United church

Historically, unions of Protestant churches were enforced by the state, usually in order to have a stricter control over the religious sphere of its people, but also for other organizational reasons. As modern Christian ecumenism progresses, unions between various Protestant traditions are becoming more and more common, resulting in a growing number of united and uniting churches. Examples include the United Church of Canada (1925), the Church of South India (1947), the Evangelical Church in Germany (1948), the United Church of Christ (1957), the United Methodist Church (1968), the Church of North India (1970), the Church of Pakistan (1970), the Uniting Church in Australia (1977), the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (2004), and the United Protestant Church of France (2013).