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In their rebuttals, Protestant church spokesmen have scored some telling points. For instance, it is true that substantial church money went to a Nicaraguan government literacy campaign that was suffused with revolutionary propaganda. But in its show, CBS omitted the fact that the U.S. Government has supported the same program with far more cash than the churches sent.
But much of the argumentation skirts the core questions: What is the political line of secular groups that receive Protestant funding? Do the churches take enough responsibility for the political activities of these groups? Have in-house church programs and pronouncements shown a leftist pattern? The situation is complex, but there is some fire behind the acrid smoke. Items:
> The N.C.C. says flatly that its money goes only to church agencies and "is not given to political organizations." Actually, it has funded a number of secular groups that are unarguably political, and one-sidedly so. One recipient is the North American Congress on Latin America. Unapologetically leftist, it hardly ever finds anything to criticize in Cuba or Nicaragua. Two other groups funded by the churches helped set up the n Washington-based Committee in Solidarity with the People of E1 Salvador, a totally uncritical support group for the partly Marxist guerrilla forces in that nation. Shrugs one of its officials: "In a war, innocent people get killed. We've picked a side. It's not our place to comment on how the people in El Salvador are fighting."
> The N.C.C. points to three resolutions on Soviet religious repression in the past six years to prove it is not soft on Communism. But the N.C.C. aids Christians Associated for Relationships with Eastern Europe. CAREE, in turn, is a U.S. coordinator for the Prague-based Christian Peace Conference, a Kremlin mouthpiece so shameless that it supports the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
> The N.C.C. denies the charge that it has funded Communist governments. But it has in fact channeled material goods to the Viet Nam regime in order to help peasants. While that is the only way to operate in the totalitarian country, N.C.C. statements consistently ignore the fact that the "new economic zones" it supports are part of an oppressive political pattern. Churches would never be so shortsighted in treating, say, South Africa.
In the din of charge and countercharge it is sometimes hard to remember that this is a very large battle over very small sums. The bulk of the $115 million a week collected by N.C.C. member churches goes to good works, and even in the modest portion of the budgets dealing with political controversy, only a fraction goes to disputed causes. But Theologian Carl EH. Henry, an I.R.D. board member, observes, no doubt accurately, that many Protestants object to helping Marxists with even a single penny: "It's like virginity. You don't lose it in percentages."