wfn.org | Consultation on Church Union (COCU)

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Date: 13-Jun-96 
 
96221            General Assembly Backgrounder:  
               Consultation on Church Union (COCU) 
 
                        by Bill Lancaster          
 
     The 208th General Assembly (1996) will consider amendments to the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Constitution designed to enable the 
denomination's participation in the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), 
which at fruition will become the Church of Christ Uniting.   
 
     COCU began in 1960 when Eugene Carson Blake, then stated clerk of the 
United Presbyterian Church in the USA (UPCUSA), preached a sermon at Grace 
Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco calling for organic union (complete 
merger) of the various denominations. 
 
     Early efforts to achieve this organic union met with little enthusiasm 
and faded from consideration early in the process.  Since then, the nine 
participating denominations have worked on how they might relate to one 
another in a demonstration of visible unity without entering into 
structural union.  COCU documents call this proposed way of relating 
"covenant communion."   
 
     Efforts of COCU have resulted in two documents, The COCU Consensus: In 
Quest of a Church of Christ Uniting, in 1984, and Churches in Covenant 
Communion: The Church of Christ Uniting, in 1988.  The former gives a 
theological basis for the covenanting proposal, while the latter is the 
covenanting proposal itself.   The COCU Consensus was "recognized" by the 
1988 General Assembly and Churches in Covenant Communion was approved in 
1993.  
 
     The 207th General Assembly (1995) considered Book of Order amendments 
which, if approved by the presbyteries,  would have brought the 
Presbyterian Church (USA) into covenant communion with other approving 
denominations.  However, while affirming the general direction, the 1995 
Assembly had concerns about a number of the amendments, and sent them back 
to the Special Committee on COCU for reconsideration and refinement.  That 
committee has made some adjustments to the amendments, and they now come to 
the 208th Assembly (1996) for consideration.  This will be done through the 
Assembly Committee on Catholicity. 
 
     Especially troubling to the 1995 Assembly were: the establishment of 
the office of bishop, the title of bishop, and the possibility of a 
hierarchy of bishops;  the lack of complete parity of a representative 
elder; that the representative bishop and representative elder might be 
empowered with non-COCU roles in presbytery; that under the COCU documents, 
no isolated ordinations would be allowed by any denomination after COCU was 
enacted; that the COCU amendments to the Book of Order are receiving their 
definitions and interpretations from the two COCU documents, the authority 
of which is unclear.   
 
     The Special Committee on COCU received the comments of the 207th 
Assembly (1995), made several adjustments to the proposed amendments in 
response to some and defended their positions in response to others. 
Changes in the amendments coming before the 208th Assembly include using 
the term "representative bishop" throughout and strengthening the language 
regarding the role of the representative elder. 
 
      In response to the 207th Assembly (1995), a study guide of the two 
COCU documents has been written and sent to every session and presbytery 
office. 
 
     The Special Committee on COCU recommends that the 208th Assembly send 
the proposed amendments to the presbyteries for vote, and that, if approved 
by a simple majority of the presbyteries, the 209th Assembly (1997) approve 
the amendments to become operative when COCU inaugurates the Church of 
Christ Uniting.  
 
     Other COCU member churches are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian Church (Disciples of 
Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church, 
International Council of Community Churches, United Church of Christ and 
the United Methodist Church.   
 
(Bill Lancaster is associate for mission for Foothills Presbytery.  He will 
be covering COCU for the  General Assembly Newsroom.) 

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