John Thomas: We are a parade
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
This is quite remarkable. From the Carroll County Times in Maryland:
According to the Rev. John Thomas, president of the UCC, the denomination needs to start seeing itself less as a big tent and more as a parade heading in a certain direction and marching to a certain drumbeat.What a terrible analogy for a denomination like ours where our polity explicitly states that local churches are autonomous yet in covenant with each other. To any church historian, independence, dissent and disagreement have always been hallmarks of our denomination.
Some of the tolerance toward dissenting groups needs to end, he said, especially if those groups are not loving and bent on pulling people out of the denomination.
Is there any difference between John Thomas comments and saying "either you are with us or against us"?
This is exactly what many in our denomination have feared for a long time: John Thomas does not REALLY subscribe to our Congregational polity, he wants the UCC to be a hierarchal church where a handful of people make the decisions and lead the parade. His comments also can not bode well for his attempt to restructure the national office by consolidating power and control - which has already been rejected. After these comments, what person in their right mind would support restructuring?
