A Perspective on the United Church of Christ - A Conversation with Irene Willis Hassan
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- Irene Willis Hassan grew up in The United Church of Christ, but her story led her down many different paths until she found herself back in the fold of the UCC. The UCC has a reputation of being a pretty far-left group, but Irene and a handful of others actually identify as somewhat conservative. In this segment, Irene tells her story and explains how she and her Hawaiian church can gladly stay in the fold of the UCC despite their decidedly non-woke theology. Methodists could potentially get a glimpse at what staying in the UMC could look like and get some clarity if they need to stay or go. Those who left might better understand the forces that overtook the UMC and why it might have been necessary to leave as so many did.
The problem for faithful churches staying in the UCC (or any apostate denomination) is that the label does not describe the contents of the bottle. Evangelism becomes very difficult because there appears to be a conflict regarding integrity.
When the dust settles on the split I hope Plain Spoken goes more the direction of these denominational interviews. These are great! Increased unity is coming because we'll more and more be sharing the same trench and dodging the same arrows.
And make no mistake, there will be relatively conservative congregations remaining in the UMC, even if their number be small. Those people need to be encouraged in their resistance to the left turns in the UMC rather than being constantly bashed by WCA, etc.
I have an interview publishing tomorrow very much aimed at comforting those left in the UMC and feeling trapped.
@@plainspokenpod I'll be looking forward to it!
@@plainspokenpod
You need to have Ben Witherington III on. He’s a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and is an ordained United Methodist minister. He’s a well-renowned New Testament scholar.
The UCC church that I went to says Reformed Lutheran and Evangelical above the main door post.
God bless you and yours.
Encouraging to see that there are faithful Christians in the UCC. I've never actually met one.
Thank you, Jeffrey Rickman, for this interview. It was encouraging and edifying.
Really enjoyed this conversation! Thank you Pastor Irene and Pastor Jeff!
Jeffrey, in my opinion, this has been one your most enlightening interviews. I was pleased to learn that there are theological conservatives within the UCC. The part about being denied help from Liberty reveals another issue that I have with denominationalism. It’s just, too easy to paint with a broad brush members of a particular denomination based on the reputation of that tradition. I can sight a personal example in my own life about how that works. About 10 years ago, I began to visit a Wednesday night mens Bible study at a local Church of Christ. They knew about my LCMS background. I’m vocal in any Bible study that is open to dialogue discussions, so I was able to comment freely. A couple of years latter, one of their elders and myself were having a private conversation, and he confessed that when I first started attending, he figured that we could never find common ground due to our theological differences. But after we’d gotten to know one another, he considered me a brother in Christ. I assured him that the feeling was mutual. Subsequent to that conversation, I was asked to co-lead a class where we discussed Francis Chan’s Letters to the Church book for over a year. I’m pleased to see how your guest’s congregation is able to work alongside believers from other traditions if given the chance.
For "Faithful & Welcoming UCC", you might want to seek out a pastor named Bob Thompson who is the spokesperson for the network. He's based in Hickory, NC. As I understand it "Faithful and Welcoming" is kind of an answer to "Open and Affirming" which is the UCC designation for gay-friendly.
I'm a UMC layperson who attended a UCC seminary (Eden-St. Louis) and ended up doing advocacy for the poor and homeless rather than becoming a parish minister. I interned as an associate pastor at a UCC congregation and the Conference/Synod pressure to conform can be pretty tough.
I'm intrigued by what Irene said toward the end about having events for homeless people. Part of our work is assisting with a daytime drop-in center for the homeless and I'm trying to move toward praying with people, etc. (My problem is that I'm fairly shy; it's not a theological issue.) I'd really like to find out more about this in hopes of finding some ideas we can explore here in southern Illinois.
A good conversation starter for vulnerable people is “what can you teach me about God?” This engages the purpose for your visit but gives them power over the conversation - which is not something f they usually have. So - “hi I’m so and so and I’m from X church. I’m here to learn from you about God - what do you have to teach me about that?” Hope that helps. Easy prompt for introverts and extraverts alike.
Very good and informative interview. Keep up the good work.😊
One of your Best. Especially the reflections on your formative (University) years
Really enjoyed this conversation.
