Former Reformed Church Head Is Nominated for Top Ncc Position

Arie Brouwer, former general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, has been nominated to head the National Council of Churches (NCC). His nomination as NCC general secretary is expected to be confirmed this month by the council’s 266-member governing board.

A 28-member committee headed by Donald Shriver, president of Union Theological Seminary (N.Y.), nominated Brouwer after a seven-month search process. NCC sources said Brouwer was chosen over one other finalist, William Watley, a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Shriver praised Brouwer for his “wide range of talents and commitments” and “deep theological rootage.… [He] embodies a proper evangelical piety alongside a great concern for social justice.”

Jerome DeJong, a long-time friend of Brouwer, agrees that the nominee is “evangelical in his faith and in his theology.” But DeJong is unhappy with Brouwer’s nomination to head the NCC.

“I don’t understand why he took this [nomination] …,” said DeJong, a Reformed Church in America pastor for 40 years. “Perhaps he feels that he can do something to move the council in a more evangelical direction.… I think it [the NCC] is a lost cause.”

Since last year, Brouwer, 49, has headed the social-action arm of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. He served as general secretary of the 346,000-member Reformed Church in America from 1977 to 1983. He holds degrees from Hope College and Western Theological Seminary, both in Holland, Michigan. Ordained to the ministry in 1959, he served as a pastor in Michigan and New Jersey.

If he is elected this month, Brouwer will become the fifth general secretary in the NCC’s history. Claire Randall, 62, the Presbyterian laywoman who has been general secretary since 1974, will step down at the end of this year. The NCC is an ecumenical organization of 31 Protestant and Orthodox denominations representing some 40 million Christians.

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C. Douglas Jay has been elected president of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Jay is principal of Emmanuel College of Victoria University in Toronto, Ontario, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. The association includes schools related to Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches.

W. A. Criswell, 74, last month celebrated his fortieth anniversary as pastor of the 25,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Criswell pastored churches in Oklahoma before coming to Dallas’s First Baptist, which then had 7,804 members. Today it occupies 10 buildings in downtown Dallas, including a seven-story recreation and parking building. The church boasts 22 choirs with a combined membership of more than 11,000, 120 paid staff members, a bowling alley, a skating rink, and a theater. Its budget this year will total more than $11 million. At his anniversary celebration, Criswell said he had no plans to retire.

Gordon MacDonald, senior pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts, became minister at large of World Vision U.S. on November 1. MacDonald, 45, also serves as chairman of the World Vision board of directors. As minister at large, he will be one of the organization’s principal spokesmen within the evangelical community. He resigned his pastorate October 31.

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