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The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2022, it has approximately 2.9 million baptized members in 8,640 congregations.
The Reformed Church in America (RCA) is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 84,957 members. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,600 churches and 712,000 members. The UCC is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Puritanism. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. Notably, its modern members' theological and socio-political stances are often very different from those of its predecessors.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member communions include mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, African-American, evangelical, and historic peace churches. Together, it encompasses more than 100,000 local congregations and 40 million adherents. It began as the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, and expanded through merger with several other ecumenical organizations to become the National Council of Churches in 1950. Its Interim President and General Secretary is Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie.
The Confessing Movement is a largely lay-led theologically conservative Christian movement that opposes the influence of theological liberalism and theological progressivism currently within several mainline Protestant denominations and seeks to return those denominations to its view of orthodox doctrine or to form new denominations and disfellowship (excommunicate) them if the situation becomes untenable. Those who eventually deem dealing with theological liberalism and theological progressivism within their churches and denominations as not being tenable anymore would later join or start Confessional Churches and/or Evangelical Churches that continue with the traditions of their respective denominations and maintaining orthodox doctrine while being ecclesiastically separate from the Mainline Protestant denominations.
Open and Affirming (ONA) is an official designation of congregations and other settings in the United Church of Christ (UCC) affirming the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and non-binary persons (LGBTQ) in the church's life and ministry.
The General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) is a general agency of the United Methodist Church. It is one of four international general program boards of The United Methodist Church as set out the UMC Book of Discipline. The General Board has headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and at the Interchurch Center in New York City. There are five divisions within the GBCS: Public Witness and Advocacy, Administration, Ministry of Resourcing Congregational Life, United Nations Ministry and Communications.
The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches (NACCC) is an association of 304 churches providing fellowship for and services to churches from the Congregational tradition. The Association maintains its national office in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The body was founded in 1955 by former clergy and laypeople of the Congregational Christian Churches in response to that denomination's pending merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ in 1957.
The United Church of Christ is a Christian denomination. Periodically, bodies within the United Church of Christ issue resolutions for various reasons. These statements may or may not be representative of the United Church of Christ. This article documents notable resolutions from the various formal bodies of the United Church of Christ.
Biblical Witness Fellowship is an evangelical renewal movement composed of members of the United Church of Christ. Founded in 1978 as the United Church People for Biblical Witness, the movement reorganized as the Biblical Witness Fellowship at a national convocation in Byfield, Massachusetts in 1984, hosted by the current president of BWF, the Rev. Dr. William Boylan.
Attitudes in Presbyterianism toward homosexuality vary, ranging from outright condemnation to complete acceptance.
The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly was the eleventh biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It convened in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from August 17–23, 2009. The Churchwide Assembly is the 'highest legislative authority' of the ELCA.
The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) is a Lutheran denomination with over 420 congregations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, counting more than 142,000 baptized members. The NALC believes all doctrines should and must be judged by the teaching of the Christian Scriptures, in keeping with the historic Lutheran Confessions. It was established on August 27, 2010. The group describes itself as embodying the "theological center of Lutheranism in North America", noting that it stands between the more liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the more conservative Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) and other Lutheran church bodies in North America, "firmly within the global Lutheran mainstream".
University Reformed Church is a Reformed Presbyterian Church in East Lansing, Michigan, founded in 1966. In March, 2015, the church shifted denominational affiliation to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) from the Reformed Church in America (RCA).
John C. Dorhauer is an American Protestant clergy member, author, and theologian who served as the ninth General Minister and President (GMP) of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a Mainline Protestant denomination, from June 30, 2015, through July 2023.
William R. Johnson was the first openly gay minister to be ordained in a historic Protestant denomination. He received his ordination through the United Church of Christ (UCC) on June 25, 1972 in San Carlos, California.
Yvonne V. Delk is a leader within the United Church of Christ (UCC), a Christian educator and social justice advocate. She was the first Black woman ordained in the United Church of Christ, and the second woman to hold a national leadership role in the denomination, serving as the head of the Office for Church and Society. She later served as executive director of the Community Renewal Society, an organization focused on issues of racism and poverty in Chicago. In this role, she addressed issues of homelessness, poverty, systemic racism, community health and affordable housing. She was the first woman and person of color to lead the organization. In 1997, Delk was recognized by Ebony as one of the top fifteen Black woman preachers in the US. In 2023, she edited and contributed to Afro-Christian Convention: The Fifth Stream of the United Church of Christ, providing history of a forgotten tradition in African-American history.
References
- ↑ "Justice and Witness Ministries: Washington Office". United Church of Christ. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ↑ "The Franklinton Center at Bricks". United Church of Christ. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ↑ "Centro Romero". United Church of Christ. Archived from the original on October 19, 2011. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ↑ "UCC Environmental Justice Centers". United Church of Christ. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ↑ "Meet our Executive Minister". United Church of Christ. Archived from the original on April 21, 2012. Retrieved April 18, 2012.