United Church Of Christ

The United Church of Christ came into being in 1957 with the union of two Protestant churches or “denominations.” They were the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches.

The Congregational Churches were organized when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation (1620) and the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629) acknowledged their essential unity in the Cambridge Platform of 1648.

The Reformed Church in the United States traced its beginnings to congregations of German settlers in Pennsylvania founded from 1725 on. Later, its ranks were swelled by Reformed immigrants from Switzerland, Hungary and other countries.

The Christian Churches sprang up in the late 1700s and early 1800s in reaction to the theological and organizational rigidity of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist churches of the time.

The Evangelical Synod of North America traced its beginnings to an association of German Evangelical pastors founded in 1841 in Missouri. The Synod reflected the values of a union in 1817 between Lutheran and Reformed churches in Germany.

Through the years, other groups such as American Indians, Afro-Christians, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Volga Germans, Armenians and Hispanic Americans joined with one of these antecedent churches. In recent years, members of other traditions—including Roman Catholic, evangelical and Pentecostal Christians—have found a new home in the UCC, and so have gay and lesbian Christians who have been rejected by other churches. The United Church of Christ celebrates and continues to embrace a broad variety of traditions in its common life.