Supporting WHICH troops???

[Gimpy]

love to see the "source" of those so-called "Interesting facts regard NCC".

I suppose it's like the "other" side of religious leanings and "their" so-called "agendas" they espouse for all of us to follow, right?

The "truth" I'm sure falls somewhere "in between".

Regardless, the info below describes in great detail WHO the NCC is and their "agendas".

########


The National Council of Churches, founded in 1950, is the leading force for ecumenical cooperation among Christians in the United States.

The NCC's 36 Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American and Living Peace member faith groups include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation


Statement of Faith


"The National Council of Churches is a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord. These communions covenant with one another to manifest ever more fully the unity of the Church. Relying upon the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, the communions come together as the Council in common mission, serving in all creation to the glory of God." --from the Preamble to the NCC Constitution.


This general statement is accepted by all 36 of the NCC's member churches (also called communions, conventions and denominations), which as Christian bodies hold these and many other beliefs in common. Each of the member communions also has a unique heritage, including teachings and practices that differ from those of other members.


As they gather in the Council, the member communions grow in understanding of each other's traditions. They work to identify and fully claim those areas of belief they hold in common; they celebrate the diverse and unique gifts that each church brings to ecumenical life; and together they study those issues that divide the churches. And they cooperate in many joint programs of education, advocacy and service that address critically important needs and that witness to our common faith in Jesus Christ.

Member Communions

NCC member churches reflect the diversity of Christianity in the United States. They also vary greatly in size and in the geographic distribution of their congregations, their style of worship, even the architecture of their buildings.

Each participating denomination brings distinctive faith traditions to the Council's common table. Protestant members include churches of British, German, Scandinavian and other European origin, historic African American churches, and immigrant churches from Korea and India. Orthodox member communions have roots in Greece, Syria, Russia, the Ukraine, Egypt, India and other places where Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy have long histories.

Reflecting the rich variety of its members, the NCC believes that genuine unity demands inclusivity and a respect for diversity, and strives to embody this belief in its programs, decision-making and staffing.

Full list of all 36 member communions, with links to their web sites.

General Assembly and Executive Board

Almost 300 representatives of the member communions come together annually as the General Assembly, the NCC's highest policy-making body. A smaller Board of Directors, which meets several times a year, acts on behalf of the General Assembly in many matters.

Click these links to read the news summary of the last four General Assembly sessions: 2004 in St. Louis, Mo.; 2003 in Jackson, Miss.; 2002 in Tampa, Fla.; and 2001 in Oakland, Calif.. For a listing of other major NCC-related meetings, see the Calendar.


Program Commissions

Working together in the Council, the communions carry out a wide range of ministries. Though founded in 1950, the Council continues the work of more than a dozen previously existing interdenominational organizations, many of which have roots that go back a century or more. Most of these ministries are carried out under the guidance of the Council's five program commissions, whose participants are drawn not only from the NCC's 36 member churches, but from a total of 54 denominations representing a broad spectrum of American Christianity, from Evangelicals to Roman Catholics to Pentecostals.


The commissions are:

Communication Commission
Education and Leadership Ministries Commission
Faith and Order Commission
Interfaith Relations Commission
Justice and Advocacy Commission

Through these ecumenical commissions, the NCC works for peace and justice in the United States, addressing issues ranging from poverty and racism, to the environment, family ministries, and much more. It serves churches through a wide variety of educational ministries. And it coordinates the production of national network television and cable TV programming of religious interest.

Scholarship and Publication

The Council has an honored history in the advancement of Biblical and theological scholarship. It hosts an ongoing conversation about Faith and Order -- doctrines and practices -- among scholars from a wide variety of denominations, including many faith groups beyond the membership of the NCC itself. It provides for the translation process that produced the Revised and New Revised Standard Versions of the Bible and works to increase the use of the Bible in churches and in the marketplace.

The NCC also collects and publishes the most comprehensive directory of information on American religious life in the annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. Each quarter, the Council also publishes EcuLink, a newspaper about the faith community that circulates to more than 100,000 readers across the nation. In cyberspace, the NCC sponsors a multifaith e-advocacy service, FaithfulAmerica.org, in addition to its own website.

Humanitarian and Public Policy Initiatives

Globally, the NCC's members engage in humanitarian work in more than 80 countries, including the United States, through Church World Service (CWS). With partner churches and ecumenical agencies around the world, CWS shares in the struggle to help move people beyond poverty and powerlessness.

Over five decades, CWS has provided more than 5.3 billion pounds of material assistance in support of community-based disaster relief and long-term development efforts. CWS aids uprooted people worldwide, including cooperative efforts with U.S. denominations and their congregations that have resettled some 400,000 refugees in this country. And CWS is a leader in advocacy and educational efforts that address root causes of poverty and violence in our world.

The NCC office that deals with public policy issues, based in Washington D.C., makes a strong witness on the moral and ethical dimensions of public policy issues. Working from a policy base developed by the churches over many decades, the NCC makes the views of the ecumenical community known to government and keeps its constituents informed of legislative and other developments of interest to the churches.

A Partnership Among People of Faith

The NCC's leadership helps to link faith groups throughout the country and worldwide. In addition to working closely with its member communions, the NCC maintains working relationships with the Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical and Pentecostal communities and other Christian bodies, and has reached out to numerous partners in ministry, both on the local and regional level, and in national alliances that help get important objectives accomplished.

The NCC also networks with the many ecumenical and interfaith organizations established at the local, state and regional level, in the U.S. and abroad. And it promotes harmonious relations among Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, practitioners of traditional Native American religion and many other faith groups in a society that is increasingly multireligious. The NCC has been particularly focused on building relationships between Christians and Muslims in the aftermath of the national crisis of September 2001.

And THAT...............is the REST OF THE STORY!

[BLUEHAWK]

The NCC can "reflect diversity" all it pleases. What matters is how they vote in plenary session. Read the minutes of their meetings if anyone wants the "proof."

My father and grandfather, grandmother and step-mother were all very strong members of the NCC all their ministerial lives... I know whereof I speak.

[Arrow]

Time Magazine

Going "Beyond Charity"

Should Christian cash be given to terrorists?

Monday, Oct. 02, 1978

Over the past eight years the World Council of Churches has given $2,640,000 to groups that oppose " racism." More than half went to black organizations in southern Africa that have used guerrilla violence in trying to overthrow white minority regimes. The revolutionary grants program began when the W.C.C. general secretary was Eugene Carson Blake, a liberal U.S. Presbyterian with a flair for politics. It was controversial from the start, but the W.C.C. easily lined up enough backing from its 293 Protestant and Orthodox member denominations to fend off critics.

TIME

I'm sure you will be able to find this in your local library or you can subscribe using the link above. Time has archived articles from 1923forwardonthe above site.There was a huge hoopla in Tulsa from the mainline church members that were none to happy to hear this news!. The National Council of Churches is directly connected to the World Council of Churches. The roots of these organizations are deeply embedded in socialist ideology and liberation theology. I'm sure there are many good well meaning Christians within these organizations but many individuals and churches have withdrawn when they come to understand the agenda of those in key positions. It's a great study if anyone cares to take the time.I'll post more as I have time.

Remember the Lord Jesus Christ was a carpenter by trade outside the religious establishment of His time and for that very reason they feared Him and conspired with the Roman government to have Him killed.Religious affliation is no more a ticket to righteousness than blowing yourself up on a bus.

[Arrow]

And where is the hue and cry against politics in the pulpit when it comes to WCC and NCC?

Just wondering...

[SuperScout]

How dare you bring up the subject of hypocrisy by the leftist!! Why, of all the nerve, exposing their commitment to marxist causes at the expense of the "little people". Don't you remember that it is leftists and liberals ( am I repeating myself here) who hold themselves out to be "... for the little people..." If you have any doubt, just look what the Supreme Court did to some "little people" up in the northeast.... took their very homes away from them.

Seriously, darlin' thanks for posting the truth about the NCC, a more devout bunch of commie sympathizers never existed. Those posts bring to mind a famous line uttered by Jack Nicholson, soemthing on the order of "... you just can't handle the truth....!" Poor Gimpy.

[Arrow]

Scout...

In my younger years I made contact with the United Methodist Church in the South during the days of the Civil Rights Movement. Good people that were not given to change but struggling to accept their black brothers and sisters in the Faith. It was an excruciating process for everyone that desired change. I took a stand in one of these churches in those years andbefore it wasover we had blacks and whites taking communion together. Long story and one I haven't thought of for many many years. I remember them with love and wish them all wellin recovering their churches from the radical left.....Sis

The following is an excerptof a report from Concerned Methodistout of North Carolina.The full report can be found as you follow the link. The phonenumbers are on the link if anyone cares to dispute thereport.I do hope everyone will be kind and considerate.

While there is much good that the United Methodist Church does with its money, we continue to be troubled by the fiscal prioritization evidenced, and by the lack of openness, honesty, and accountability in its overall use. The following historical information gives but a few examples of problems in how money has been used in the past:

- Analysis of GBGM expenditures during the four years 1984-87 shows that $54,694,344 given to 2,314 non-United Methodist groups equaled ninety-six percent of the World Service Fund received by the GBGM. [1]

- The amount of United Methodist Church money that actually goes to benevolent and mission causes has declined to 13 per cent and exhibits a continued downward trend. [2]

- Money from the ICF, United Methodist Women (UMW), World Service, CROP, special offerings, and various general boards and agencies go to support the NCC and subsequently Church World Service (CWS). Please consider how some of that money was used:

- $500,000 was given by CWS to the government of Vietnam to set up "New Economic Zones", a southeast Asian place of exile to which political undesirables are sent - a veritable "Siberia". People with no farming experience are sent there as punishment to fend for themselves; ethnic Chinese have braved death at sea to escape going to these locations. In another situation, Le Thi Loi, a Christian pastor, was executed for his work among the peasants; his was only one of 60,000 such deaths. CWS consistently works for political advocacy on behalf of this government. [3]

- Thousands of dollars support the Office of Development Policy (ODP), a CWS political lobby in Washington, DC. Larry Minear, head of the ODP, wrote an article critical of aid to the Afghan resistance and supportive of the Soviet-backed regime when it was in Kabul. Among other numerous atrocities and attempted genocide against the people, butterfly mines were used to intentionally maim and injure children. Pictures of this are available at the offices of Concerned Methodists. During all of the years of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and its numerous documented atrocities there, no credible protest was ever voiced by the NCC, WCC, or our own UMC leadership. [I, 3 ]

- Other CWS political activism has involved support of the Marxist governments in Mozambique, Cuba, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Vietnam, the Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO), the African National Congress (ANC), and pro-Sandinista elements in Nicaragua,. At Congressional hearings where the director of CWS testified as to the excellent conditions of Vietnamese "reeducation camps", Nguyen Van Coi, a survivor of those same camps testified: "I was given two small bowls of rice twice daily, plain rice with salt. The cell in which I was detained was 11 feet by 22 feet. There were around 81 prisoners in my cell. We had to lie on our sides because there was not enough room to lie on our backs during the night." [3]

- In excess of $754,000 was given to the ANC through the WCC. The ANC uses the method of "necklacing" to terrorize other Africans, which is the practice of taking any who displease the ANC, putting a tire around his or her neck and setting fire to gasoline poured over the victim.

- In excess of $1,348,000 was given to SWAPO by the WCC.

-$75,000 was given to the Christian Council on Mozambique, which is politically active on behalf of increased aid to that Marxist country.

http://www.cmpage.org/report95.html

[Gimpy]

Originally posted by Arrow And where is the hue and cry against politics in the pulpit when it comes to WCC and NCC?

Just wondering...

You're right. I suppose one could say there may be some semblance of hypocrisy within my use of the NCC to attempt to make a point with our Cowboy buddy from Rio Linda land.

To be truthful, I do NOT either endorse nor condemn them! I do believe however that the majority of folks included in their organization have done MUCH more good than harm in their fields of endeavor.

My POINT was to show that people of 'faith' (no matter of what particular denomination or sect) were in fact still "supporting" the troops AND can be "opposed" to the war!

I am PROUD AS HELL to include myself in this particular segment of this nations population.

PS-----And THAT is a "truth" I can damn well handle very well SirSuper!

[Arrow]

Gimpster...

You all watch your six down there in FL. I see you have anotherstorm coming at you. I'll keep you in my prayers.

Arrow>>>>>

ps. My hero's have always been Cowboys!

[Gimpy]

I'm-a watchin MY six..... and a bunch of others also!

Looks like Emily now might be-a headin fer south Texas after it whallops the Yucatan. I'll be-a sendin prayers ta a whole bunch of them ole 'Cowboys' it looks like!

Look out SuperWindy...........it might be-a comin at ya!

#####

Now, back to the 'subject' at hand!

Supporting the Troops!

Army recruitment is now regularly falling short of the necessary targets. Recruiters are having even more trouble persuading people to sign up for Army National Guard and Reserve units. The Marine Corps has been missing its much smaller monthly quotas as well.

Unless there is a sharp change later this year, both forces will soon start feeling the pinch as too few trainees are processed to meet both forces' operational needs.

Why this is happening is no mystery . Two years of seeing and listening to former high ranking members of the military, returning Iraq War Veterans, and the media speak out about too few troops on the ground, inadequate armor, extended tours of duty and accelerated rotations back into combat have taken their toll, discouraging potential enlistees and their parents.


The citizen-soldiers of the Guard and Reserves have suddenly become full-time warriors. Nor has it helped that when abuse scandals have erupted, the Pentagon has seemed quicker to punish lower-ranking soldiers than top commanders and policy makers. This negative cycle now threatens to feed on itself.


Fewer recruits will mean more stress on those now in uniform and more bad reports reaching hometowns across America.


Things might have been different if Rumsfeld had heeded the judgment of General Eric Shinseki, then the army chief of staff, in the months before the United States invaded Iraq and planned for a substantially larger occupation force.


A larger force would have kept the insurgency smaller and more manageable. It would have been better able to defend and police the borders of neighboring countries. Individual combat brigades would not have been under such constant operational stress.


But Rumsfeld rejected Shinseki's sound advice. The Pentagon now says it gives field commanders as many troops as they ask for. But those commanders are aware of Rumsfeld's doctrinaire commitment to holding down troop numbers and of the diminished career prospects that could result from challenging him.

The list of "retired" high ranking officers increased 5 fold in the months after Rummie took over the Pentagon. He pretty much "purged" anyone who voiced objections to his or Paul Wolfowitz's ideas and plans.

Now THAT'S what I call "supporting" the troops alright!.......

Yeah, RIGHT!........ :cd:


####

A recent poll was taken by major web source that reveals the facts about American "support for the troops".

Following is a summary of their results:

Can you Support the Troops Without Supporting the War?

Consider the following rationale when arriving at an answer.


No - if you oppose the mission, then you undermine the troops and that's disloyal.

Results = 15%

Yes - but it's important to emphasize wanting the troops to be safe, and not wanting them to be doing what they are engaged in.

Results = 77%


I don't know .

Results = 2%

I don't care.

Results = 4%

So it's apparent that the narrowminded view of most far-rightwing folks is NOT as profound and widespread as they profess.


####

[SuperScout]

This has been posted before, but due to others with galloping senility, I'll post it again: Shinseki was at the end of his tenure as CoS of the Army, had long been a proponent large scale operations, notwithstanding the fact that current and projected opposing forces obviated against maintaining large numbers of armored divisions. His inability and unwillingness to view the current counter-terrorist objectives is why he was ignored, and all the more reason why GEN Schoomaker was pulled out of retirement to be the Army's Chief of Staff. As an expert on small-unit actions and operations, the new CoS knew better how to fight terrorists.

The larger the footprint of coalition forces, the larger the target for the terrorists. And with each additional door-kicker on the ground, there is a concommitant supply and support trail of 8-10 people. Unlike the situation when we were in Vietnam, we have brilliant senior leaders involved in Iraq and elsewhere, not a bunch of suck-up toadies like Harold K. Johnson. If the alleged recently departed high-ranking officers numbers has increased, that's only paranoid allegations that a purge happened or was about to happen.

And polls??? Polls are like rectums - everybody has one, so BFD. As anyone even in Tampa can realize, the questions can be worded in such a way to obtain practically any result that is foreordained by the pollster. Your boy Slick Willie governed by polls, while Bush governs by commitment to principles and integrity.