Churches Uniting in Christ
CUIC Logo
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| Motto | Reconciling the baptized, seeking unity with justice |
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| Founded | January 20, 2002 |
| Type | Religious |
| Focus | Ecumenism, Mainline Christianity |
| Location |
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| Origins | Consultation on Church Union |
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Area served
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North America |
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Key people
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President Robina Winbush |
| Affiliations | Partnered with National Council of Churches, World Council of Churches, Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, and Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference |
| Website | churchesunitinginchrist |
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Formerly called
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Consultation on Church Union |
Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC) is an ecumenical organization that brings together ten mainline American denominations (including both predominantly white and predominantly black churches), and was inaugurated on January 20, 2002 in Memphis, Tennessee on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. It is the successor organization to the Consultation on Church Union.
CUIC is the successor organization to the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), which had been founded in 1962. The original task of COCU was to negotiate a consensus between its nine (originally four) member communions (it also included three "advisory participant" churches). However, it never succeeded in this goal, despite making progress on several ecumenical fronts. At COCU's 18th plenary meeting in St. Louis, Missouri (January 1999), CUIC was proposed as a new relationship among the nine member communions. Each member communion voted to join CUIC over the next few years.
Heads of communion from each member of COCU (as well as the ELCA, a partner in mission and dialogue) inaugurated the group on the day before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2002 at the motel where he was killed. This particular location highlighted the group's focus on racism as a major dividing factor between and among churches.
The Coordinating Council of CUIC created three task forces: Ministry, Racial Justice, and Local and Regional Ecumenism. Each task force represented an important part of early CUIC work. Local ecumenical liturgies were encouraged, and excitement initially built around "pilot programs" in Denver, Los Angeles, and Memphis. The Racial Justice task force created gatherings and discussions on racial justice. The Ministry task force received much of the attention from church structures, however. The group had been given a mandate to complete work on reconciliation by 2007, and in 2003 began working on a document entitled "Mutual Recognition and Mutual Reconciliation of Ministries."
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Wikipedia