John Lomperis asks a great question:

Christian churches of any sort are right to be careful and thoughtful about the specific causes and organizations to which they do and do not give their public support, as such decisions are important part of what they tell a watching world about their faith and about the triune God. And if a church cannot or will not take the time to examine what a given organization actually does, it makes little sense to bestow a blank-check ecclesial endorsement on the organization’s activities.

So what exactly is accomplished by all but one of the jurisdictions of Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States being member communions of the National Council of Churches (NCC)?

More:

No, the first and foremost effective purpose of the modern NCC is to promote the values of theologically liberal/heterodox Protestantism and to use the name and resources of churches as a politically convenient tool to promote partisan public-policy agendas, including ones that directly oppose clear Scriptural teachings.

Devout Eastern Orthodox prize their church’s identity as the bearer of what they see as unbroken Christian tradition. Of course, important parts of this tradition’s moral teachings are the basic Christian moral values of valuing the lives of unborn children and honoring the God-given boundaries of sex only within man-woman marriage.

Yet over the years, IRD has documented numerous instances of the NCC defending abortion and/or homosexual practice while demonizing those who stand up for Christian values (at least nominally shared by Eastern Orthodox leaders) on such issues. To say nothing of the over-the-top interpersonal rudeness that NCC staffers have been known to aim at Christians who do not share their liberal Protestant values.

… Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with the direction and values of a church council of which they are a part being shaped by the input of people who deny the divinity of Christ, while Protestants who actually believe in the Nicene Creed are often disproportionately excluded from such discussions in the NCC? Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with their name, through the NCC, being associated with a radical group’s work to promote religious support for abortion and sexual immorality?

If Eastern Orthodox leaders choose to remain silent, this would tragically be consistent with their past behavior.

These are very good questions — though it should be said that the writer, a Methodist, is incorrect that the Antiochians are the only North America Orthodox jurisdiction not a member of the NCC. ROCOR, for example, is not part of the group, and there are other smaller jurisdictions not affiliated (here’s the membership list). In the main, though, he’s right. I can’t for the life of me understand why any Orthodox church that believed in Orthodoxy would have anything to do with this outfit. About the best thing that can be said for the NCC is that it has become irrelevant. As Mark Tooley writes:

Ironically, nearly all the Mainline denominations housed there would begin their nearly 50-year membership decline just a few years later. A sanitized Protestantism without doctrine or distinctions simply became too boring to sustain. In the early 1960s, about one of every six Americans belonged to the seven largest Mainline denominations. Today, it’s one out of every 15.

Likely unable to conceive of such a dramatic spiral, the NCC’s chief pronounced at the Interfaith Center’s 1960 dedication: “It is the prayer of all who worked toward its creation that this will become more than a symbol of the growing spiritual unity of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Churches in America.” Those days were heady times for the Mainline denominations, who were flush with members, money and influence. Church offices in the God Box then claimed to represent 40 million church members.

The “growing spiritual unity”? That hasn’t exactly worked out, has it — and to the extent it has, this has not been to Orthodoxy’s benefit. “Mainline” US Orthodoxy — Episcopalians in klobuks, basically — will die too.