UCC renewal group disputes denomination’s exodus number
The Layman Online, January 25, 2006
While officials of the United Church of Christ say 49 congregations have left the denomination since the denomination’s 2005 General Synod voted in favor of same-gender marriages, a renewal organization says there are many more.
Faithful and Welcoming, the name of the organization, lists 77 departing congregations with their names and addresses. The denomination does not identify the 49 that it said had departed.
Faithful and Welcoming, published under the heading “Lost Churches,” also seeks to keep its list accurate and up to date.
“This page lists churches that have formally withdrawn from the UCC since General Synod 25 in July 2005,” Faithful and Welcoming says on its Web site. “If you know of a church not listed below, please e-mail us the name and city of the church (add the conference, if known). Please send us any corrections to this list. We publish the list not to encourage other churches to follow suit; but rather to note the seriousness of the current crisis in the UCC.”
Faithful and Reckoning has advised congregations in the UCC to wait until after July 2006 before deciding whether to leave the denomination.
It also advises them: “Refuse to be intimidated” by denominational officials who would pressure them to remain in the denomination and accept the declarations of its synod.
The organization quotes from the UCC Constitution: “”The autonomy of the Local Church is inherent and modifiable only by its own action. Nothing in this Constitution and the Bylaws of the United Church of Christ shall destroy or limit the right of each Local Church to continue to operate in the way customary to it; nor shall be construed as giving to the General Synod, or to any Conference or Association now, or at any future time, the power to abridge or impair the autonomy of any Local Church in the management of its own affairs, which affairs include, but are not limited to, the right to retain or adopt its own methods of organization, worship and education; to retain or secure its own charter and name; to adopt its own constitution and bylaws; to formulate its own covenants and confessions of faith; to admit members in its own way and to provide for their discipline or dismissal; to call or dismiss its pastor or pastors by such procedure as it shall determine; to acquire, own, manage and dispose of property and funds; to control its own benevolences; and to withdraw by its own decision from the United Church of Christ at any time without forfeiture of ownership or control of any real or personal property owned by it.”
Faithful and Reckoning has undertaken a number of initiatives in response to the 2005 action, including plans for a national conference July 2-4 in Columbus, Ohio. The theme for the conference will be “Faithful to the Cross and Crown.”