The
United church if Christ acknowledges as its sole
head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour. It
acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who share in
the 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 reclaim 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 thought and
expression, and in purity of heart before God. In
accordance with the teaching of our Lord and
practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, it
recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's
Supper or Holy Communion.
-From the Preamble to the Constitution of
the United Church of Christ
Origins
The United Church of Christ came
into being in 1957 with the union of two Protestant
denominations: 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
late 1700's and early 1800's in reaction to the
theological and organizational rigidity of the
Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches of the
time.
The Evangelical Synod of North
America 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
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.
- Christian. By our
very name, the United Church of Christ, we
declare our self 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 covenantal relationships with one another to
form larger structures for more effective work.
Our covenanting emphasizes trustful
relationships rather than legal agreements.
- Evangelical. 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.
The above source was used with permission
from The United Church Press web site:
The United
Church Press
