europe as a result of the refusal of the National and World Council of Churches to endorse the First Stockholm Peace Appeal, sponsored by the World Peace Council.

The exchanges proved lively, thought provoking and fruitful. Personal contacts proved their usefulness during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1961 the Russian Orthodox Church led the other Eastern European Orthodox churches into the World Council of Churches. The opposition of right wing groups in this country to the exchanges was the only significant obstacle and that did not finally detract from their value and significance.

The NCC and its predecessors were regularly attacked by opponents of church unity, liberal social or theological views, and modern translations of the Bible. In the late 1930's the Research Department of the FCC began keeping files on those who published attacks on the Council, and this practice was carried over into the NCC. Much of the biographical material came from the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith.

Although other attacks before and since have been more damaging, the peak of NCC's "media visibility" came through its vigorous response to the Air Force Training Manual, 45-0050 Incr. V Vol. 7, in January 1960. The manual stated, "From a variety of authoritative sources, there appears to be overwhelming evidence of Communist anti-religious activity in the United States through the infiltration of fellow-travelers into churches and educational institutions" (15-14). The statement on "Communism in Religion" attacked the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, and names many clerical "fellow-travelers", especially E. Stanley Jones and Harry F. Ward.

Prompt action led to the withdrawal of the Manual and public apologies by Thomas S. Gates, the Secretary of Defense, and Air Force Secretary Dudley Sharpe. A counter-attack by Francis Walter of the House Un-American Activities Committee renewed the controversy, which included debate in Congress and much press comment lasting until June. The controversy brought new attention to longtime critics of FCC and NCC, whose writings were the real sources of the Manual's assertions; notably Carl McIntire, Edgar C. Bundy, and Billy James Hargis.

Complete responsibility for NCC's response to the Manual was delegated to Judge James W. Wine of Kentucky. He was appointed to the new office of Associate General Secretary for Public Interpretation in January 1959. His office was specifically created to deal with the rising intensity of right-wing criticism of the Council in the late 1950's. His background as a laymen, lawyer, and World War II infantry colonel strengthened his hand in dealing with this essentially political issue. In August 1960 Mr. Wine resigned from the Council to join J.F. Kennedy's presidential campaign staff.

The most tangible contribution of the National Council to the churches has been the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. The complete Bible was published in September 1952, early in the life of the Council, with the pomp characteristic of that period. Since then the Apocrypha and the Catholic Edition of the RSV have appeared.

NCC received the RSV from a predecessor body, the International Council of Religious Education, whose work was continued by the Division of Christian Education of the Council. The ICRE acquired the copyright to the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901) in 1929, and in 1930 decided that a revision was called for. Preliminary work on a new translation was suspended in 1932 for financial reasons. The Standard Bible Committee was formed in 1937, and continuous work by 15 scholars resulted in the publication of the New Testament in 1946, the complete Bible in 1952, and the Apocrypha in 1957.

In a campaign which began in 1953, British Roman Catholic biblical scholars succeeded in having the text of the RSV, with minor changes and added notes, accepted as an official Roman Catholic Bible, despite the explicit canon forbidding the general use of bibles translated by non-Catholics. The RSV Catholic Edition received the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Edinburgh in 1963 and world-wide authorization by the approbation of the Holy Office in 1964. A copy was presented to Pope Paul VI, and Luther Weigle received the Papal Knighthood of St. Gregory for his efforts on its behalf.

This great ecumenical triumph was marred by a legal case brought by three of the licensed publishers of the original RSV who maintained that the exclusive 20 year contract granted Thomas Nelson & Sons to publish the Catholic Edition infringed their agreements with the Council. The arbitrators found for the plaintiffs, but merely authorized them to publish the revised text itself, without the notes, introductory material or imprimatur, and assessed no damages. These painful proceedings, thus, had little effect on the publication of the new Catholic Bible.

The Standard Bible Committee consisted of the translators themselves. The Committee on the Use and Understanding of the Bible and the Department of English Bible promoted the use of the RSV. All three agencies were financed by royalties on the sale of this Bible.