Talk:United Church of Christ

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[edit] Other insights from the Wikipedia guidelines

"Do not put overdue weight into one part of an article at the cost of other parts. In shorter articles, if one subtopic has much more text than another subtopic, that may be an indication that that subtopic should have its own page, with only a summary presented on the main page." Hmm... perhaps like the so-called "Current Events" section of this article????? Emerymat 13:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Errors in "List of famous UCC members or attendees"

Could someone try to check some of these claims? I'm not entirely sure how accurate the section is. --AlexJohnc3 ^(talk) 15:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why several Adams are listed as being associated with the UCC. They were alive more than 100 years before the UCC was started, and were Unitarianists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.243.237 (talk) 05:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with this statement, beyond the John Adams/John Q. Adams, and Abigail Adams, there are several other members listed who predate the founding of this church. Unless there was some 18th or 19th century time machine that I am not aware of, I do not see how this could have been possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.144.218.71 (talk) 11:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The trick is that you have to read the entire sentence introducing this list: "This section lists notable people known to have been raised in or current members of the United Church of Christ or its predecessor denominations." [emphasis added] This includes people from the denominations that formed the UCC: Congregationalist, Reformed, and Evangelical. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 01:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Let's refocus our efforts a bit

I appreciate everyone's contributions and efforts, and the attempt to see that the 'current events' type information is not getting too biased one direction or the other. But, I would like to propose that perhaps some of us regular United Church of Christ article editors (including myself) start turning our attention to some other content additions that are probably a bit overdue. For instance:

• History of the United Church of Christ (that is, not the history of our predecessors or the story of the merger, but our 50 years of history since 1957)
• Stances on social issues (and not just the ones that seem to be 'controversial' within the UCC)
• Traditions and Practices (now, this is obviously a difficult set, given the diversity of the UCC, but I am of the mind that there are probably at least some unifying things in this regard that probably apply to most, even if not all, UCC congregations and settings -- as an example, maybe the survey results from Worshipping Into God's Future could give some guidance on practices of worship)
• Theological beliefs (again, a difficult one for the same reason; but again, we might be able to settle on some descriptors either of unifying characteristics, maybe guided by the overall thrust of the wider theological families and histories that most of our congregations come out of [Reformed and Lutheran], or perhaps some description of the range of diversity)
• The PCUSA article has info on membership demographics. Maybe we should too?

Well, anyway, those are some of my thoughts, having looked at the wiki-articles of some of our other mainline Protestant counterparts (PCUSA, ELCA, Episcopal, United Methodist, Disciples). Other thoughts--or better, just go straight to contributing--are certainly welcome. Emerymat 14:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the description of it as "mainline." Even if the majority of members disagree, the announcement by 80% of the 884 General Synod Delegates that same-sex marriage should be supported sets it far out of what can be defined as "mainline." Lordmanwe 22:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's own article on Mainline (Protestant) is probably a good place to start for this. See their definition for what constitutes mainline; tolerance and acceptance for LGBT matters is part of their definition. The Association of Religion Data Archives also lists the UCC as mainline. Most polls in the US show about half of the population supports same-sex marriage or civil union (more or less depending on how the question is worded). Agreeing with half the country seems to be fairly mainline, even if you personally disagree. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 15:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Needless Proliferation of Colleges and Universities

I propose the deletion of this category: "Other historical colleges and universities (unrelated)." If they are truly unrelated, then why list them?

The explanation given seems tenuous at best: "These colleges and universities no longer maintain any relationship to the United Church of Christ, but were founded by or otherwise related historically to the denomination or its predecessors." This is sort of like saying that Catholics founded Harvard University, because it was "founded by or otherwise related historically to the" people who actually did found it. Besides, it doesn't make any sense to say that they "no longer maintain any relationship to the United Church of Christ," because this church didn't exist when these schools were founded.

This denomination-as-unification has only existed for a handful of decades and this article should reflect that fact.

I also agree with the person above who called the listing of the United Church of Christ as "mainline" preposterous. Josh a brewer (talk) 06:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

This section is basically about the history of the denomination, including its predecessors. If a university was founded by Congregationalists and remained affiliated with the Congregationalist denomination for decades afterwards, then it's part of the history even if that relationship doesn't exist now. When looking at the long-term history, the predecessor denominations are included. The statement about no longer maintaining a relationship is necessary to differentiate it from the schools like Beloit College that have a loose relationship with the denomination. WeisheitSuchen (talk) 15:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

If the schools were founded by Unitarians or Congregationalists, then they should be listed in those articles (and they are, in some cases). Maintaining various versions of "weak" relationships in this article seems pointless. Again, the United Church of Christ has only existed for a few decades. These colleges predate this denomination. I'm changing the misleading and unattributed quote that begins the section in question. Josh a brewer (talk) 13:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)