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The United Church of Christ is a blend of four principal traditions – Congregational, Christian, Evangelical, and Reformed. Each of these traditions has left a mark on U.S. history and culture.
1620: Seeking spiritual freedom the people who became known as the Pilgrims traveled to the New World. These people are the forebears of the UCC. During the early days of the colony the Congregational churches spread rapidly through New England. The members aim to create a model for a just society lived in the presence of God. Leader John Winthrop says that "we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people upon us." 1700: Congregationalists are among the first Americans to take a stand against slavery. The Rev. Samuel Sewall writes the first anti-slavery pamphlet, laying the foundation for the abolitionist movement of the next century. 1785: Lemuel Haynes is the first African American ordained by a Protestant denomination. He becomes world-renowned as a preacher and a writer. 1798: Dissident preacher James O’Kelly is one of the early founders of a religious movement which aims to restore the simplicity of the original Christian church. It is called "Christians" and eventually is one of the churches joined in the UCC. 1840: A meeting of pastors in Missouri forms the Evangelical Synod, uniting two Protestant traditions that have been separated for centuries: Lutheran and Reformed. The Evangelicals believe in the power of tradition but also in spiritual freedom. 1839: Enslaved Africans break their chains and seize control of the schooner Amistad. They are captured and tried and Congregationalists and other Christians organize a campaign to free the captives. Eventually the Supreme Court rules that the Africans are not property and they regain their freedom. 1846: The Amistad case is a spur to the conscience of Congregationalists and Lewis Tappan, one of the Amistad organizers, helps form the American Missionary Association – the first anti-slavery society in the U.S. with multiracial leadership. 1853: Antoinette Brown is the first woman since New Testament times ordained as a Christian minister, and perhaps the first woman in history elected to serve a congregation as a pastor. 1897: Congregationalist Washington Gladden is one of the first leaders of the Social Gospel movement. This group preaches that we should truly "love others as we love ourselves" and denounces injustice and the exploitation of the poor. 1957 The UCC is born when the Evangelical and Reformed Church unites with the Congregational Christian churches. 1959: Southern TV stations impose a news blackout on the civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King Jr. asks the UCC to intervene. Everett Parker of the UCC’s office of Communication organizes and wins in Federal court a ruling that the airwaves are public, not private property. The decision helps people of color find jobs in TV studios and newsrooms. 1972: The UCC’s Golden Gate Association ordains the first opened gay person as a minister in a mainline Protestant denomination – the Rev. William Johnson. Over the next decades the General Synod urges equal rights for homosexual citizens and calls for congregations to welcome gay, lesbian and bisexual members. In 2005 it supports equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." ––Gracie Allen These words were written by comedienne Gracie Allen before her death, and have been a source of strength to many ever since. The United Church of Christ has adopted this slogan as an identity statement. We believe it tells us that God is vibrant and active in our lives, calling us –– Today and always–– God is still speaking! How We Interpret the Bible As a Christian congregation, the Bible is our story. In this incredibly varied book about human relationship with God, we see an astonishing diversity of human experience (including belief in God, questions asked of God, anger at God, peace with God, and much more). Stories allow us to enter into the larger narrative of our ancestors, to understand that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. The stories we learn from the Bible also help us explore relationships, ethics, creativity, blessings, and challenges. We are a church that does not interpret the Bible literally. This means that we look at each story, or text, in its context, asking questions about the social norms of the day in which it was written. We look at each text in the context of its genre, asking whether it is written as prose, narrative, poetry, or a letter of correspondence. We ask children, youth, and adults to try on the shoes of each character in the text, asking which voices are heard in the story, and which voices are silenced. We consider the author’s biases and assumptions. We welcome and honor the difficult questions that emerge. We discover together that the truth of the Bible is often not a literal truth, but a theological truth — a truth about how God shows up in our lives, who God is, and who we are in relationship with God. The UCC is one of the most diverse denominations in the United States, and one of the most progressive. We are a denomination that values an open and affirming welcome of all persons, accessibility for all, creating community that is multiracial, multicultural, and committed to a just peace. Our member churches are independent, with no official denominational hierarchy, yet we are in mutual, willing covenant with one another through regional associations and conferences, believing that we can live together in communion even when we disagree. Our congregation is a part of the Western North Carolina Association of the Southern Conference of the United Church of Christ. To learn more about the UCC, visit the national web site at http://www.ucc.org/ and visit the web site of the Southern Conference at http://www.soc-ucc.org. What does the logo symbolize? The symbol of the United Church of Christ comprises a crown, cross and orb enclosed within a double oval bearing the name of the church and the prayer of Jesus, “That they may all be one” (John 17:21). It is based on an ancient Christian symbol called the “Cross of Victory” or the “Cross Triumphant.” The crown symbolizes the sovereignty of Christ. The cross recalls the suffering of Christ – his arms outstretched on the wood of the cross – for the salvation of humanity. The orb, divided into three parts, reminds us of Jesus' command to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The verse from Scripture reflects our historic commitment to the restoration of unity among the separated churches of Jesus Christ. |