Ecumenism: Toward a Superchurch

When Presbyterian Leader Eugene Carson Blake first proposed the idea from the pulpit of San Francisco’s Episcopal Grace Cathedral in 1960, it electrified U.S. Christianity: as a step toward ultimate church reunion, he said, mainstream American Protestants must unite. At the time, Blake optimistically predicted that the project would need ten years to bear any fruit at all; pessimists seemed to think it was impossible. Last week, as the Consultation on Church Union met for the eighth time in Atlanta to carry forward Blake’s pioneering proposal, it appeared that the participants were willing to accept an old military maxim: the impossible takes a little longer.

Despite a pace that sometimes appears as plodding as it is resolute, COCU has advanced Blake’s dream considerably toward realization. The four churches that he originally exhorted to lead the movement now have five additional partners,* the nine churches together representing more than 25 million U.S. Protestants. This year an outline of a long-awaited plan of union was submitted to the members, and from it, at next year’s session, the detailed plan itself will be worked out.

Unified Parishes. The proposed government of the united superchurch would be both hierarchal and democratic, with three orders of ordained ministers: bishops for district, regional, and national office, presbyters to lead parishes and congregations, and deacons to perform special ministries and other duties. Existing churches of the various denominations would be arranged in unified “parishes,” the better to utilize available space and talent. Such parishes will be intentionally multiracial, and thus not necessarily geographical entities. A national assembly, with the laity receiving a bloc vote along with each of the ministerial orders, would decide matters of faith and order.

Perhaps the most significant progress the churches have made since Dr. Blake’s speech is in ensuring the racial unity of the prospective superchurch. Three of the participant churches are predominantly Negro in membership, and their presence as equal partners is now taken for granted. High on the list of priorities for consideration by denominational leaders is “How shall racial balance be achieved and maintained in leadership, both lay and ordained, at all levels of the united church?” Balance is the concern. The outline plan already provides that all offices of the new church, including the episcopacy, be open to all races. Ordination of women, on the other hand, and their eligibility to be bishops will probably be a stumbling block for Episcopalians, just as infant baptism will be difficult for the Disciples of Christ to accept. There are hard differences to be resolved before the dream is realized.

*The four denominations originally invited to form the union were Blake’s United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Methodist Church. Joining later were the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern), the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren. Last year the Evangelical United Brethren merged with the Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church.