This home movie captures scenes from the eighth annual assembly of the Texas Conference of Churches held in Austin from February 28 to March 2, 1977. In the footage, members attend a religious service in which parishioners perform a liturgical dance. Later, they congregate for their annual meeting.
The Texas Conference of Churches is an ecumenical network of the largest judicatories in the state, representing 49 Christian denominational groups and more than three million members. The conference began in 1954 as the Texas Council of Churches. The Council did not originally include Roman Catholic participation, however; consequently, the organization reconstituted itself in 1969 (following the Second Vatican Council, in which the Roman Catholic Church addressed its relation to the modern world) as the more inclusive Texas Conference of Churches.
Located in the Trull Building on the campus of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the Conference does not speak for member churches on public issues, but rather serves as a means of their speaking and acting together, particularly on moral and social issues. From its founding, for example, the organization advocated for the elimination of racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination as well as mobilized its member churches to participate in world relief efforts.
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