The
United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ,
Son of God and Savior. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all
who share in this confession. It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to
the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in
the world. It claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the
ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It
affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in
reality of worship, in honesty of though and expression, and in purity of heart before
God. In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice prevailing among
evangelical Christians, it recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's
Supper
or Holy Communion.
Origins
The United Church of Christ
came into being in 1957 with the union of two Protestant denominations: the
Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian
Churches. Each of these was, in turn, the result of a union of two earlier
denominations.
The Congregational Churches
were organized when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation (1620) and the Puritans
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629) acknowledged their
essential unity in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. The Reformed Church in the United
States traced its beginnings to congregations of German settlers in Pennsylvania founded
from 1725 on. Later, its ranks were swelled by Reformed folk from Switzerland
and
other countries.
The Christian Churches sprang up in the late 1700s and early 1800s in reaction to the
theological and organizational rigidity of the Methodist, Presbyterians and Baptist
Churches of the time.
The Evangelical Synod of
North American traced its beginning to an association of German Evangelical
pastors in Missouri. This association, founded in 1840, reflected
the 1817 union of Lutheran and Reformed churches in Germany.
Through the years, members
of other groups such as Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans,
Volga Germans, Armenians, Hungarians, and Hispanic Americans have joined
with the four earlier groups. Thus the United Church of Christ celebrates
and
continues a wide variety of traditions in its common life.
Characteristics
The characteristics of the United Church of Christ can be summarized in part by the key
words in the names of the four denominations that formed our union: Christian, Reformed,
Congregational, and Evangelical.
By our very name, the United Church of Christ, we declare
ourselves to be a part of the body of Christ -- the Christian
church. We continue the witness of the early disciples to the
reality and power of the crucified and risen Christ, Jesus of
Nazareth
- Reformed
All four denominations arose from the tradition of the sixteenth-century Protestant
Reformers: We confess the authority of one God. We affirm the primacy of the Scriptures,
the doctrine of justification by faith, the priesthood of all believers, and the principle
of Christian freedom. We celebrate two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy
Communion.
- Congregational
The basic unit of the United Church of Christ is the congregation. Members of each
congregation covenant with one another and with God as revealed in Jesus Christ and
empowered by the Holy Spirit. These congregations, in turn, exist in covenant
relationships with one another to form larger structures for more effective work. Our
covenanting emphasizes trustful relationships rather than legal agreements.
The primary task of the church is the proclamation of the gospel, or evangel -- the
good news of God's love revealed with power in Jesus Christ. We proclaim this gospel
by word and deed to individual persons and to society. This proclamation is the heart of
the liturgia -- the work of the people. We gather each Sunday for the worship of
God, and through each week, we engage in the service of humankind.
