For all of you are the children of God. Galatians 3:28

Each person is created in the image of God. But whenever we devise, maintain, or perpetuate systems and structures that oppress people based on race and/or ethnicity, we interfere with God's purpose and the opportunity for all God's children to fully be who they are created to be. Racism is an affront to God. Awareness and education will help us to become anti-racist individuals and foster the development of anti-racist systems and institutions that can eliminate privilege for some and oppression for others.

UCC General Synod Resolutions and Pronouncements

The United Church of Christ and its predecessor churches have made a commitment to supporting policies and structures that make real our Christian commitment to racial justice.

In 2003, General Synod XXIV approved a resolution Calling the United Church of Christ to be an Anti-racist Church encouraging all settings of the UCC to adopt anti-racism mandates, facilitate programs that would examine both historic and contemporary forms of racism and its effects, and work to dismantle racism in both church and in society. We were called to do more than simply challenge personal prejudices. We must also assess societal policies and structures to identify those that work toward the elimination of racism and those that perpetuate it.

In 2008, the UCC Collegium of Officers invited pastors across the nation to preach on race, “in the hope of inaugurating a sacred conversation in the coming months that is urgently needed in our churches, in our homes, and in the halls of power.”  This effort led to a Sacred Conversations on Race program. 

In a resolution entitled Sacred Conversations on Race, General Synod XXVII (2009) further encouraged these conversations and called the UCC to continue to “hold, establish, promote, and encourage Sacred Conversations on Race.”

Then in 2011, the UCC was called to continue our Sacred Conversations on Race, but to move beyond the initial discussions and consider the intersections of race and other social issues such as criminal justice, sentencing, health care, education, immigration, and economics.

In the 1993 Multiracial, Multicultural Church Pronouncement, General Synod XIX called the UCC to be a true multiracial and multicultural church, to acknowledge and confess its sins of racism, and to repent and refrain from all acts of racial discrimination and bigotry. General Synod also called the church to prophetic advocacy and public policy development on the issues of racial, social, economic and environmental justice, and urged the entire membership of the church to make racial justice a reality.

More information and ways to engage