New US grouping bringing more churches together set for June launch

Ecumenical News International
March 11, 2005
by Chris Herlinger

A long-discussed grouping bringing together a wide range of US churches and church bodies will be officially launched in June.

The new organization, Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT-USA), will officially inaugurate its work on 1 to 3 June at a Jesuit retreat centre in Los Altos, California. It is the first time the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has joined such a church grouping. The bishops formally declared their support for the initiative in late 2004.

Catholic churches in some 70 other countries currently 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 US denomination to declare itself a founding member of the CCT is the Episcopal Church. The denomination's executive council committed the church to the new grouping during an 11 to 14 February meeting in Austin, Texas, the Episcopal News Service reported.

Bishop Christopher Epting, the denomination's chief ecumenical officer, told the news service that CCT-USA 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 US Catholic bishops, full 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.