The author wrote a compelling story of how the United Church of Christ took shape in the mid-twentieth century. During this time, church unions were a prominent feature of the movement toward Christian unity and secular models of organization dominated denominational development. Charles Shelby Rooks has expanded this classic text by bringing the United Church of Christ story to the forty-year mark. Today the United Church of Christ has grown into a denomination that strives to become a multicultural and multiracial church. Rooks's additional chapter provides reflections on five themes woven throughout the church between 1977 and 1998. The documentation cited will provide helpful guidance to anyone seeking to pursue additional study of the United Church of Christ. An interpretive essay in the history of American Christianity, this book is also a narrative account of the church union process itself. In that respect it is of significance for Protestant Christianity in general.