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UCC Firsts

The United Church of Christ is a blend of four historic traditions — Congregational, Christian, Evangelical, and Reformed — and many newer traditions. Each has left a mark on U.S. religious and political history. Here are just some of the many ways the UCC and its predecessor bodies have led the way through ministry. History courtesy of www.ucc.com.

1600s | 1700s | 1800s | 19oos | 2000s

1620: Pilgrims seek spiritual freedom
Seeking spiritual freedom, forbears of the United Church of Christ prepare to leave Europe for the New World. Later generations know them as the Pilgrims. Their pastor, John Robinson, urges them as they depart to keep their minds and hearts open to new ways. God, he says, “has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word.”

1630: An early experiment in democracy
The Congregational churches founded by the Pilgrims and other spiritual reformers spread rapidly through New England. In an early experiment in democracy, each congregation is self-governing and elects its own ministers. The Congregationalists aim to create a model for a just society lived in the presence of God. Their leader, John Winthrop, prays that "we shall be as a city upon a hill ... the eyes of all people upon us."

1636: To advance and perpetuate learning
The commitment of those who walked before us to education and higher learning was deep. Both Harvard (1636) and Yale (1701) were founded out of that vision. So were eight historically black colleges and universities in the South, schools that continue today as places of nurture and liberation for the children of this generation. Also founded by our UCC forebears were Wellesley, Smith, Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst, Oberlin, Mount Holyoke, Howard, Elmhurst and UC Berkeley. Nationally, 47 schools are members of the UCC Council for Higher Education today, including residential secondary schools, colleges, universities and 15 seminaries.

1640: Beginning of freedom of the press
The idea of a "free press" in North America begins when Congregationalists publish their first book – the Bay Psalter. In Europe, the first "Pilgrim Press" was seized by government agents to suppress criticism of King James. In America, the new community could publish in freedom. Today's Pilgrim Press – an imprint of the United Church of Christ – is the oldest publishing house in the U.S.

 1663: First Bible Printed in North America 
The first bible in the new world is printed in the Algonquin language, translated by Congregationalist John Eliot. Eliot begins preaching to the Algonquians in their own language in 1646. Photo courtesy of www.greatsite.com

1700: An early stand against slavery
Congregationalists are among the first Americans to take a stand against slavery. The Rev. Samuel Sewall writes the first anti-slavery pamphlet in America, "The Selling of Joseph." Sewall lays the foundation for the abolitionist movement that comes more than a century later.

1730s: The Great Awakening
The first Great Awakening sweeps through Congregational and Presbyterian churches. One of the great thinkers of the movement, Jonathan Edwards, says the church should recover the passion of a transforming faith that changes "the course of [our] lives."

1773: First act of civil disobedience
Five thousand angry colonists gather in the Old South Meeting House to demand repeal of an unjust tax on tea. Their protest inspires the first act of civil disobedience in U.S. history—the "Boston Tea Party."

1773: First published African American poet
A young member of the Old South congregation, Phillis Wheatley, becomes the first published African American author. "Poems on Various Subjects" is a sensation, and Wheatley gains her freedom from slavery soon after. Modern African American poet Alice Walker says of her: "[She] kept alive, in so many of our ancestors, the notion of song."

1777: Reformed congregation saves Liberty Bell
The British occupy Philadelphia — seat of the rebellious Continental Congress — and plan to melt down the Liberty Bell to manufacture cannons. The Bell is safely hidden under the floorboards of Old Zion Reformed Church in Allentown.

1785: First ordained African-American pastor
Lemuel Haynes is the first African-American ordained by a Protestant denomination. He becomes a world-renowned preacher and writer.

1798: ‘Christians’ seek liberty of conscience
Dissident preacher James O’Kelly is one of the early founders of a religious movement called simply the “Christians.” The Christians seek liberty of conscience and oppose authoritarian church government.

1806: Modern American Mission Movement
A prayer meeting and a sudden thunderstorm sent 5 Williams College students into a haystack in 1806. Their commitment to spread the teachings of Christianity around the world launched the modern American mission movement. Starting in India, then including blacks and Native Americans in the US, they translated the Bible into local and often previously unwritten languages. Missionaries built schools, churches and hospitals and trained local leaders. Their efforts sometimes led to conflict and the destruction of indigenous practices. Today, successor bodies work with local partners and ecumenically in 80 countries to share life, resources and needs.

