Churches of Christ Uniting

Churches of Christ Uniting was a proposed name for a body growing out of the Consultation on Church Union which began in 1962 among ten predominantly "mainline" U.S. Protestant denominations. The consolidation proposed in the original scheme was overwhelmingly rejected when put to a vote of the constituent denominations in 1969, so the leaders, unwilling to abandon totally this effort, adopted more of a "go slow" approach. Groups within the Consultation began closer contacts, and in some instances full communion, with each other, and the idea to call the group that was hoped to be formed in the long term Church of Christ United was proposed, with the interim name while the process was ongoing to be Church of Christ Uniting. (These names had the additional advantage of having the same initials as the original Consultation on Church Union.)

Opposition within the component denominations, particularly the United Presbyterian Church, caused any plan for full merger to be put on hold, and a new name, seemingly implying that "uniting" is a presently-ongoing but perhaps long-term goal, was adopted, Churches Uniting in Christ. (This name also had the advantage of not sounding as much like one of the existing constituent groups, the United Church of Christ, nor like a totally unrelated one, the Church of Christ.)

Famous quotes containing the words churches, christ and/or uniting:

    Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?
    Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn’t care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.
    Mother Teresa (b. 1910)

    That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)