The mainline churches

The Episcopal Church is the member of the worldwide Anglican Communion in the United States and several other countries, and it descends from the Church of England. Its worship follows the Book of Common Prayer, and it is governed by bishops together with a General Convention of bishops, clergy, and lay people.

• The Episcopal Church confesses the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and its Catechism names Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist as “the two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church.”
• All baptized Christians, of any denomination, are invited to receive Holy Communion in Episcopal churches.
• In 1976 the General Convention opened ordination as bishops, priests, and deacons to women, and in 1989 Barbara Harris became the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion.
• Since 2012 the church’s canons have forbidden denying anyone access to the discernment process for lay or ordained ministry because of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
• The Episcopal Church opened its marriage rites to same-sex couples in 2015 and made them available in every diocese in 2018, while leaving every member of the clergy free to decline to officiate at any marriage.
• Sean Rowe became the 28th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church on November 1, 2024.

Sources: Book of Common Prayer (1979), Catechism, pp. 845–862; An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: Open Communion; General Convention Resolution 1976-B005 (ordination of women); General Convention Resolution 2012-D002 (access to the discernment process); General Convention Resolution 2015-A036 (marriage canon); General Convention Resolution 2018-B012 (marriage rites in every diocese); Sean Rowe (Wikipedia).

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was formed in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran church bodies, and it reports about 8,400 congregations. It traces its teaching to Martin Luther and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, above all the teaching that God saves people by grace, received through faith in Christ.

• The ELCA is grounded in Scripture and in the Lutheran confessions collected in the Book of Concord, which include the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds and the Augsburg Confession of 1530.
• ELCA worship centers on the reading and preaching of the word of God and on Holy Communion, in which, as the Augsburg Confession teaches, the body and blood of Christ are truly present.
• The Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church, two of the bodies that formed the ELCA, began ordaining women in 1970, and Elizabeth Eaton became the ELCA’s first woman presiding bishop in 2013.
• Since 2009 the ELCA has allowed people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as pastors, and it leaves the decision to recognize same-gender marriages to each congregation and its pastor.
• The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America, the United Church of Christ, the Moravian Church, and the United Methodist Church.
• Yehiel Curry, elected in 2025, is the ELCA’s first Black presiding bishop.

Sources: ELCA: What Lutherans believe; ELCA: History of the ELCA; Augsburg Confession, Article X: Of the Lord’s Supper (BookOfConcord.org); ELCA women reflect on 50 years of ordination (Religion News Service, 2019); Presiding Bishop Eaton on the Supreme Court marriage decision (2015); ELCA: Full communion partners; Yehiel Curry to be installed as ELCA presiding bishop (ELCA, 2025).

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) stands in the Reformed tradition of John Calvin and John Knox, and it is governed by elders chosen from its congregations together with its ministers. It was formed on June 10, 1983, when the northern and southern Presbyterian churches reunited after 122 years of separation.

• The PC(USA)’s Book of Confessions contains twelve creeds, confessions, and catechisms, from the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed to the Confession of Belhar and A Brief Statement of Faith.
• Presbyterians celebrate two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and they baptize the infants of believing parents as well as adults.
• Presbyterian women were first ordained as elders in 1930 and as ministers in 1956, when Margaret Towner was ordained, and the southern church ordained its first woman minister, Rachel Henderlite, in 1965.
• Since 2011 the PC(USA) has been able to ordain gay and lesbian people as ministers, elders, and deacons.
• Since 2015 the church’s constitution has described marriage as “a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman,” and no minister is required to perform a marriage against conscience.
• The Rev. Jihyun Oh was elected Stated Clerk of the General Assembly in 2024.

Sources: PC(USA), The Book of Confessions (2016); PC(USA) celebrates 70 years of women clergy (2026); Stories from the 1983 reunion General Assembly (PC(USA), 2022); PC(USA) approves change in ordination standards (2011); Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approves marriage amendment (Presbyterian Outlook, 2015); PC(USA): Stated Clerk of the General Assembly.

The United Methodist Church grew out of the revival led by John Wesley, an Anglican priest, and his brother Charles in eighteenth-century England. It was formed in 1968 by the union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, and it has annual conferences in the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Philippines.

• The United Methodist Church affirms the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and it teaches, following John Wesley, that God’s grace comes to people as prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace.
• United Methodists celebrate Baptism and Holy Communion, and the Communion liturgy invites “all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with one another.”
• The Methodist Church, one of the bodies that formed the United Methodist Church, granted women full clergy rights in 1956.
• In 2024 the General Conference removed the church’s bans on “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy and on same-sex weddings, and it gave every pastor the right to decide which weddings to perform.
• Between 2019 and 2023, 7,659 United States congregations left the denomination, many of them for the Global Methodist Church, which launched in 2022 and does not marry same-sex couples.
• In 2025 the annual conferences ratified constitutional amendments that let each region of the worldwide church adapt parts of the Book of Discipline to its own setting.

