Religion: The Uniting Church

At Oberlin College in Ohio, a new denomination of U.S. Protestantism was being born. The United Church of Christ began to come into being two years ago in Cleveland (TIME, July 1, 1957), when the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches (membership: 1,401,565) agreed to merge with the Evangelical and Reformed Church (membership: 807,280). Working out an organic union between the two bodies is no simple matter; in Congregationalism each local church is entirely autonomous, whereas the Evangelical and Reformed Church is set up in the European tradition of pyramidal administrative authority. The first order of business before the 700 delegates who met in Oberlin last week for the second General Synod of the merging churches was consideration of a new constitution to combine the two principles.

“Praise God . . .” So complex was the task that the Commission to Prepare a Constitution had not managed to circulate its draft until a few weeks before the Oberlin meeting; ministers had had little opportunity to discuss it with their church members, and many had not received copies at all. At first it looked as if the synod’s inability to approve the constitution on such short notice would postpone its going into effect at least until the summer of 1963—General Synods meet only at two-year intervals. But the Oberlin meeting decided to reconvene for a special session next July to vote on the constitution. This would give the Congregationalist and E. & R. church members a year to ratify the constitution, which could then be put into effect by the third General Synod in 1961.

If the administrative road of union was rocky, the spiritual road was smooth and broad. The Commission to Prepare a Statement of Faith presented a 231-word document to the delegates, who passed it unanimously. Immediately after the vote, the delegates jumped to their feet—some laughing, many weeping—and burst spontaneously into the doxology: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow . . .”

Testimony, Not Test. The statement (see box) will be a testimony, not a test, of faith. Chiefly responsible for its text: Commission Chairman Dr. Elmer J. F. Arndt, professor of historical theology and Christian ethics at E. & R. Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves, Mo. Said Arndt: “We wanted a statement that was genuinely Biblical, that was expressed in the words of our time, and that had the form and character to make it suitable for liturgical use. We found our efforts always turned out to be patterned on the Apostles’ Creed: first we talk about God, the Creator and Father, then about the Son, and next about the Holy Spirit . . . We omitted any reference to the Virgin Birth because we want to emphasize that God comes to us as a real man in the Man of Nazareth . . . both a man among men and God in man.”

Dr. Arndt feels that the adoption of the Statement assures the merger’s success. “If we can have such unanimity on sueh a level as faith, then certainly no problem of organization is insoluble.”