1807: First Protestant seminary in America
Congregationalists organize Andover Theological Seminary the first Protestant seminary in America, which becomes a center for religious reform. It later introduces the critical study of scripture and church history, and offers the first challenge to conventional religious thinking in the debate on the theory of evolution.

1817: First School for the deaf community in America 
The Rev.Thomas Gallaudet went to Europe to learn new forms of communicating with those without hearing. He opened the Connecticut Asylum for the Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons in 1817, supported by voluntary contributions and subsidized by the state.  In 1856, the school for the deaf later named Gallaudet University opened in Washington, D.C.

1839: defining moment for abolitionist movement
Enslaved Africans break their chains and seize control of the schooner Amistad. They are arrested and held in a Connecticut jail while the ship’s owners sue to have them returned as property. Congregationalists and other Christians organize a campaign to free the captives. The Supreme Court rules the captives are not property, and the Africans regain their freedom.

1840: 1st united church in U.S. history
A meeting of Missouri pastors forms the first united church in U.S. history — the Evangelical Synod. It unites two Protestant traditions that have been separated for centuries: Lutheran and Reformed. The Evangelicals believe in the power of tradition, but also in spiritual freedom.

1845: ‘Protestant Catholicism’
Theologian Philip Schaff scandalizes the Reformed churches in Pennsylvania when he argues for a “Protestant Catholicism” centered in the person of Jesus Christ. The movement founded by Schaff and his friend, John Nevin, revives sacramental worship in the Reformed church and sets the stage for the 20th-century liturgical movement.

1846: First integrated anti-slavery society
The Amistad case is a spur to the conscience of Congregationalists who believe no human being should be a slave. In 1846 Lewis Tappan, one of the Amistad organizers, organizes the American Missionary Association—the first anti-slavery society in the U.S. with multiracial leadership.

1853: First woman pastor
Antoinette Brown is the first woman since New Testament times ordained as a Christian minister, and perhaps the first woman in history elected to serve a Christian congregation as pastor. At her ordination a friend, Methodist minister Luther Lee, defends “a woman’s right to preach the Gospel.” He quotes the New Testament: “There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

1858: First Community to openly defy slave laws
Members of First Congregational Church in Oberlin, Ohio join others from Oberlin College and the local community, both blacks and whites, in defying the Fugitive Slave Law. They rescue a captured runaway slave, John Price, from the hotel where he is being held in nearby Wellington, Ohio. Twenty are arrested and held in jail in Cleveland. Price is hidden and sent along on the underground railroad to Canada. The Oberlin Wellington Rescue Case helps raise opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, one cause of the Civil War.

1862-77: Colleges and Universities for Blacks in the South
The American Missionary Association starts six colleges: Dillard University, Fisk University, LeMoyne-Owen College, Huston-Tillotson College, Talladega College and Tougaloo College, all historically black colleges and universities that continue to offer excellence, access, and opportunity in higher education. It also founds Brick School, today part of the UCC’s Franklinton Center in North Carolina.

1887: Poor Wolf becomes Christian
Poor Wolf, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Hidatsa people, converts to Christianity. In 1971, the UCC Council for American Indian Ministry is formed. to provide ministry and witness in Indian settings, and understanding of Indian communities to the wider church.

1889: First theological school to admit women
Hartford Seminary in Connecticut is in the first in the nation to admit women into regular classes, training them for work in education and missions.

1889: Deaconess MoveMent
The Evangelical Deaconess Society and the Evangelical Deaconess Home and Hospital begin in St. Louis. Katherine Haack, a trained nurse and widow of an Evangelical pastor, is the first deaconess to be consecrated. At a time when women were often silenced at church, women such as Haack were leaders in the administration and guidance of the home and hospital.

1897: Social Gospel movement denounces economic oppression
Congregationalist Washington Gladden is one of the first leaders of the Social Gospel movement, which takes literally the commandment of Jesus to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Social Gospel preachers denounce injustice and the exploitation of the poor. He writes a hymn that summarizes his creed: “Light up your Word: the fettered page from killing bondage free.”

1943: ‘Serenity Prayer’
Evangelical and Reformed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr preaches a sermon that introduces the world to the now famous Serenity Prayer: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

1952: ‘The Courage to Be’
Evangelical and Reformed theologian Paul Tillich publishes “The Courage to Be” — later named by the New York Public Library as one of the “Books of the Century.” “Life demands again and again,” he writes, “the courage to surrender some or even all security for the sake of full self-affirmation.”

