Braving a White House Arrest [United Church of Christ President John Thomas now in the pokey]

The American Spectator ^ | 10/16/2007 | Mark Tooley

[Alex Murphy]

WASHINGTON -- During the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands marched in protest. During the 1971 May Day demonstrations, the Nixon Administration surrounded the White House with Metro buses to protect it from hordes of hippies attempting to shut down the government. Thousands of demonstrators were arrested and temporarily held at Washington's RFK stadium.

The melodrama of those days is long gone, but some of its aging participants are still trying to re-create the glory days.

United Church of Christ (UCC) President John Thomas, after disseminating a news release announcing his plans to be arrested outside the White House to protest the Iraq War, achieved his goal on October 10.

It was rather anti-climactic. The confrontation was scheduled for the lunch hour, perhaps to encourage an audience of office workers on their break to at least stop and watch. Not many did.

"Our pledge is not to leave the gates of the White House until our message has been received or until we are arrested," wrote Thomas and his fellow UCC officer Linda Jaramillo, chief of "Justice and Witness Ministries." They were planning to drop of a UCC petition signed by 60,000 demanding an immediate U.S. retreat from Iraq.

Although a UCC news release after the arrest referred to 50 UCC'ers in supportive attendance at the arrest, the crowd probably was closer to half that size. A letter from Thomas and Jaramillo addressed to President Bush and Congressional leaders nonetheless referred to the "intensity" of anti-fervor within the UCC. That intensity seems to have been mostly confined to petition signing.

"We believe we are at a critical moment when impasse, resignation, and discouragement can easily allow failed policies to continue for months," Thomas and Jaramillo had chimed the previous Friday in a message to be shared at Sunday church services.

[Alex Murphy]

From later in the article:

The UCC is primarily made up of descendents of New England's original Congregationalists. They were once fiery Calvinists not averse to military conflict. But the modern UCC has more in common with the Unitarians and pacifist Transcendentalists who intellectually displaced New England Calvinism in the 19th century. The UCC is one of America's fastest declining denominations, having lost nearly half its membership over the last 40 years. Apparently not very interested in reversing their church's membership implosion, which would require preaching the old time Gospel, the UCC leadership instead concentrates on protest causes of the Left.

[passionfruit]

The old German Reformed churches in Pennsylvania where my German ancesors worshipped and are buried in their cemeteries are now UCC churches.

Those German Reformed ancestors served their new country bravely, in the Revolution and every conflict since then. They must be spinning in their graves to see what has become of their beloved church.

[Proud2BeRight]

“The UCC is one of America’s fastest declining denominations, having lost nearly half its membership over the last 40 years.”

I can identify with that.

[rockrr]

That intensity seems to have been mostly confined to petition signing.

Snerk! A tempest in a teapot...;'}

[Larry Lucido]

Hmm, wonder how Saddam would have handled that, in contrast to his three hots and cot for a day or two?

[HarleyD]

Whatever happened to Paul’s admonishment that we are to be subject to governing authorities?

[kaehurowing]

Nothing I hate worse than phony Christians. There are lots of them in the UCC, including its leadership. It’s a leftist social organization masquerading as a church.

Fortunately, the IRS is presently investigating stripping them of their 501(c)(3) status because of their blatant support of Obama. http://ucctruths.blogspot.com/2007/08/complaint-against-united-church-of.html

There’s yet another story on their being a front for Obama on today’s Drudge Page. http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/10/16//ap/politics/d8sa6cjg0.txt

[Unam Sanctam]

Of course most New England village greens have two white steepled churches — one the “trinitarian” Congregationalist and one the Unitarian, resulting from the early 19th C. split. Now that the orthodox descendants of the Puritans have essentially turned to the worship of left-wing activism just like their erstwhile Unitarian brethren, perhaps they can recombine the two congregations once more across New England...