I just published the 1925 “A Joint Statement on Interchurch Relations from the Commissions of the Congregational and Universalist Churches” but didn’t want to clutter that document with thoughts. Indeed, I’ll want to review some of the standard denomination histories to see why the Universalists aren’t a part of the United Church of Christ today.… Continue reading Notes on the 1925 Congregationalist-Universalist unity statement
Category: United Church of Christ
If you don’t have millions to buy a Bay Psalm Book
This week one of the eleven surviving copies of the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in English North America, sold at auction. The owner was Old South Church, Boston, and the sale reminded me of all the old Unitarian communion plate that was sold to keep the staff paid, the furnace stoked… Continue reading If you don’t have millions to buy a Bay Psalm Book
Watch this space
I know it’s been slow blogging of late. I’ve been working on a special project in the background, and that’s been taking up a good piece of my brain. More about that later. (No fair guessing.) In not altogether unrelated news, today I sent a letter to the local UCC church that I nominally hold… Continue reading Watch this space
Recommended Reformation Day reading
Greetings, readers — My husband, Jonathan Padget and I are back from a deeply restful and energizing vacation in southern New England. Expect much of the blogging in the days to come to reflect this. But today, among other observances, is Reformation Day. Ours is a reformation faith; indeed when examined perhaps Protestant if not… Continue reading Recommended Reformation Day reading
UCC to run ad in NY Times tomorrow
I can only imagine how uncomfortable and challenging the recent examination of Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, where Sen. Barack Obama is a member, has been for the members of the United Church of Christ. The UCC has raised funds to put out an ad in the New York Times… Continue reading UCC to run ad in NY Times tomorrow
UCC v. IRS v. whom?
United Church of Christ minister and blogger Chuck Currie considers who instigated the IRS probe of the United Church of Christ, following Barack Obama’s speech (on faith) at the last General Synod.
UCC president pushes back at Obama church accusation
Don’t you love election season? Especially the maddening whisper campaigns which on one hand denounce Sen. Obama as a Islamicist Manchurian candidate — if you’ve gotten one of those emails, do let me know — and on the other denounce his church (Trinity UCC, Chicago) as some kind of black racist stronghold. It’s enough to… Continue reading UCC president pushes back at Obama church accusation
Is development an answer for city churches?
Today’s Washington Post has a front-page article by Paul Schwartzman about how development has helped save or fortify unstable congregations is worth a look by anyone in a historic city-center church. As it happens, I know of most of the churches in the article. Yes, Mount Vernon Place United Methodist — until recently an architectural… Continue reading Is development an answer for city churches?
Mercersburg Society re-emerges
Thanks to Jonathan Bonomo at Reformed Catholicism for noting the Mercersburg Society’s Web site, which has a new harbor — appropriately enough — with the Philip Schaff Library of the Lancaster Theological Seminary. (The library also hosts the Evangelical and Reformed Church — half of the present United Church of Christ — archives.) In case… Continue reading Mercersburg Society re-emerges
Leicester, Mass. Unitarians end federation relationship
I’ve written from time to time about federated and multi-denominational Unitarian Universalist churches, in part because that’s where you find many of the Christians in the UUA and also because they are an interesting polity situation that makes for illuminating case studies.