United Church of Christ

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The United Church of Christ (United Church of Christ, UCC) is a church in the United States that was formed in 1957 through the merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches . It is counted among the Mainline Churches in the USA .

According to its website, in 2018 the UCC had approximately 800,000 church members in more than 4,800 local congregations. The Association of Religion Data Archives has a membership of 1,058,423 for 2010.

history

The two previous churches of the UCC go back to church unions . The Congregational Christian Churches came into being in 1931 through the merger of the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States and General Convention of the Christian Church , a branch of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that emerged at the beginning of the 19th century . The origins of the former date back to the Pilgrim Fathers who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620 and the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who came to America in 1629 and 1630 and founded the city of Boston . The organizational principle of both groups was congregationalism .

The other branch of the UCC was fed by two waves of emigrants from German Protestants and the founding of churches: the Palatinate Reformed Church in the United States and the Evangelical Synod of North America , which was the American version of the Evangelical Church in Prussia .

Thus, some of the oldest Protestant churches in the United States are united in the UCC with those whose traditions arose from other countries and only came to America through immigration in the 18th and 19th centuries. The plan for a union was contractually fixed as early as 1943; the drafting of a church constitution dragged on until 1957.

structure

In the UCC, the parishes enjoy a great deal of autonomy. Each of the approx. 5000 parishes belongs to one of the 38 conferences , which (with the exception of the Hungarian-born Calvin Conference ) are regionally divided. The highest organ is the General Synod , which only meets every two years . A board leads the church between its meetings . A General Minister and President (comparable to a German church president) represents the church externally. Since the mid-1990s, church administration has been in Cleveland , Ohio .

Self-image

The UCC describes itself with four key words: Christian , Reformed , Congregational and Evangelical . Under these headings, the local churches enjoy great freedom in organizing worship services, church life, and rules of belief.

The motto of the UCC can be found in Joh 17.21  EU : “That they are all one.” The principles of the UCC are broad and emphasize the freedom of conscience and the autonomy of the local communities. In its entirety, the UCC in the US is viewed as a moderate or liberal Christian church. Since Antoinette Brown was the first woman to be ordained pastor in a Congregational Church in 1853 , the UCC can now look back on more than 160 years of ordination of women .

The 25th General Synod of the UCC on July 4, 2005 in Atlanta voted by a large majority as the first major church in the USA to allow same-sex marriage . The Iglesia Evangelica Unida de Puerto Rico , which had been a conference (regional synod) of the Congregational Christian Churches and then the UCC since 1931, then decided to leave the UCC with a three-quarters majority. In April 2014, the United Church of Christ filed a lawsuit against the ban on same-sex marriage in the United States.

The theology of the UCC was influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich , who were members of the previous churches of the UCC and of the UCC since 1957.

Ecumenical Relations

The UCC is a member of the World Council of Churches , the World Fellowship of Reformed Churches and the National Council of Churches of the USA . She is a founding member of the Churches Uniting in Christ .

Full communion fellowship was agreed with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Reformed Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the Formula of Agreement . Corresponding agreements have also been made with the Union of Evangelical Churches (UEK) in Germany and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) . Since 2009 the UCC has been striving for a church fellowship with the German EKD .

There is an ongoing dialogue with the Alliance of Baptists .

Well-known members of the UCC and its predecessor churches

Theologians and activists

Politician

Others

Council for Higher Education

The UCC maintains a Council for Higher Education, which acts as a link between 46 universities and the UCC. Membership in the council takes one of two forms: full members are denominational universities committed to promoting the goals of the UCC and the Christian faith; Through their membership, historical members recognize their historical connection to the UCC or one of its predecessor churches, but are mostly not confessional. Historic members also include prominent liberal arts colleges such as Beloit College , Carleton College , Franklin and Marshall College, and Grinnell College , as well as universities with a tradition particularly indebted to African Americans , such as Fisk University .

literature

  • Barbara Rudolph: The United Church of Christ (UCC) in the United States of America. In: Johannes Ehmann (Ed.): The Church of the Union. History - Theology - Perspectives. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2019, pp. 183–209.

Web links

Commons : United Church of Christ  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A statistical profile 2019 Research from the ucc center for analytics, research and data (CARD) - United Church of Christ
  2. ↑ [1] .
  3. ^ UCC celebrates an anniversary: ​​150 years of women clergy , accessed January 28, 2016.
  4. ↑ Minutes of the 25th General Synod , p. 30f (PDF document)
  5. ↑ http://news.ucc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=581&Itemid=54 ( Memento from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ DeutschlandRadioKultur: US Church complains against the ban on gay marriage
  7. ↑ [2]
  8. ^ EKD and US Church strive for church fellowship
  9. ↑ a b c d Hubbard United Church of Christ (section "Who We Are")
  10. ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27775757/