PCUSA about to take another ecumenical step
The Layman Online, January 15, 2002
The acronym is CUiC – as in quick – but the Jan. 20 inaugural date for the launching of Churches United in Christ is anything but a jump start in ecumenism.
It’s the evolution of a slow brew among faltering mainline denominations, including the Presbyterian Church (USA), the pacesetter in percentage membership loss.
And it is barely ecumenical. The movement is shunned by Roman Catholics, Orthodox, mainline Lutheran and the fastest-growing Protestant bodies, including Southern Baptists, Pentecostals and other evangelical communions.
The inaugural event for CUiC will be held in Memphis, Tenn., where representatives of nine denominations will resume lamenting their past sins – especially racism – and attempt to level the theological playing field so that their creeds, polity and ordained leaders are acceptable by all.
The ultimate goal is that any minister in one communion would be acceptable to another – which could snag the PCUSA in a Catch 22. The PCUSA has a constitutional standard that prohibits the ordination of officers who are self-affirming, practicing homosexuals. The United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church allow their ordination.
The preliminaries in Memphis will be held Jan. 18 and 19, with the “National Act of Worship Inaugurating Churches United in Christ” on Jan. 20. In keeping with its emphasis on racism, the denominations’ representatives will participate in a Memphis-area commemoration of Martin Luther King Day on Jan. 21 and read and sign – with a public flourish – their “Appeal to Churches on Combating Racism.”
A founding document for CUiC declares that “the sin of racism is the most divisive issue confronting Churches Uniting in Christ.”
Racism is a relatively new accent in the 40-year CUiC agenda. Formerly known as the Consultation on Church Union (the acronym COCU is pronounced KO-koo), the organization spent most of its past debating the roles of bishops and elders.
Because its lay leaders are designated as “elders,” the PCUSA has been the odd ball in the gathering. In other communions, the term “elder,” if used at all, usually applies to ordained clergy. CUiC is essentially a clergy movement.
Even as the PCUSA links arms with the eight other denominations, it is asking presbyteries to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow its ministers of word and sacrament to be designated as “bishops.” The rationale for the amendment is that by becoming “bishops,” PCUSA ministers would be on equal footing with Methodists, Episcopalians and other CUiC partners.
The General Assembly approved PCUSA participation in CUiC in 2000, with commissioners taking little note of some of the more controversial objectives – including a provision that would allow other CUiC communions to send representatives to meetings of local church sessions.
The PCUSA has long been an eager partner in – and major bankroller of – other ecumenical movements, including the financially depleted National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.