Overall Congregational Vitality in the United Church of Christ: Predictors and Implications

This article examines the predictors of overall congregational vitality in the United Church of Christ (UCC), a US mainline Protestant denomination of approximately 5,000 churches and 800,000 members. This analysis is based on data from the UCC version of the Faith Communities Today survey, which surveyed all UCC congregations in early 2020. An overall congregational vitality scale was created from survey questions; factors associated with congregational vitality were tested to see which ones had a statistically significant relationship with a congregation's level of overall vitality. Aspects of congregations that were significantly associated with overall congregational vitality included the fit between the pastor and congregation, innovative worship, racial diversity, and total number of participants, while the percentage of young adults, contemporary worship, founding year of congregation, percentage change in worship attendance over the past five years, current financial health of congregation, and percentage of female participants did not influence overall congregational vitality. This research may be useful for congregations seeking to maintain or increase their vitality and for researchers interested in identifying the components and predictors of congregational vitality.

“It’s Complicated”

In line with the inclusionary dilemma theme of this volume, I examine the Obama administration’s public and private exchanges with Black religious communities. In many ways, Barack Obama’s political experiences highlighted elements of the inclusionary dilemma. On one hand, Black church social networks assisted Obama in establishing a political career in Illinois politics. But this association with Black institutions, particularly Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, would later become a political liability for Obama as he sought support from White voters in the 2008 general election. Thus, Obama’s challenge was to simultaneously appear as an advocate for African American political interests and effectively represent the nation as a whole. Since Black faith communities primarily work to advance Black interests, President Obama’s team may have limited their outreach and public backing of this constituency. At the same time, Obama called for policies with broad appeal among progressives. Using the inclusionary dilemma framework as an analytic lens, this chapter explores the administration’s actions and the political interests of Black Christians. I briefly reflect on the actions of the current US president, Donald Trump, as they relate to religion and politics in Black communities.

Believing in Women? Examining Early Views of Women among America’s Most Progressive Religious Groups

This paper examines views of women among the most prominent “progressive” American religious groups (as defined by those that liberalized early on the issue of birth control, circa 1929). We focus on the years between the first and second waves of the feminist movement (1929–1965) in order to examine these views during a time of relative quiescence. We find that some groups indeed have a history of outspoken support for women’s equality. Using their modern-day names, these groups—the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and to a lesser extent, the Society of Friends, or Quakers—professed strong support for women’s issues, early and often. However, we also find that prominent progressive groups—the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the United Presbyterian Church—were virtually silent on the issue of women’s rights. Thus, we conclude that birth control activism within the American religious field was not clearly correlated with an overall feminist orientation.

Believing in Women? Examining Early Views of Women among America's Most Progressive Religious Groups

This paper examines the most prominent “progressive” American religious groups’ (as defined by those that liberalized early on the issue of birth control, circa 1930) views of women between the first and second waves of the feminist movement (1930-1965).  We find that some groups have indeed had a long and outspoken support for women’s equality.  Using their modern-day names, these groups, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Church, and to a lesser extent, the Society of Friends, or Quakers, professed strong support for women’s issues, early, and often.  However, we also find that prominent progressive groups –the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church and the United Presbyterian Church, were virtually silent on the issue of women’s rights – even as the second wave of the feminist movement was picking up steam – as late as 1965.

“Aliens Ministering to Aliens”: Reformed Church in America Missionaries among Chinese in the Philippines

This article reviews the two decades after RCA missionaries were forced out of China, revealing that the church’s “China mission” was not abandoned, but simply changed geographic focus to overseas Chinese in the Philippines. Although the RCA continued a ministry targeting Chinese from South Fujian, where they had worked since 1842, they faced many new challenges in the Philippines that were quite inconsistent with their experience in China. A major point of contention for missionaries was balancing their relationship with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and Chinese churches that refused to join this ecumenical organization.