06195
March 31, 2006

NCC president urges communicators
to take on challenge of ‘false religion’

by Dan Webster
NCC News and Information Office

CLEVELAND — The president of the National Council of Churches (NCC), the Rev. Michael Livingston, has urged church communicators to “tell our story — by any means necessary.”

        Livingston, a Presbyterian minister who also serves as executive director of the International Council of Community Churches, said: “Mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches have been pounded into irrelevancy by the media machine of a false religion.”

        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.”

        Livingston made his remarks on March 27 during the semi-annual meeting of the NCC’s Communications Commission. He was speaking to about 30 communicators from some of the NCC’s 35 member denominations.

        “Get it (our story) out there,” he said, “this truth about the human condition and the work of the church, these churches, this one effort of millions of Christians alongside and through NCC/CWS (Church World Service) to live in obedience to the word of the one who sends us into the world: ‘When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it unto me.’  It all comes down to this: Love God and your neighbor.”

        Livingston lamented the media attraction to the likes of the Rev. Pat Robertson, and Christians’ ignorance of the work of agencies like CWS, Lutheran World Relief and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.

        The communicators were challenged not to mimic or imitate others.

        “We need fresh approaches to telling our story, reaching and touching our nation with what we know to be a faithful response to the gospel,” Livingston said, naming FaithfulAmerica.org as an example of a group effectively sharing the good news of faithful Christians responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ.