Embattled Ecumenism: The National Council of Churches, the Vietnam War, and the Trials of the Protestant Left

Abstract

For an older generation of mainline Protestant clergy, the word ecumenical had an aura of hope and glory that is largely lost today. As Jill K. Gill explains, in the years after World War II, ecumenical meant more than “Methodists and Baptists [getting] together for tea” (p. 147). To ecumenists, the term meant a modern Christian consensus, a coalition speaking with one powerful voice on theological, social, and political issues, engaged with society yet standing apart from it. Gill's book recovers the story of the ecumenical movement in the history of Vietnam War–era America, focusing on the National Council of Churches (ncc) as the primary institutional expression of that movement. Gill makes detailed use of the ncc archives, Methodist and Presbyterian records, and interchurch periodicals. Her interviews with movement leaders add illuminating new material. The book comprises an introduction, five broad sections, an epilogue, and an appendix. The introduction and part 1 provide a useful survey of the Protestant ecumenical movement. The remaining four sections are a straightforward chronological account of the ncc's work on the war from 1964 through 1973. This is an effective and often-dramatic approach. The author keeps in view many different events, processes, interests, and decisions in a rapidly changing situation. She traces the council's shift in strategy from persuasion to protest—and the consequences of this shift for Christian unity. The epilogue surveys the ncc's history since 1973, notably its declining size, internal tensions, and recent refocusing. The appendix, which adopts a stance of advocacy, is an odd fit with the rest of the book.