The United Church of Christ, in its original Constitution, in 1961, asserted:

In this statement, the new Church asserted that its doctrine was a continuation of the doctrine of the historic Christian Church. It defined three categories of Confessional statements to be part of its heritage:

1. The ancient creeds of the Church;

2. The insights of the Protestant Reformation;

3. The expressions of faith from succeeding generation of the Church since the Reformation.

Along with this third group, went the responsibility of the Church to continue the process of doctrinal definition.

The new Church expressed these ideas perhaps more clearly in the Plan of Union of 1957:

The groups that came together to form the United Church of Christ had different attitudes towards creeds.

The Reformed Churches origionally used the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort as its doctrinal standards. However, the Canons were always controversial because of their extreme predestination position, and were dropped by the Reformed Church when it organized itself independent of any European bodies in 1793. The Heidelberg Catechism, studied and memorized by young people in confirmation classes, profoundly shaped the faith of the church.

The Evangelical Synod affirmed the creeds of the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, but with considerable freedom of interpretation. They declared in 1848 that they accepted:

the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures as given in the symbolic books of the Lutheran and Reformed Church, the most important being: the Augsburg Confession, Luther's and the Heidelberg Catechisms, in so far as they agree; but where they disagree, we adhere strictly to the passages of Holy Scriptures bearing on the subject, and avail ourselves of the liberty of conscience prevailing in the Evangelical Church.

The Congregational churches often each had a local church covenant, and a faith statement in the local church Constitution. Although each local congregation was autonomous, the faith statements of local churches sound remarkably similar. After a long period of cooperation with Presbyterians in the Nineteenth Century, Congregationalists continued to affirm the same doctrinal statements as Presbyterians, but did not give them the same weight. For Congregationalists, Creeds and Catechisms were important teaching tools, and were accepted “for substance of doctrine” (to use the Cambridge Platform’s words), but persons dissenting from one or another point were not excluded from fellowship. Congregationalists nurtured the tradition of issuing periodic new statements of faith.

Churches of the Christian tradition were most critical of the use of creeds. They had seen creeds being used as weapons for persecution of those disagreeing with ecclesiastical authorities, and sources of division, contrary to the unity to which Christ calls us. They would oppose any tyrannical use of creeds to oppress local church autonomy or the freedom of the individual conscience.

The Iglesia Evangélica Unida de Puerto Rico, created in 1931 as a union of Congregational, United Brethren in Christ, and Christian churches, created a faith statement as part of its union process, Nuestra Credo. This was revised in 1990 as Confesión de Fe. These statements identify the new church with the parent denominations and with the church of all times and places.

The Magyar Synod, organized in 1940, expressed its continuity with the parent church in Hungary, by declaring the Second Helvetic Confession to be its doctrinal standard.

The Congregational tradition believed strongly that the church’s understanding of its faith must not be frozen in the past, but must continue to grow. This conviction began with the often quoted words of John Robinson, the Pilgrims’ pastor in the Netherlands, in his farewell address to the Pilgrims, as reported by a hearer:

In other words, our doctrine is to be founded on the Bible, and informed by the Church of the past. But it cannot be frozen in the past. We must continue to grow and evolve: to receive new insights, and, when necessary, to reject past ideas when they have been disproved.

This idea, called in the Nineteenth Century the “Development of Doctrine” was advocated most strongly in America by a theologian of the Reformed Church, Philip Schaff. He saw the church as an organism, in continuity with the past, yet continuing to evolve. The church of the present could neither reject what it had been, nor be confined by what it had been. Schaff collected, edited, and published the Creeds of Christendom, from ancient times, through the Reformation, to his time. So the Congregational view of continuing doctrinal formulation was warmly received by many in the Reformed Church, even though that was the branch of the church most strongly attached to one creed.

What follows is a collection of doctrinal statements endorsed in some way by some representative body of the United Church of Christ or its antecedents in America. Let me explain more precisely by describing what is not included:

Doctrinal Statements:

These are statements of doctrine, not statements of polity, not mission statements, not resolutions on social issues, not constitutions. The Congregational Churches frequently made statements on polity. These can be found in Williston Walker’s Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism. Some Congregational statements contained a section on Faith and a section on Polity. Only the section on Faith is included here.

Endorsed in some way by a representative body:

This collection does not include faith statements of individual local churches, no matter how frequently they were copied. Nor does it include catechisms prepared by individuals, unless they were in some way sanctioned by a representative body.

In America:

Some of the documents that follow were composed in Europe or Asia, but have been endorsed and used by representative bodies antecedent to the United Church of Christ in America. There are some other documents, composed in Europe, which have been influential, but, to the best of my knowledge, have not been formally endorsed in America. The Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England were generally endorsed by the first settlers of New England. The congregation in Leyden, Netherlands, affirmed at the head of a statement of beliefs in 1618:

To the confession of faith published in the name of the Church of England and to every article thereof we do with the Reformed Churches where we live and also elsewhere assent wholly.

But I find no record of a formal endorsement of these articles by a representative group in America.

There may be other documents of which I am not yet aware. I once saw a faith statement from Dakota Association and Dakota Presbytery, but I could not translate it, and do not know to what extent it was endorsed by those bodies. The early German Congregational Conferences endorsed the Apostles’ Creed as their faith statement. If the other ethnic groups that have been organized within the Congregational body had faith statements, I do not know.

The doctrinal statements are as follows, with the year of adoption, and the part of the United Church of Christ from which they came. Click the underlined title to go to an introduction to the document.