Ever since the Pilgrims crossed an ocean in search of freedom from the religious doctrines of the Old World, their descendants in the Congregational Church have prided themselves on independence. Now that sense of independence is on trial. A regional body of the United Church of Christ has sued to oust a tiny congregation here from its property. The plaintiff: the Southeast Conference of the UCC, whose 1.2 million members make it the nation’s largest Congregational fellowship. The defendant: Center Congregational Church, 36 members on a good Sunday.
“As far as I can see, the UCC just wants to bully us,” says Rick Langdon, chairman of the trustees at Center Congregational. But there’s more here than a David-and-Goliath story. The dispute involves doctrinal issues, legal complexities and conflicting personalities. A church breaking away from its denomination is something like a divorce, with all the attendant messiness of property division. Each case is unique — yet similar — and dissident churches everywhere will be watching this one for clues about how far a denomination will be allowed to go legally when things get ugly.
This shouldn’t be too surprising. A friend of mine who used to be a part of the UCC and was thinking about ordination in a “conservative” region in Ohio was asked by the higher-ups if he would be willing to marry same-sex couples when (not if) the denomination decided to do so. He subsequently left the UCC and hasn’t looked back. From what he told me in other conversations, the UCC is essentially a more progressive version of TEC who has mannaged to keep fairly quiet and out of the lime-light as far as their progressive movements go.
This doesn’t make sense. The whole point of being “Congregationalist” is that each church is technically independent. (Otherwise, historically, they would be Presbyterians, who believe in a larger denominational structure.) I thought the UCC always took the position it was a voluntary organization where no single church was bound to follow the denomination’s positions and had independence, including its property. It was this stance that has allowed the UCC so easily to advance its far-left agenda, because it could always assert that no specific church was bound to follow its position.
The fact is large numbers of churches have left the UCC over its positions on homosexuality, including all of the churches in Puerto Rico.. The UCC claims that it’s pro-homosexuality position has led to growth of the UCC; what they don’t tell you is that the “growth” is certain homosexual Metropolitan Churches that have now merged with the UCC as a result of the UCC’s pro-homosexuality position.
I think this is a fair, well-written article in the WSJ. But the title is misleading. Instead of speaking of “the Bully Pulpit,” it ought to have spoken of the Bully denominational leadership. For this kind of lawsuit is clearly a bullying tactic, a way of trying to intimidate other UCC congregations and dissuade them from joining the exodus from the ultra-liberal denomination.
Just like the standard Modus Operandi of the national leadership of the Episcopal Church.
David Handy+
The complication is that according to the article the congregation received some “assistance” from the Atlanta UCC in 1994. What kind is not specified. This sounds capricious until one realizes that this property is in Buckhead and probably worth a fortune. Money, money.