wfn.org | Churches Uniting in Christ is born with worship, anti-racism march

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2001-017

Churches Uniting in Christ is born with worship, anti-racism march

by Jerry L. Van Marter

     (ENS) In an emotional two-and-a-half-hour worship service at Mt. Olive 
Cathedral of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, on 
January 20, nine churches that have talked about Christian unity for more than 40 
years inaugurated a covenant agreement that seals them together as Churches 
Uniting in Christ (CUIC).

     The next morning, on a clear, cold Martin Luther King Jr. Day, some 1,000 
people--a mix of CUIC participants and Memphians led by Mayor Willie Harrington--
marched from city hall to the historic Lorraine Motel, where on the spot where 
King was assassinated April 4, 1968, leaders of the CUIC churches signed a pledge 
to work to eradicate racism in the United States and called on all Christians to 
join them.

     The twin acts culminated a weekend in which the Consultation on Church Union 
(COCU) voted itself out of existence in order to make way for the covenant 
fellowship that is CUIC.

     "Imagine a 40-year courtship," said Bishop William H. Graves of the 
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church as he welcomed worshipers at Mt. Olive, "in 
which those who are to be wed finally agree on a date to publicly profess their 
relationship together. Friends, we have finally made the date."

     Jeffrey Newhall of the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC), 
the 11th and final president of COCU, said, "Today we celebrate a brave new 
beginning of a new journey. We don't know where it will take us, but now we know 
we'll all get there together."

Marks of unity

     COCU was spawned in 1960 following a legendary sermon by Eugene Carson Blake 
of the Presbyterian Church (USA) at Grace Cathedral (Episcopal) in San Francisco. 
It began as a movement for organic church union, but over the years repeatedly 
foundered over questions of the ordering of ministry--Presbyterians, for example, 
ordain elders, while the Episcopal Church holds to the doctrine of the "historic 
episcopate," ordination of a line of bishops going back to the earliest church. 

     COCU eventually abandoned the merger goal and searched for ways in which its 
member churches could establish closer ties without giving up their own identity. 

     In 1999, COCU proposed to its member churches a covenant relationship based 
on eight "visible marks" of unity among the churches, most notably "mutual 
recognition of each other as authentic expressions of the one church of Jesus 
Christ. The agreement also includes mutual recognition of members and ordained 
ministry and agreements to worship and celebrate the Eucharist together and 
cooperate in mission, most importantly the common pledge to work to eradicate 
racism.

More than a name change

     In his inaugural sermon, Bishop McKinley Young of the African Methodist 
Episcopal Church, called CUIC "an ecumenical epiphany." Just as the disciples 
were transformed by their encounter with Jesus, so are the CUIC member churches 
changed by their new covenant with each other, he said.

      "It won't be the same as it was before," he said. "It's not our doing 
either--but Christ's presence with us in a new way--an epiphany, a new 
understanding of what it means to be disciples.

      "This is our finest hour," Young said. "Don't blow it."

      "I'm very encouraged," said the Episcopal Church's deputy for ecumenical 
and interfaith relations, Bishop Chris Epting. "We've been up and down these 40 
years and almost came to a halt a couple times. That COCU wasn't willing to go on 
without us is gratifying."

     The Rt. Rev. Arthur B. Williams Jr. of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of 
Ohio, who presided over the Eucharist at the inaugural worship service, agreed 
with Young that the demise of COCU and the advent of CUIC is more than just a 
name change. Williams was representing Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who 
was in Nigeria.

     "I'm more hopeful now than I have been before," he said. "This (CUIC) 
represents a renewed commitment by the churches to each other and to justice in 
our country." Epting agreed. "We've often gotten lost in the (ordained) ministry 
discussion," he said, "but this racism work is very important. I'm very hopeful 
we can find ways to move ahead decisively and re-energize us all to be united in 
our witness--to think about our CUIC partners whenever and wherever we engage 
this issue of racism."

Promise to eradicate racism

     Indeed, the January 21 march and rally formed a seamless whole with the 
previous day's worship service. As representatives of each CUIC church--plus the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has signed on as a "partner in 
mission and dialogue"--stepped to the podium on the balcony of the Lorraine 
Motel, they affirmed the Christian imperative to overcome racism.

      "Today, on ground hallowed by God and made holy by the spilled blood of a 
prophet," said the Rev. Michael Livingston of the ICCC, "we take to a balcony, 
not a pulpit, to proclaim that together we will eradicate racism."

     Williams said, "Today we celebrate life and remember death and we stand 
united because we share Martin Luther King's dream and are committed to 
eradicating racism."

     The nine member churches of CUIC are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 
African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal Church, International Council of 
Community Churches, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ and 
the United Methodist Church.

--Jerry Van Marter is director of the Presbyterian News Service in Louisville, Kentucky.