Is Christ divine? UCC assembly will put it to a vote
The Layman Online, June 22, 2005
The United Church of Christ, one of the allies of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the liberal ecumenical movement – is about to consider whether Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings – i.e., divine.
The 1.3-million-member congregationalist denomination shares lobbying activity with the Washington Office of the PCUSA and joins the PCUSA and other mainline denominations in the activities of the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches and Churches Uniting in Christ.
The UCC, which stays slightly ahead of the PCUSA on the diversity curve, currently does not require its ministers to affirm that Jesus is Lord. According to the Rev. Alvin Kovacs of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Woodbridge, N.J., many of the UCC do not believe Jesus is divine.
At the denomination’s meeting in Atlanta July 1-5, the UCC will vote on a proposal by Kovacs and other conservative members that would make it mandatory for clergy to accept Christ’s divinity. Kovacs says he doubts the measure will pass, given the liberal nature of the leadership.
“So many of them probably don’t believe in Jesus Christ as Lord,” Kovacs said, “and certainly [many] are looking for a new type of church modeled after their image of the Church rather than Christ’s image of the Church.”
Kovacs says if the denomination does not accept Christ as Lord, then there it will have no Commander – and no commandment to go and reach lost people. He says the UCC will become just another social agency that has good will, but no good news to share with the world.
The three-page resolution declares that the UCC is now ridiculed by critics as “Unitarians Considering Christ.”
Supporters of the resolution believe that by pressing for an up or down vote on Christ’s divinity, they can clear the air of any remaining ambiguity about where the UCC stands on the person and work of Christ.