New
organization of U.S. churches set for June launch
Ecumenical group first to
include Catholic bishops
[3-18-05]
by Chris Herlinger,
Ecumenical News
International
NEW YORK
— March 11, 2005 – A long-discussed
organization of a wide range of U.S. churches and church bodies will be
launched in June.
The new group, Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT-USA),
will officially inaugurate its work on June 1 at a Jesuit retreat center in
Los Altos, CA.
It is the first such ecumenical group to be joined by the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. They formally declared their support
for CCT in late 2004.
Catholic churches in about 70 other countries belong to
national ecumenical or church bodies, Catholic News Service reported.
CCT is being formed to “widen and enlarge the table” of
ecumenical action, cooperation and dialogue in the United States and is not
expected, at least for now, to supplant the already existing National
Council of Churches (USA).
The Roman Catholic Church —
the single largest denomination in the United States
— does not belong to the NCC; nor do
many Evangelical or Pentecostal groups.
The latest U.S. denomination to declare itself a founding
member of the CCT is the Episcopal Church, whose executive council committed
the church to membership during a meeting last month in Austin, TX, the
Episcopal News Service reported.
Bishop Christopher Epting, the denomination’s chief
ecumenical officer, told the news service that CCT could “have the potential
of moving beyond the old, institutional structures and bureaucracies of the
ecumenical movement and tap into the new energies of a spiritual ecumenism.”
ENS reported that, in addition to
the Episcopal Church and the U.S. Catholic bishops, full CCT-USA members
include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Church of God, the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship,
the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox bodies, the Salvation Army,
the United Church of Christ, Open Bible Churches, International Pentecostal
Holiness Church, the advocacy group Evangelicals for Social Action, and the
humanitarian organization World Vision.
