wfn.org | Howard Dean one of many UCC members

[powellb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
Robert Chase, press contact
216-736-2173
E-mail <chaser@ucc.org>

On the web: <http://www.ucc.org>

For immediate release
Dec. 6, 2004

Howard Dean is one of many United Church of Christ members:
Presidential candidate's church is rich with heritage, diversity

A feature news release by J. Bennett Guess
Editor, United Church News

      Like Bill Clinton and Al Gore, presidential candidate Richard

Gephardt wears the Southern Baptist tag, while George Bush and John Edwards

are United Methodists. John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich are life-long Roman

Catholics.

      Carol Moseley Braun, no longer Catholic, worships as an Episcopalian.

Joseph Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a

Pentecostal minister, spends his Sunday mornings in the pulpit.

      But Howard Dean, the former five-term Vermont Governor who has

emerged as the Democratic Party's presidential front runner, is piquing

interest with word that he's a "Congregationalist" ? a faith label much

less recognizable to those living outside the Congregationalist-laden

Northeast.

      Not since a war-time Richard Nixon cried Quaker have so many

expressed interest in learning about a presidential aspirant's faith

tradition.

      To be technically accurate, Dean is a member of the United Church of

Christ, a 1.3-million-member denomination of nearly 6,000 congregations

formed in 1957 by the union of the Congregational Christian Churches and

the Evangelical and Reformed Church. But in New England, Congregationalists

are as common as clam chowder, so it's no wonder that so many UCC members

in the New England area cling to their original, regionally-recognizable

"Congregationalist" identity.

      Born to a Catholic mother and an Episcopal father, Dean was raised in

the Episcopal Church. But in 1982, the same year Dean entered public life

as a member of Vermont's House of Representatives, he became a member of

First Congregational UCC in Burlington, Vt., a prominent congregation of

1,000 members in the state's capital city. Dean, a doctor, was first

introduced to the congregation by his then-landlord, while Dean was

completing his medical residency in Vermont.

      Dean's wife, Judith Steinberg Dean, who also is a doctor, is Jewish.

Their two children have been raised with exposure to both traditions by

observing Jewish and Christian holidays.

      The Rev. Robert A. Lee ? Dean's pastor ? describes Dean as a

"supportive and faithful member of the congregation."

      "Howard Dean is known in this community and in the church as a person

with strong principled views who speaks his mind and stands up for what he

believes in," Lee told United Church News, the UCC's denominational

newspaper, in September.

      To illustrate, Lee said that when the congregation's board of

trustees suggested that members donate part of their 2002 tax rebate checks

to the church to fund ministries for the poor, "One of the first letters I

received in response to that appeal was from the Governor of Vermont's

office, with a check for [Dean's] entire tax rebate."

      To be sure, the UCC's New England roots are deep. In Massachusetts

and Connecticut, the UCC is the largest Protestant denomination.

      But New England is not the only place where the UCC can be found.

Located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, the UCC also is formidable in New

York and Pennsylvania, the industrial Midwest, Missouri, the West Coast,

Florida and Hawaii.

      The UCC's membership includes six U.S. Senators, representing a broad

political spectrum:  Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Jim

Jeffords (I-Vt.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and former

presidential hopeful Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was the first candidate to

withdraw from the 2004 contest.

      Andrew Young (D-Ga.), the former civil rights leader, member of

Congress, U.N. ambassador and Atlanta mayor, also is an ordained UCC

minister.

      On Dec. 30, conservative syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, disparaged

the UCC as "a liberal denomination that does not believe in ministerial

authority or church hierarchy." Thomas further claimed that "each

Congregationalist believes he is in direct contact with God and is entitled

to sort out truth for himself." Meanwhile, The New Republic, in its Dec. 29

cover story on Dean's religious life, called his church "a denomination

famous for its informality and liberal stances."

      More accurately, the UCC's Congregationalist roots trace back to the

early 1600s, when the Pilgrims and Puritans first landed on the continent.

These "Congregationalists," as they were later called, sought religious

independence from persecuting political authorities in Europe. They

believed firmly in local church autonomy, church-state separation, personal

piety and the priesthood of all believers.

      Today, the UCC holds firmly to these early religious tenets. Yet,

while often recognized for its historical and contemporary social justice

commitments, its approach to worship might be considered traditional by

most standards. Although each congregation's liturgical style is influenced

by its heritage and members' preferences, as is true in most mainline

denominations, the UCC, as one pastor aptly put it, is an "exasperating and

heady mix."

      Interestingly, "A Field Guide to U.S. Congregations," a 2002

publication based on a comprehensive survey of U.S. Christians, found that

UCC members, slightly more than others, listed traditional hymns and

biblically-sound preaching as being essential to good worship. Surprising

to some, the same study also found that slightly more UCC members

self-identified as conservative rather than liberal ? a tidbit that

President Calvin Coolidge, a conservative Republican and the nation's last

Congregationalist president (1923-1929), might have found interesting.

      As one of the nation's oldest faith traditions, the UCC includes some

of the country's oldest congregations and structures, including many

organized and built nearly four centuries ago. As a blend of four distinct

Christian traditions ? Congregational, Christian, Evangelical and Reformed

? each strain of the UCC has left its mark on U.S. religious and political

history.

      Increasingly, the UCC is becoming home to churches outside the

original mix. Since 2001, more than 80 churches have joined the UCC,

including many once-Southern Baptist congregations that have been

"disfellowshiped" by state or national conventions for ordaining women or

welcoming gay and lesbian members.

      The UCC has historical ties to hundreds of educational institutions,

including the likes of Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth, which it helped to

found. After the Civil War, the church was instrumental in starting many

now-prominent schools for freed slaves, including Howard, Fisk, Talladega

and Tougaloo. Today, it maintains direct ties to 48 institutions of higher

learning and 345 health and human service agencies in 37 states.

      Known widely for its leadership on social, racial and economic

justice issues, UCC history includes an impressive list of firsts. It

launched the first attempt at congregational democracy (1630), led the

movement to abolish slavery (1700), was a leading force in the spiritual

revival known as the Great Awakening (1730), staged the nation's first act

of civil disobedience that inspired the "Boston Tea Party" (1773), hid the

Liberty Bell when the British occupied Philadelphia (1777), was the first

mainline denomination to ordain an African-American pastor (1785) and

formed the nation's first foreign missionary society (1810).

      The UCC came to the aid of the illegally-enslaved Amistad captives in

1839, an event that led to the U.S. Supreme Court's first civil rights

ruling. It was the first church to ordain a woman in 1853 and the first to

ordain an openly gay man in 1972.

      The Cleveland-based United Church of Christ has been a consistent

leader in the global ecumenical, interfaith movement and maintains full

communion partnerships with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the

Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and

the Reformed Church in America.

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