For anyone interested, Jeffery is correct that the "Christian Churches" that were one of the four streams that formed the UCC were "Restorationist" and mostly located within New England. However, they were distinct from the Restoration churches of the Stone-Campbell movement. The Restoration movement of Alexander Campbell are mostly known as "churches of Christ" (plural, small "c") and traditionally teach that baptism by immersion is absolutely required for salvation and do not use instruments in worship, and practice weekly communion. (recently some among them are re-evaluating those doctrines). The Stone portion of the movement became the "Christian Church/Disciples of Christ, which had the same doctrines as the Campbell portion, but did allow instruments. The Disciples became increasingly liberal and about half the churches left in the early to mid 1900's and became known as "Independent Christian Churches". Thus, now the entire conservative portion of the movement is known as the "Independent Christian Churches and churches of Christ" but this term is used mostly by historians and govt census takers, as both groups disavow the other. All of the above reject creeds, all have congregational polity. Some historians actually include them under the Baptist umbrella historically, as Campbell was an ordained Baptist, and they are all congregational and baptize by immersion only, as is the norm among Baptists. Tangled web I know!
The Evangelical & Reformed faction that joined the Congregational Christian Churches were German immigrants. These immigrants brought their respective traditions over with them. The German Evangelical Synod (mainly centered around St. Louis) was already the product of one merger in Prussia and weren't strict confessionalists (the Missouri Synod Lutherans broke away in search of stricter confessionalism). Over time they found common ground with the German Reformed Churches which were concentrated on the middle East Coast.
As for the Christian Churches that eventually became part of the UCC, they were a small splinter group that broke from the Stone Campbell Restorationists over areas of doctrine and practice: they rejected the necessity for weekly communion, they embraced more of an experiential conversion than the strictly cerebral approach of Stone and Campbell, and many of them leaned toward Unitarianism.
@@actionsub You are correct sir. I think there are many in the UCC today who lean towards unitarianism. Many reject the virgin birth, and be default reject the divinity of Christ, so theres really no other choice but to embrace unitarinaism
Good to know! Thank you for your grace and edification on my own denomination's history, e kala mai for my mistake.
@@caman171 Unitarianism forced a major schism in the Congregationalists around the time of the 2nd Great Awakening. There's a running joke that the UCC is an abbreviation for "Universalists Considering Christ".
@@IreneEWBUSTH0511 I deleted the comment and tried to merge it with another one. The E&R faction is big in our neck of the woods, but I did take Disciples of Christ history at seminary, and it being a UCC seminary I learned a lot about UCC by osmosis.
That said, the E&R influence, as well as the leftward drift over time, is a major reason why you probably never heard anything about salvation growing up. "Born again" theology was a dirty word at Eden; there'd be churches that posted openings that explicitly said, "No 'born-again' preaching".
This is my non-comment comment to assist the algorithm.
Is the algorithm hurt? Does it need our help?
@@russ254 it’s feelings get hurt if it is ignored.
Vague comment to drive engagement
@@RGabeDavis I keep getting censored. I think when Hal sees my name he gets triggered and the whole 2001 Space Odyssey goes haywire.
Let me be Frank. How come your guests who are church pastors who expose there experience and expertise are never asked what their Sunday Worship attendance is? That's how effectiveness is seen. I would love to know how many people the lady from Hawaii has on average Sunday. That would help us understand who she is and what's she's doing. Thank. God help the true church.
Oh I don’t generally agree that worship attendance corresponds with faithfulness. I agree it follows faithfulness sometimes, but there is hardly a causative relationship. Some of the biggest and most vibrant churches are the most damnably deluded. And some of the smallest churches are full of saints. I don’t worship at the altar of growth, but of faithfulness. If growth comes, great. If not, fine. God is glorified by authentic discipleship. That’s what I’m about.
I agree with Jeffrey that it's about substance and not numbers -- Jesus said, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." (Mt 18:20) So technically a church of 2 that are intentional about centering on Jesus is still a church. I do agree that the rapid increase of Pentacostal/Evangelical churches worldwide is God showing us His way forward, but I also love little churches like mine that are gathered for Him. To answer your question, I purposely took this church a year ago because it was in a rapid state of decline following some poor decisions about whether or not to swing hard left with the UCC several years ago (after having a mainland UCC pastor come and revamp their narrative to more closely align with the mainland), and they had since repented and made an intentional decision to move forward with Jesus at their core. I found this really powerful and curious for a mainline church so I agreed to take them on. In the past year, we've increased from average weekly attendance at 15-30 to average weekly attendance at 40-75 and skewing younger.
@@plainspokenpodagree and thank you Irene for the interview