Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 4, 2024 “The Fifth Stream” Galatians 3: 26-29 – Common English Bible You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 Now if you belong to Christ, then indeed you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise. When we talk of the history of the United Church of Christ, we often speak of the UCC as having four streams that merged into two that eventually became one river. In the first stream were churches from the Congregational tradition. That’s us. Congregational churches are older than the United States. The Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth, Massachusetts, celebrated its 400th anniversary in October. Yes, among our Congregational ancestors were the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Some look upon that fact with pride, some with hesitation and even scorn, but it’s our heritage. The first wave among them were seeking freedom from religious persecution. Sadly, they went on to do some religious persecuting of their own. Our family closet has a lot in it. The primary concern of Congregationalists wasn't about beliefs, which were quite diverse, but for the congregation to have its own authority. There were two streams involving German immigrants – the first wave in the 1700s were from the Reformed tradition, centered around Philadelphia, fleeing war and poverty. The second wave came in the mid-late 1800s and were centered around Saint Louis, also fleeing war and poverty. This second group were known as Evangelicals. Not the small “e” evangelicals of today, nor the moral majority type. In fact, they were quite broad minded for their day. Evangelicals were a middle way between rigid doctrine and secular rationalism. Their motto was “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, diversity. In all things, charity.” The Reformed immigrants and the Evangelical immigrants found commonality and joined together to form one stream known as the Evangelical and Reformed Church. A very imaginative name, right? Per capita, for their size, this group founded more human service and health care institutions in the United States than any other religious group, including the largest hospital systems in Chicago and Saint Louis. The fourth stream was a group known only as Christians – a group of former Baptists in New England who believed in universal salvation, as in, there is no hell, and among them were some of the earliest women preachers in America, including Nancy Gove in the 1820s. Also, a group of former Methodists in Virginia who wanted to be free of authoritarianism by bishops and a group of former Presbyterians in Kentucky who embraced frontier revivals. This disparate group wanted nothing of denominationalism but united around some common principles which they later realized needed some kind of structure so they became a denomination known as The Christian Churches which found commonality and joined together to form one stream known as the Congregational Christian Churches. Another imaginative name, right? Those were the four streams, that became two, that became known as the one United Church of Christ in 1957. The motto at our founding is “that they may all be one.” But there was one more group that no one knew what to do with. They didn’t fit this narrative, so they were ignored. That’s the charitable view. This group was Black, so you might say they were dismissed. But whatever you might say, at the founding of the UCC they were absent. The Afro Christian Convention or Connection, centered in the Tidewater region of Virginia and North Carolina, was lumped together with The Christian Churches, but they are distinctly different. These churches were not centered in whiteness, not founded by white people or offshoots of white churches. Immediately after the Civil War, people who had been enslaved and still practiced aspects of religious tradition passed down from their descendants in Africa started churches and created their own structure of cooperation and fellowship – and even a college. If you have an image that all UCC churches worship in relatively the same way, for example, singing hymns and listening quietly to prepared sermons, churches from the Afro Christian tradition are more lively and free-spirited with African rhythms and influences. The absence of these members at the founding of the UCC, the absence of their story in the telling of our history as four streams, was confessed at last summer’s General Synod along with an official apology and a commitment to their inclusion in our teaching of history as a rightful fifth stream in the UCC. I’ve taught UCC history at the seminary in Denver for 10 years. I always included their story as a hidden history, but not with the perspective of the Afro Christian Connection as a fully equal part of our history. That now changes. African Americans have always been part of the history of the Congregational tradition, but more often as the subjects of mission rather than the agents of mission. Upon becoming a Congregationalist, Black members and Black churches were expected to adopt a white style of worship – singing European songs – and a theology shaped by Europeans, addressing issues of interest to Europeans, not those living in the reality of a Jim Crow world, subject to lynching and excluded from decision making in society. White churches may have talked about these issues on occasion, but not in a way that reflected the daily lived experience of racism. When the Congregational Christian Church was founded in 1931, Black Congregationalists and Afro Christians struggled to find common ground – with styles of worship vastly different from one another. Black Congregationalists were often well educated and the upper crust of the Black community. Afro Christians were not, which further led to their marginalization. But slowly and deliberately the two groups nurtured a relationship of family and common purpose that was, unfortunately and ironically, interrupted by the formation of the UCC. In the new UCC, churches would be integrated into geographical conferences. Integrated, which seemed only right, but isolated from one another, which further led to their marginalization. It seems impossible to think that a denomination that talks a lot about racial justice failed to talk with and include its own Black members. Impossible but yet so common we didn't even notice it, at least “we” who represent the dominant majority, who either intentionally or unintentionally set and maintain the expectation of what it means to be the UCC. That’s changing. One of the fastest growing groups in the UCC, yes there are areas of growth, are congregations of Black LGBTQ Pentecostalists. It makes sense that they would be welcomed into the UCC, but is the UCC ready to welcomed into them? Not for them to change to fit us but for us to change to fit them? And get rid of the whole “us and them” altogether. We have a model to do so straight out of the Afro Christian tradition known as the Five Principles: 1)Jesus Christ is the only head of the Church. What does that mean? The head of the church is not a pope or a bishop. And not even the people. Christ alone is the head. One of my favorite lines is the lay woman who told her pastor, “Jesus is the head of this church, pastor; not you.” 2)Christian is a sufficient name of the Church. They resisted such names as Presbyterian or Methodist or Congregational. No sectarian divides, they preached. 3)The Holy Bible is a sufficient rule for faith and practice. No creeds, no indoctrination, just the Bible. But they were not literalists. They had women preachers because they saw evidence of it in the Bible. Literalists would say women should be silent in the church. 4)Christian character is a sufficient test for Church membership and fellowship, which is to say, membership isn’t about being able to recite a creed or answer specific questions about doctrine. The only thing asked is to live a Christian life. I suppose they still needed some way to talk about what that meant, but not something that easily excluded people for having the “wrong” beliefs. 5)The right of private judgment and the liberty of conscience are rights and privileges that should be accorded to and exercised by all. This was a big one. People have a right to decide for themselves what to believe. They affirmed our own consciences as valid interpretations of belief, not what some outside authority told you to believe. Can you imagine how absolutely radical this would be in the 1800s, but actually it would be seen as unacceptably radical in some churches even today. But it is what Afro Christians who were shaped and formed by African religious practices found in common with Baptists who didn’t believe in hell, Methodists who resisted authoritarianism, and Presbyterians who believed in the validity of personal conversion. And this is how they found each other to cooperate as Christian Churches who came together with Congregationalists who also held quite diverse beliefs, added to the E&R church with its motto In Essentials, Unity; in Non-Essentials Diversity; in All Things Charity. That’s us as the UCC, a story in which one stream will no longer be absent. Thinking about your own faith story, how do these statements, five principles, sit with you? What do you think: 1)Jesus is the only head of the church. Does that differ from how you were raised? 2)Christian is a sufficient name. What are the names of denominations you have belonged to? Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist… Do we need more labels – even UCC? Does anyone outside our churches care one bit about it? 3)The Bible is a sufficient rule for faith and practice. Were you raised in a tradition of creeds and doctrines? 4)Christian character is enough to join a church. That could be a tricky one. What if a church decided that something about you was not Christian-enough? But their concern was really with creeds and doctrines. 5)Private judgment and the right to follow your conscience. Does that sound like what you grew up with? Does it describe who you are now? If it does, you might be UCC! Here’s to our Fifth Stream. We have many stories to learn and tell. To learn more, see Afro-Christian Convention: The Fifth Stream of the UCC edited by Yvonne Delk published by United Church Press in 2023
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