c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ The Rev. Daniell C. Hamby may have the toughest job in religion in America.

For the past three years, Hamby, general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), has been trying to usher in a new way of bringing together the disparate elements of the Protestant church.

It’s a complex endeavor, given that the mainline Protestant churches began splitting from the Roman Catholic Church roughly five centuries ago and have been dividing over differences of opinion among themselves ever since.

When the COCU was formed in 1962, its founders were optimistic a sort of super Protestant denomination could be formed over the next decade. That dream has long since been abandoned, but member churches have been struggling since to find a middle way COCU calls the Church of Christ Uniting.

Now, 35 years after that first dream, Hamby finds himself jetting around the country trying to put down incendiary rebellions over everything from homosexuality to intricate institutional questions that have erupted even in the search for a middle way.

The recent problems come on the heels of some of COCU’s greatest successes.

Eight of the nine participating denominations have signed an agreement in the past few years to enter the Church of Christ Uniting, which would allow the denominations’ 20 million members to worship together as well as recognize and share each other’s clergy while still maintaining each church’s identity and governing bureaucracy.

But there is unrest even as the denominations move toward endorsement of the uniting church concept.

For example, in the United Methodist Church, the largest COCU denomination with 8.5 million members, there has emerged an organized anti-COCU movement among conservatives in the church.

Additionally, churches have cut funds to the point that Hamby has had to downsize his staff twice in three years. With a budget this year of $275,000, he has gone from four full-time employees to one. Lately he has been considering whether his position is really needed.

Still, Hamby has faith in the wisdom of a more united Protestant church.

“The basic theological foundation will prevail,” said Hamby, 47, an Episcopal priest who was formerly a Presbyterian minister. “I think it is the way of the future for the Protestant church.”

COCU’s critics, on the other hand, picture it as a leftover from the `60s. The more vociferous, particularly members of conservative renewal movements within several denominations, paint it as the worst threat to Christianity since the Catholic Church of Martin Luther’s time.

Some critics are concerned about the liberal bent of denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ, the only mainline Protestant denomination to approve the ordination of homosexuals.

“One of the concerns many people have is that the leadership of the mainline churches are all pushing to put a stamp of approval on homosexuality,”said the Rev. James V. Heidinger II, head of the Methodist renewal movement called Good News.

Regardless of what happens to COCU in the long run, many credit it with keeping unity talks going over the decades. Those talks have led to some impressive agreements but even they could be in trouble.

Next month, for example, the Episcopal Church is expected to vote overwhelmingly on a”concordat”with the 5.2 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The agreement will allow for the mutual recognition of priests and ministers and for closer cooperation on a range of other projects. But protest movements in the ELCA have recently gathered strength, according to some Lutheran observers, putting Lutheran approval of the pact in jeopardy.

The United Methodist Church approved a plan last year that could lead to reconciliation with African-American denominations with Methodist roots, which split during the 1800s because of racism in the mother church. Those denominations include the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

But the Rev. William Watley, pastor of St. James AME Church in Newark, N.J., who helped write his national church’s resolution embracing COCU, conceded there are problems today with both proposed unions.

“The enthusiasm has been lost over several decades,” he said of COCU. “I know it shouldn’t die. Unity is not a program; it is the will of Christ. Whether or not the present leadership can find a way to market that reason for unity is the question.”

Issues of theology and church governance have also strained the unity effort. For example, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted, along with seven other denominations, to participate in COCU. But this spring, grassroots Presbyterians of the 2.7 million-member denomination defeated the necessary changes to their Book of Order to implement their participation.

The problem? Under the proposed COCU plan, each denomination would elect a bishop to an ecumenical body governing cooperative matters. Presbyterians, who pride themselves on democratic principles, don’t have bishops or any other sort of hierarchy.

In addition to the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopalian Church and the United Methodist Church, the COCU denominations are: the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, AME Zion Church, the Disciples of Christ, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the International Council of Community Churches.

COCU’s troubles come as many mainline Protestant churches continue to lose members and money. Hamby said the cautious collaborative agreement COCU proposes would allow churches to share clergy and begin pooling precious resources to more effectively do God’s work.

“I am utterly committed to the vision,” Hamby said. “The sense is that the Church of Jesus Christ really is one. Separateness is the result of human sin. What we are called to in the unity movement is to do away with that sin.”

MJP END CHAMBERS