Church of the Younger Fellowship

On Wednesday evening October 25th, Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS) will host an historic dialogue between the national leaders of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).

Reprinted from: http://www.ants.edu/about/news/2006/102506ucc-uua.htm

Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the UCC and Rev. William Sinkford, President, of the UUA, will reflect on the historical affinities and divisions between their denominations, and then go on to explore current realities and future possibilities. This exchange is of interest to clergy and congregants in both denominations because, despite theological differences and the historical controversy that led to their split, in recent years there has been a growing solidarity of the two groups. On a number of issues of progressive religious conviction and social justice the two share common perspectives, and in some communities there are some churches that have become aligned with both denominations.

The program, which will begin at 7:00 PM in Noyes Hall on the Newton campus, will be moderated by Rev. Nick Carter, President of Andover Newton. Joining the principal speakers will be Dr. Elizabeth Nordbeck, Moses Brown Professor of Ecclesiastical History at ANTS (and specialist in New England church history), and Dr. John Buehrens, minister of First Parish in Needham (UUA), author and former president of the UUA. The program is open to the public.

Two hundred years ago this fall, a growing split within the Congregational churches, known as the ?Unitarian Controversy,? came to a full boil on the campus of Harvard College. The appointment of the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard had been put off for many years because of tensions between liberals and the more orthodox Calvinists. This theological battle soon divided many of the oldest churches in Massachusetts and began to impact church polity and the hiring of ministers. Then when the Harvard Overseers appointed a well known liberal, Henry Ware, to the Hollis Chair in 1805 the Calvinists withdrew to organize and found a new school, Andover Theological Seminary, in 1807. This act, covered widely in the national press, was one of the significant events that contributed to the split in the denominations and to the eventual founding of the American Unitarian Association in 1825 (who joined the Universalists, founded in 1793, to become the UUA in 1961).

Andover Newton is the oldest independent graduate theological school in the U.S. Prior to its founding the model for the training of clergy was based on an undergraduate degree (actually the basis for the founding of most of the early colleges in the US). The graduate model and the 3 year curriculum with a resident student body and resident faculty pioneered at Andover has become the standard for almost all of the 140 Protestant theological schools in country. In 1908 Harvard and Andover attempted to reconcile and for a period of 18 years shared the Cambridge, MA, campus. However, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts disallowed the alliance, which resulted in Andover?s relocating to the campus of Newton Theological Institution in 1931. The two formally united in 1965 to become Andover Newton Theological School. Ironically, two centuries after the Unitarian Controversy, Andover Newton now has one of the largest concentrations of Unitarian Universalist students in the country and has three UUA members on its Board of Trustees.

The 1.3-million-member United Church of Christ (UCC) has 5,725 churches throughout the United States. It was formed in 1957 with the union of two religious traditions -- the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The national offices of the UCC are in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Unitarian Universalists have over 1000 congregations and 220,000 members in the United States. The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) was formed in 1961 through the consolidation of the Universalist Church of America (1793) and the American Unitarian Association (1825). The UUA national offices are on Beacon Street in Boston, Massachusetts.

Source: http://www.ants.edu/about/news/2006/102506ucc-uua.htm