Druckteam Bissingen - Vereinte Kirche Gottes

Vereinte Kirche Gottes
United Church of God, an International Association
Council of Elders
Attn: Clyde Kilough, Chairman
P.O. Box 541027
Cincinnati, OH 45254-1027
United States of America
Dear Mr. Kilough,
Postfach 30 15 09
53195 Bonn
0228 - 9 45 46 36 Fax 0228 - 9 45 46 37
Internet: www.ucg-germany.org
E-Mail: info@gutenachrichten.org
Niederkassel, December 2, 2002
Greetings from Niederkassel, Germany! I am writing on behalf of the National Council of the
Vereinte Kirche Gottes (UCG-Germany).
At our National Council meeting yesterday (December 1, 2002), the National Council formally
approved by resolution our acceptance of the “Rules of Association” (RoA) of the United Church
of God, an International Association.
The National Council’s acceptance of the RoA includes our comments on three of the Rules as listed
below:
Rule 1-140 Doctrine
The National Council accepts and upholds the basic doctrines as listed in the Constitution of the
UCGIA [Article 2 of the Constitution of the UCGIA]. We note that these doctrines were approved
by the General Conference of Elders, and their amendment requires approval by the General
Conference of Elders.
UCG-Germany reserves the right to take a passive stance for doctrinal statements, study papers, etc.
which have not been approved by the General Conference of Elders in the manner set forth by the
Constitution of the Church for its basic doctrines.
Rule 3-130 Coordination of Resources
Legally the personal data of subscribers who have contacted UCG-Germany to request the Gute
Nachrichten magazine and/or other literature published by UCG-Germany are stored in a database
that is the property of UCG-Germany. In our advertizing and in our magazine Gute Nachrichten we
state that this database is our property and will not be shared with third parties. If we share this
database with a third party, we are obligated by the Data Protection Law of the Federal Republic of
Germany to inform our readers about this.
If we share data regularly with a third party — in this case UCGIA — we are required to notify
potential subscribers about this at the time they place a subscription order.

Letter of December 2, 2002 to Mr. Clyde Kilough Page 2
In both cases this would hinder our work. In Germany it is well known that data protection in the
United States is far less strict than in Germany or in the European Union. We would receive
cancellations as a result.
For this reason we do not plan to share our subscriber database with UCGIA.
The same considerations apply for our members. However, we will ask the members if they have any
objections concerning their personal data being stored in a Home Office database, and we will forward
the data of all members who do not have objections.
Rule 4-100 Dissemination of Teachings
We are very willing to share information and publications from the Home Office with our members.
We are already doing this. However, we would like to point out that this takes place within our
financial capability, since all materials from the Home Office have to be translated into German.
(end of comments)
Please feel free to contact me if there are any questions.
With warm Christian regards,
Paul Kieffer
Chairman, UCG-Germany National Council chairman