Merger Proposal.

On 4 December 1960, on the eve of the triennial convention of the National Council of Churches of Christ in America, Eugene Carson Blake, the stated clerk (chief executive officer) of the United Presbyterian Church (Northern), gave a sermon at Grace Cathedral (Episcopal) in San Francisco. The sermon, entitled "A Proposal Toward the Reunion of Christ's Church," launched a movement toward a merger of the leading mainline Protestant denominations that lasted through the decade. In his sermon Blake proposed that the United Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Methodist churches and the United Church of Christ commit themselves to official consultation toward a merger despite their varying forms of governance and crucial doctrinal divisions.

Consultation on Church Union.

Other denominations joined in the program, officially called the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), in the course of the decade. They included the Christian Church (Disciples of...