UCCtruths

In January, Bob Edgar boasted that he was brought in as General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ to do three things: "raise money, raise money and raise money". However, as Edgar leaves the National Council of Churches, the organization is now, according to UC News, left with "projected $1.2 million budget shortfalls for the current and subsequent fiscal years".

Edgar's life as a Congressman-turned-minister has been steeped in partisan politics... and at times to the detriment of the National Council of Churches.

In 2005, the United Methodist Church (Edgar's own church and the largest member of the National Council of Churches) sent a "letter of concern" to the NCC over the departure of the Antiochian Orthodox Church and to “take immediate steps to understand” why the Orthodox church left the NCC. In the same letter, the United Methodist Church also expressed it's "disdain" over a politically loaded fundraising letter that Edgar sent out earlier in the year.

Edgar's initial reaction to the criticism he received from the letter was to suggest a conspiracy of "those who try to dilute our witness and mislead our friends by suggesting that the National Council of Churches is a partisan, left-leaning organization." However, the tune changed after the UMC letter. Thomas Hoyt, then President of the National Council of Churches, said that Edgar now “has acknowledged that the letter was sent from the development office without proper review."

Edgar is gone and his legacy is a weaker, financially strapped National Council of Churches.