In an emotional two-and-a-half-hour worship service at Mt. Olive Cathedral of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 20, nine churches that have talked about Christian unity for more than 40 years inaugurated a covenant agreement that seals them together as Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC).

The next morning, on a clear, cold Martin Luther King Jr Day, some 1,000 people - a mix of CUIC participants and Memphians led by Mayor Willie Harrington - marched from city hall to the historic Lorraine Motel, where on the spot where King was assassinated April 4, 1968, leaders of the CUIC churches signed a pledge to work to eradicate racism in the United States and called on all Christians to join them.

The twin acts culminated a weekend in which the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) voted itself out of existence in order to make way for the covenant fellowship that is CUIC.

"Imagine a 40-year courtship," said Bishop William H. Graves of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church as he welcomed worshipers at Mt. Olive, "in which those who are to be wed finally agree on a date to publicly profess their relationship together. Friends, we have finally made the date."

Jeffrey Newhall of the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC), the 11th and final president of COCU, said, "Today we celebrate a brave new beginning of a new journey. We don't know where it will take us, but now we know we'll all get there together."

Marks of unity

COCU was spawned in 1960 following a legendary sermon by Eugene Carson Blake of the Presbyterian Church (USA) at Grace Cathedral (Episcopal) in San Francisco. It began as a movement for organic church union, but over the years repeatedly foundered over questions of the ordering of ministry--Presbyterians, for example, ordain elders, while the Episcopal Church holds to the doctrine of the "historic episcopate," ordination of a line of bishops going back to the earliest church.

COCU eventually abandoned the merger goal and searched for ways in which its member churches could establish closer ties without giving up their own identity.

In 1999, COCU proposed to its member churches a covenant relationship based on eight "visible marks" of unity among the churches, most notably "mutual recognition of each other as authentic expressions of the one church of Jesus Christ. The agreement also includes mutual recognition of members and ordained ministry and agreements to worship and celebrate the Eucharist together and cooperate in mission, most importantly the common pledge to work to eradicate racism.

More than a name change

In his inaugural sermon, Bishop McKinley Young of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, called CUIC "an ecumenical epiphany." Just as the disciples were transformed by their encounter with Jesus, so are the CUIC member churches changed by their new covenant with each other, he said.

"It won't be the same as it was before," he said. "It's not our doing either--but Christ's presence with us in a new way--an epiphany, a new understanding of what it means to be disciples.

"This is our finest hour," Young said. "Don't blow it."

"I'm very encouraged," said the Episcopal Church's deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations, Bishop Chris Epting. "We've been up and down these 40 years and almost came to a halt a couple times. That COCU wasn't willing to go on without us is gratifying."

The Rt Revd Arthur B Williams Jr of the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Ohio, who presided over the Eucharist at the inaugural worship service, agreed with Young that the demise of COCU and the advent of CUIC is more than just a name change. Williams was representing Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who was in Nigeria.

"I'm more hopeful now than I have been before," he said. "This (CUIC) represents a renewed commitment by the churches to each other and to justice in our country." Epting agreed. "We've often gotten lost in the (ordained) ministry discussion," he said, "but this racism work is very important. I'm very hopeful we can find ways to move ahead decisively and re-energize us all to be united in our witness - to think about our CUIC partners whenever and wherever we engage this issue of racism."

Promise to eradicate racism

Indeed, the January 21 march and rally formed a seamless whole with the previous day's worship service. As representatives of each CUIC church - plus the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has signed on as a "partner in mission and dialogue" - stepped to the podium on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, they affirmed the Christian imperative to overcome racism.

"Today, on ground hallowed by God and made holy by the spilled blood of a prophet," said the Rev. Michael Livingston of the ICCC, "we take to a balcony, not a pulpit, to proclaim that together we will eradicate racism."

Williams said, "Today we celebrate life and remember death and we stand united because we share Martin Luther King's dream and are committed to eradicating racism."

The nine member churches of CUIC are the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal Church, International Council of Community Churches, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.

Article from: ENS by Jerry Van Marter, director of the Presbyterian News Service in Louisville, Kentucky.