wfn.org | UCC Synod 22 Challanged to Take Interfaith Inititives

[George Conklin <gconklin@wfn.org>]

United Church of Christ
Office of Communication
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contact: Barbara Powell
phone: 216-736-2222
email: powellb@ucc.org
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UCC challenged to take interfaith initiatives
by J. Martin Bailey
PROVIDENCE, RI - July 5 1999 - An ecumenical leader visiting the United Church
of Christ General Synod in Providence Saturday called for major new initiatives
with Muslims, Jews and people of other religious groups and challenged the UCC
to “step out front” in that effort.
        The Rev. Robert K. Welsh of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
told an interdenominational audience that contact with other faith groups has
become a domestic imperative as well as part of the church’s overseas agenda. 
Such groups, he said, “are now part of the landscape in America.”  
        He urged the UCC and the Disciples to take “front line leadership” in
this effort.  The United Church and the Disciples of Christ already have their
own partnership agreement. A proposal, in the form of a policy statement on
relations with persons of other faiths, is currently being circulated by the
National Council of Churches.
        He warned, however, that interfaith involvements should not be seen as
“a distraction from or a watering down of our witness to Jesus Christ as Lord
and Savior, or from our commitment to the search for the unity of all
Christians.”  
        Welsh, who is president of the Disciples’ Council for Christian Unity,
also called for a new forum in which Evangelicals, along with Protestants,
Catholics and Orthodox Christians can work together.  He was installed in that
position earlier this year.
        Describing his own “vision and passion” for the unity of the church,
Welsh also said that the search for Christian unity “is not just one more
program of the church, it is at the heart of who we are and of all that we do
as Christians.”
        “As we work for the unity of the church,” he said, “we will also
discover the renewal of our congregations.”
        Attending the luncheon at which Welsh spoke were leaders of the UCC and
their guests from other U.S. and overseas churches with which the United Church
has close relationships.