30 years ago — January 7, 1991
Meeting in Portland, Ore., the National Council of Churches’ General Board celebrated its 40th anniversary not only with vivid images and reflections on the past; the meeting was part of the mounting evidence that, as one delegate put it, “the council has come alive again!”
A new NCC leadership team was presented to the board, Joan Brown Campbell was unanimously elected as NCC general secretary. Campbell, the first woman minister to serve as NCC general secretary, has standing as a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and in the American Baptist Churches.
She challenged the board, saying, “What we need in the time ahead is to strengthen the base of ecumenically minded persons across the country so that a corps is built of many, many people who not only tolerate the ecumenical movement, but demand it.” …
A sobering eyewitness account of the civil war in Liberia from recent visits by church leaders, as well as addresses by the general secretaries of the South Africa Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches, enabled a significant deliberation on these three centers of conflict.
From “Toward the year 2000: The NCC’s fifth decade,” by John Lindner