Sources: UMC.org: What we believe; UMC.org Glossary: United Methodist Church, The; UMC.org: An open table: How United Methodists understand communion; General Commission on Archives and History: Maud Jensen; United Methodists remove same-sex wedding ban (UM News, 2024); United Methodists strike down ban on ordination of gay clergy (RNS, 2024); United Methodist Church split: total disaffiliations (Christianity Today, 2023); UMC bishops finish canvassing of amendments: all four ratified (Arkansas Conference, 2025).

American Baptist Churches USA is the mainline Baptist denomination, with more than 5,000 congregations in 33 regions across the United States and Puerto Rico. Its national body was organized as the Northern Baptist Convention in 1907 and took the name American Baptist Churches USA in 1972. Like other Baptists, it honors the autonomy of each local church.

• The American Baptist tradition emphasizes the lordship and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, believers’ baptism, the competency of every believer to relate directly to God, and freedom in worship and opinion.
• American Baptists baptize people who profess faith for themselves, by immersion, rather than baptizing infants.
• Churches in the American Baptist tradition have ordained women since the 1880s, and a 1985 policy statement says the church “must have both women and men of all races as full partners of its ministry.”
• American Baptist Churches USA has no churchwide policy affirming same-sex marriage or gay clergy: a 1992 General Board resolution states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” and a 2005 identity statement places sexual intimacy within marriage between one man and one woman.
• A 1993 resolution acknowledged “a variety of understandings throughout our denomination” on homosexuality, and since 2012 the denomination’s policy statements “in no way obligate American Baptist congregations or regions,” so congregations differ on the question.
• The Rev. Dr. Gina Jacobs-Strain is the General Secretary of American Baptist Churches USA.

Sources: ABCUSA: What we believe; ABCUSA: Our history; ABCUSA: Policy statements and resolutions; ABCUSA: Resolution on the empowerment of women (quoting the 1985 policy statement); ABCUSA: Responses and actions pertaining to homosexuality; Wheaton College Archives: Frances E. Townsley; ABCUSA home page (General Secretary).

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) grew out of the Stone-Campbell movement on the American frontier in the early nineteenth century, which sought the unity of all Christians. It has more than 3,000 congregations in the United States and Canada, and its symbol is a chalice because most of its congregations celebrate Communion every Sunday.

• The Disciples do not use creeds as tests of faith; instead they encourage members to study Scripture for themselves, with attention to the history and setting in which it was written.
• Most Disciples congregations celebrate Communion every Sunday, and the church’s identity statement says, “we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.”
• Disciples baptize people who choose for themselves to follow Christ, rather than baptizing infants.
• The Disciples of Christ Historical Society records Clara Celestia Hale Babcock, ordained in 1888, as the first woman ordained in the Christian Churches.
• In 2013 the General Assembly affirmed “the faith, baptism and spiritual gifts of all Christians regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” though each congregation decides for itself whether to become “open and affirming.”
• The Rev. Terri Hord Owens, General Minister and President since 2017, is the first woman of African descent to lead a mainline denomination.

Sources: Disciples of Christ: Our identity; Disciples of Christ Historical Society: Clara Hale Babcock; GA-1327, Becoming a People of Grace and Welcome to All, adopted by the General Assembly (2013); Rev. Terri Hord Owens, official biography (2026).

The United Church of Christ was formed on June 25, 1957, by the union of the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches. It joins the Congregational churches of Puritan New England with German Reformed and Evangelical churches, and its congregations govern themselves.

• The UCC says it has “no rigid formulation of doctrine or attachment to creeds,” and it calls love its overarching creed.
• The UCC celebrates the sacraments of Baptism and Communion, and it invites all people of faith to Christ’s table.
• A Congregational church in South Butler, New York, ordained Antoinette Brown on September 15, 1853, and the UCC counts her as the first of its women clergy.
• In 1972 the UCC’s Golden Gate Association ordained William Johnson, the first openly gay person ordained in a mainline Protestant church.
• In 2005 the UCC’s General Synod called for equal marriage rights for all couples, but its resolutions cannot be imposed on local congregations, which decide their own practice.
• The Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A. Thompson, elected in 2023, is the first woman to serve as the UCC’s General Minister and President.

Sources: UCC: What we believe; UCC: History; UCC celebrates an anniversary: 150 years of women clergy; Landmark, trailblazing, first: celebrating 30 years Open and Affirming (UCC); UCC has been progressive pacesetter (Christian Century, 2013); Karen Georgia Thompson becomes first woman to lead UCC (UCC, 2023).