wfn.org | Howard Dean, emerging leader of Democratic Party, is UCC

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United Church of Christ
J. Bennett Guess
(216) 736-2177
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Alternate press contact:
Barb Powell
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For immediate release
Feb. 2, 2005

Howard Dean, emerging leader of Democratic Party,
is a member of the United Church of Christ

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

Howard Dean, the former presidential hopeful who is emerging as the new
national leader of the Democratic Party, is a member of the United Church
of Christ.

Today (Feb. 2), The New York Times reported that Dean, a former five-term
Vermont Governor, is likely to succeed in his bid to become the next chair
of the Democratic National Committee. A formal vote by the 447-member DNC
will take place on Feb. 12 in Washington.

The Democrats' new leader, many believe, will be expected to give
considerable attention and voice to recasting the public's debate on issues
of morality -- especially what attention, if any, the Democrats will pay to
so-called "values voters."

After the November 2004 general election, when Republicans retained control
of the White House and gained seats in both houses of Congress, many
pundits pointed to exit polls which showed that issues of "morality"
factored heavily into voters' decisions.

Questions lingered, however, as to which precise issues these "values
voters" were referring.

At campaign rallies for himself, and later in support of Democratic nominee
John Kerry, Dean often chided "fundamentalist preachers" and said
Republicans were using "God, guns and gays" to deflect from the real moral
issues of the day, such as the war in Iraq, the economy and health care.

Dean, who refers to himself as a "Congregationalist" -- a faith label not
recognizable to many living outside the Congregationalist-laden Northeast
-- is a member of First Congregational United Church of Christ in
Burlington, Vt., a prominent 1,000-member congregation in the state's
largest city.

The UCC is 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.

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 joined the UCC.

Dean, a medical doctor, says he 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.

Dean's pastor, the Rev. Robert A. Lee, has described 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 2003.

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 Barack
Obama (D-Ill.).

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a one-time opponent of Dean for their
party's presidential nomination, is also UCC.

Andrew Young (D-Ga.), the former civil rights leader, member of Congress,
U.N. ambassador and Atlanta mayor, is an ordained UCC minister.

In 2003, when Dean's faith first became a political issue, 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."

In its Dec. 29, 2003, cover story on Dean's religious life, The New
Republic 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 comprehensive survey of U.S. Christians, published in
2002, 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 UCC 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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