The Villager Voice
I confess, I paid much more attention to the work of the Reformed Church when I was at Princeton Theological Seminary, since it is a Presbyterian institution and part of the former World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). Even though the United Church of Christ is not part of the Reformed confession, we remain closely aligned with the theology and ideology of the Reformed church, and I’m certain you have noticed my own crypto-Calvinist leanings over the years. In 2010 the WARC merged with the Reformed Ecumenical Council (both are global organizations) to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), encompassing 228 member denominations and about 100 million members worldwide, making it the largest Protestant communion in the world.
I mention this because on the Sunday after Easter, The Rev. Philip Peacock, the General Secretary of the WCRC, held a symposium with The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ at the Olmsted Community Church (UCC) in Olmsted, Ohio. The two acknowledged the many common tenets of our respective communions, and stood shoulder to shoulder as they named the ways the church can and must address the multiple challenges we face today as Christian citizens of a global community. Peacock told the audience, “Practically building relationships across the global church, something that the United Church of Christ does so well, is not merely charity, but [shared ministry]… We must decouple the idea of nation from… religious identity.” I will be speaking a bit more of the symposium this Sunday.
Links to Sunday’s bulletin and service are here: