The Open and Affirming program is administered by the UCC Open and Affirming Coalition, which supports congregations and other church settings as they consider the adoption of an ONA "covenant"[1] and maintains the official registry[2] of ONA congregations and ministries. The Coalition encourages UCC congregations, campus ministries, seminaries, regional bodies and other settings of the church to engage their members in serious study of sexual orientation and gender identity and to declare publicly their full welcome and inclusion of LGBTQ people. With more than 1,600 congregations, the UCC's ONA program is the largest of several LGBT-welcoming church movements in U.S. and Canadian churches.
There is a similar "Open & Affirming" program[3] in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
History
In 1985 the United Church of Christ's General Synod adopted a resolution encouraging UCC congregations to welcome (or consider welcoming) gay, lesbian, and bisexual people after a time of dialogue, study and prayer. Following later General Synod resolutions affirming transgender members of the church, the welcome was extended so that, today, an ONA covenant typically welcomes members of any sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.[4] An ONA church is expected to commit to the inclusion of LGBTQ members in the sacraments and ministries of the church, including marriage.
The 1985 resolution had no legislative authority over individual congregations, which are autonomous, but set in motion a movement that spread rapidly throughout the church.
The resolution allocated no funds to support an ONA program in the UCC's national office. As a result, the UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns launched an ONA program in 1987, led by the Rev. Ann B. Day and Donna Enberg, which raised funds from individual contributors, sympathetic congregations and private foundations.[5] To this day, the official registry of ONA congregations is managed by the Coalition (since renamed the Open and Affirming Coalition), a voluntary non-profit organization independent from the church's national office, although it works in close partnership with the UCC's national ministries. The Coalition publishes a wide range of resources to support congregations considering an ONA commitment and to help existing ONA churches build relationships with the LGBTQ community.[6]
New York City's Riverside Church, under the pastoral leadership of the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, was the first in the UCC to be listed as Open and Affirming in 1987.
According to the Coalition, more than 1,800 UCC congregations with 370,000 members (about 35 percent of all UCC churches) are officially designated as Open and Affirming as of December 2022. Twenty-one of the UCC's 38 regional conferences, most new church starts, all seven seminaries affiliated with the UCC and several UCC-related campus ministries have adopted ONA statements, or "covenants." Other ministries in the UCC, like the Council for Health and Human Service Ministries and the Order of Corpus Christi have also adopted ONA covenants.
Opposition
In response to the perceived promotion of the ONA movement by denominational officials, 75 UCC congregations have identified themselves as "Faithful and Welcoming" by affirming the Lexington Confession (named for the North Carolina town where it was drafted), which affirms marriage as an relationship between a man and woman.[7]
Throughout the majority of Christian history, most Christian theologians and denominations have considered homosexual behavior as immoral or sinful. Today, within Christianity, there are a variety of views on sexual orientation and homosexuality. Even within a denomination, individuals and groups may hold different views, and not all members of a denomination necessarily support their church's views on homosexuality. The Catholic church and Orthodox churches officially condemn homosexual activity as sin. Various Mainline Protestant denominations have taken a supportive stance towards blessing homosexual clergy and same sex marriage while others have not.
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th century as a loose association of churches working towards Christian unity, then slowly forming quasi-denominational structures through missionary societies, regional associations, and an international convention. In 1968, the Disciples of Christ officially adopted a denominational structure at which time a group of churches left to remain nondenominational.
The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, and Lutheran traditions, and with approximately 4,700 churches and 745,230 members. The United Church of Christ is a historical continuation of the General Council of Congregational Christian churches founded under the influence of New England Pilgrims and Puritans. Moreover, it also subsumed the third largest Calvinist group in the country, the German Reformed. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united on June 25, 1957, to form the UCC. These two denominations, which were themselves the result of earlier unions, had their roots in Congregational, Lutheran, Evangelical, and Reformed denominations. At the end of 2014, the UCC's 5,116 congregations claimed 979,239 members, primarily in the U.S. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 0.4 percent, or 1 million adult adherents, of the U.S. population self-identify with the United Church of Christ.
The Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists (AWAB) is a Baptist Christian denomination. The headquarters is in Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
Lancaster Theological Seminary is a seminary of the United Church of Christ in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1825 by members of the German Reformed Church in the United States to provide theological education for prospective clergy and other church leaders.
More Light Presbyterians is a coalition of congregations and individuals in the Presbyterian Church (USA) committed to increasing the involvement of all people in the church, regardless of sexuality.
Unitarian Universalism, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and the Canadian Unitarian Council (CUC), as Non-Creedal and Liberal theological traditions, is an LGBTQ affirming denomination.
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.
The positions of the Baptist churches about homosexuality are varied. They range from liberal to fundamentalist or moderate Conservative and neutral.
The Q Christian Fellowship (QCF) is an ecumenical Christian ministry focused on serving lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer, and straight ally Christians. It was founded in 2001 as the Gay Christian Network (GCN) by Justin Lee and is currently administered from Denver, Colorado. It was re-branded in 2018 to better reflect the diversity of the ministry and community they serve. According to the re-branding documents, the 'Q' doesn't correlate to any particular word. Instead, it is just the letter 'Q' open for interpretation.
The relationship between transgender people and religion varies widely around the world. Religions range from condemning any gender variance to honoring transgender people as religious leaders. Views within a single religion can vary considerably, as can views between different faiths.
The ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) clergy who are open about their sexuality or gender identity; are sexually active if lesbian, gay, or bisexual; or are in committed same-sex relationships is a debated practice within some contemporary Christian denominations.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) affirming denominations in Judaism are Jewish religious groups that welcome LGBT members and do not consider homosexuality to be a sin. They include both entire Jewish denominations, as well as individual synagogues. Some are composed mainly of non-LGBT members and also have specific programs to welcome LGBT people, while others are composed mainly of LGBT members.
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on the issues of gender identity and transgender people. Christian denominations vary in their official position: some explicitly support gender transition, some oppose it, and others are divided or have not taken an official stance. Within any given denomination, individual members may or may not endorse the official views of their church on the topic.
This is a timeline of LGBT Jewish history, which consists of events at the intersection of Judaism and queer people.
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.
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