
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant denomination formed by the union of the Congregational Christian and the Evangelical and Reformed (E&R) Churches. Their predecessors include the Pilgrims and New England Congregationalists, who pioneered our country's democratic institutions and whose pursuit of justice led them to defend the Amistad captives, and early event in the movement to abolish slavery. The E&R churches derive from the liberal wing of the German Reformation.