1957: Spiritual and ethnic traditions unite
The United Church of Christ is born when the Evangelical and Reformed Church unites with the Congregational Christian Churches. The new community embraces a rich variety of spiritual traditions and embraces believers of African, Asian, Pacific, Latin American, Native American and European descent.

1959: Historic ruling that airwaves are public property
Southern television stations impose a news blackout on the growing civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King Jr. asks the UCC to intervene. Everett Parker of the UCC’s Office of Communication organizes churches and wins in Federal court a ruling that the airwaves are public, not private property. The decision leads to hiring of persons of color in television studios and newsrooms.

1960: Nobel laureate protests apartheid
Albert Lutuli is honored by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in 1960 for non-violent protest campaign. Educated in a Congregationalist mission school in South Africa, Albert Lutuli becomes an educator, lay preacher, and key leader in the United Congregational Church of South Africa. He opposes apartheid policies and the unjust ‘Pass Laws’ that limit freedom of movement of Africans. Despite threats of arrest, charges of treason, and government bans restricting his travel, he persists in opposition until his death in 1967.

1972: Ordination of first openly gay minister
The UCC’s Golden Gate Association ordains the first openly gay person as a minister in a mainline Protestant denomination: the Rev. William R. Johnson. In the following three decades, General Synod urges equal rights for homosexual citizens and calls on congregations to welcome gay, lesbian and bisexual members.

1973: Standing with farm workers
Meeting in St. Louis, the UCC General Synod suspends business after learning from Cesar Chavez that farm owners have unleashed a campaign of violence and beatings against strikers. The church flies delegates to Coachella Valley to show support.

1973: Civil rights activists freed
The Wilmington Ten — 10 civil rights activists — are charged with the arson of a white-owned grocery store in Wilmington, N.C. One of them is Benjamin Chavis, a social justice worker sent by the UCC to Wilmington to help the African-American community overcome racial intolerance and intimidation. The UCC’s General Synod raises bail. Chavis’ conviction is overturned and he is released after spending four-and-a-half years in prison.

1976: First African American leader of an integrated denomination
General Synod elects the Rev. Joseph H. Evans president of the United Church of Christ. He becomes the first African American leader of a racially integrated mainline church in the United States.

1977: National UCC disabilities ministries
Harold Wilke (standing in photo) is first to lead national UCC disabilities ministries. Born without arms, the internationally known disabilities advocate serves as pastor, author, denominational executive. When President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act, newspapers worldwide carry a photo of Bush handing Wilke one of his pens, which Wilke accepts with his left foot.

1978: First to publicize the Love Canal disaster
UCC member Roger Cook helps organize public response to the Love Canal disaster. A residential area and school had been built directly on the former toxic waste dump near Niagara Falls, NY. The Ecumenical Task Force, using tactics including civil disobedience, brings the site to public attention. President Carter declares it a federal emergency. Residents are moved and the site cleaned up.

1987: Identifies "Environmental Racism"
The UCC Commission for Racial Justice issues "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States," a groundbreaking study documenting that race is the most significant variable in the national distribution of hazardous waste facilities. Study leads to use of the term "environmental racism."

1989: Ecumenical Partnership
The United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples
of Christ) approve a historic partnership of full communion.
The two denominations proclaim mutual recognition of their sacraments and ordained ministry.

1993: Apology accepted
Sometimes “being first” means being the first to admit a past mistake. In Hawai’i, UCC President Paul Sherry apologizes on behalf of the church for the complicity of missionaries in the 1893 overthrow of Hawai’i’s government and leader, Queen Lili’uokalani. $3.5 million is pledged to native Hawai’ian churches and a non-profit organization.

1995: Singing a new song
The UCC publishes The New Century Hymnal — the only hymnal released by a Christian church that honors in equal measure both male and female images of God. Although its poetry is contemporary, its theology is traditional. “

1997: ‘Formula of Agreement’
Centuries of division between the Lutheran and Reformed branches of Protestant Christianity end when UCC, Presbyterian Church USA, Reformed Church in America and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America agree on a relationship of full communion through a “Formula of Agreement.” The Formula acknowledges the common historical roots –– and the theological differences –– between the traditions, and celebrates the potential for shared mission and ministry.

2005: Marriage equality
On July 4, the General Synod overwhelmingly passes a resolution supporting same-gender marriage equality. UCC General Minister and President John Thomas says that the Synod “has acted courageously to declare freedom, affirming marriage equality, affirming the civil rights of same gender couples ... and encouraging our local churches to celebrate and bless those marriages.”