8-10-2007
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT?
OF
THE UCC???
As the difficult and
often conflicted presidency of John Thomas draws to a close, speculation has
begun about who will emerge as the next leader of the denomination. Will they be
able to unite rather than divide? Will they be able to lead our 5600 churches
into spiritual renewal rather than continued decline? Will they be open to all?
Since the UCC has never had a woman president, we believe that the nomination
may very likely go to one of the following:
NANCY TAYLOR
NANCY
TAYLOR
Recently called as the Sr. Pastor of historic Old South Church in Boston, Nancy
previously served as the Massachusetts Conference Minister, one of the largest
and most influential conferences in the UCC. An attractive, personable, 49-year
old leader who communicates well, Nancy has served in several posts in the wider
church. Following 9/11 she played a significant role in establishing an ongoing
interfaith dialogue between Christian and Jewish leaders, and has published a
manual for church renewal and growth in the Massachusetts Conference. She has
served a rural parish in Maine and a mid-western parish in Boise, Idaho. In her
inaugural sermon at Old South, Nancy said, “We believe God is still speaking to
us and did not stop speaking when the Bible was written. We are still listening
and learning, changing and growing. We are convinced that the clash of competing
ideas in uneasy proximity to each other makes for spiritually alive,
intellectually agile and deeply engaged Christians. Indeed it is the unique
genius of the UCC that we are able to move in different directions as long as we
agree on this: that Jesus Christ is the sole Head of the Church.” Rev. Taylor
graduated from Macalester College, holds an M. Div. from Yale, and a D. Min.
from Chicago Theological Seminary. She was married to the Rev. Peter Southwell-Sander,
who passed away last year.
DAVIDA FOY CRABTREE
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Conference
minister in Connecticut, one of the most influential Conferences in the UCC,
since 1996, 63-year old Rev. Crabtree has been a very visible and influential
presence in the national church and a leader among Conference Ministers. A
strong feminist, she once printed stickers that read, “this is an insult to
women,” and posted them like graffiti on the campus of Andover Newton in protest
to whatever she found offensive. She became the youngest member of the UCC’s
Executive Council at age 27. She has served as a Chaplain with the Greater
Hartford Campus Ministry (1976–1980), Sr. Pastor of the Federated Church in
Colchester, CT, and Conference Minister in Southern California before coming to
Connecticut. In her early ministry Davida was a strong women’s advocate, helping
to found the Prudence Crandall Center for Women, and appointed by UCC President
Robert Moss to help direct the first “Task Force for Women in Church and
Society” following the 1971 Synod. Of that time Davida says, “I was not known
for my people skills in those days. I had been so hurt by the response of the
church initially to my going to seminary, seeking scholarships, candidacy for
ordination and advocacy for women that I could not back down. I barged ahead and
said what I really thought, whether that would be fruitful and productive or
not.” She credits a mentor Dean George Peck at Andover Newton where she
graduated in 1971 with “helping me to move from the destructive anger that was
eating me to the righteous anger of the prophet that would liberate me to take
action.”
Arriving in Los Angeles to face an
earthquake, Rev. Crabtree worked there with a wide variety of cultural leaders
to build relationships. “We had to ask”, she says, “how do we reposition this
conference for a new era, how do we nurture more new church starts, how do we
build relationships globally that will help us welcome?” Recently she hosted the
50th anniversary celebration of the UCC in Hartford. Some insiders believe she
is quietly moving into position for the post and is the early favorite.
DR. SUSAN THISTLETHWAITE
As
President of Chicago Theological Seminary and author of ten books, Dr. Susan
Thistlethwaite is the most academically credentialed and theologically trained
of the potential candidates. She also has the most controversial “paper trail”
on critical issues that would make her a lightning rod for theological
contention. (See box below.) A charming, competent organizer and communicator,
with tremendous experience in everything from Islamic, Jewish dialogue to online
theological training for laity, Susan would be a formidable candidate. In her
late 50’s, Dr. Thistlethwaite is married and has three adult children.
In recent years she has come to public
attention for her theological defense of abortion, public opposition to
conservative Supreme Court nominees, attacks on evangelicals and
fundamentalists, and vehement opposition to the war. Dr. Thistlethwaite’s best
known writing in the UCC is her work on the theology of “just peace.” She is a
regular contributor to Newsweek’s, OnFaith forum http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith
~ Some Thistlethwaite “Gems”
~
In Support of
Wiccan Chaplains in the
U.S. Armed Forces:
”Paganism has an
important role to play in American religious culture as it explicitly regards
women as capable of embodying the sacred. It has been my personal experience
that conservative Christianity in particular regards all women regardless of
their faith as vaguely Pagan.”
> Onfaith, July 2007
On Jihad:
“Jihad as ‘struggle
to improve society’ is more akin to the way we in the U.S. have used the phrase
‘war on poverty’. A ‘war on poverty’ does not mean literally killing those who
impoverish others – it means attacking the conditions of poverty in a vigorous
though non-violent way.
“There is also what
is called ‘the greater Jihad’ which refers to the inner struggle for faith by
the individual believer. It is the ‘greater’ Jihad, many Muslims believe,
because it is the more difficult struggle and also the most worthwhile.
“But, it is also the
case that Jihad can and is used to mean armed struggle and all Muslim leaders I
know acknowledge this both historically and in the contemporary context. In this
sense, the meaning of Jihad is very like the concept of ‘Just War’ in
Christianity.” > Onfaith, July 2007
Against Pro-Life
Christianity
“My overall premise
is that political strategists are manipulating religious faith in an
unprecedented way in our times. With deft hands and enormous capital, these
strategists are succeeding in making Christian faith in particular more narrow,
intolerant, and irrational, a force for what Kevin Phillips . . . has called,
‘national disenlightenment.’
“The strength and
even the violence, whether overt or covert, of this reactionary religious
movement precipitates a strong counter reaction. I know this because I feel it
in myself – I will give no ground.”
> 2005 address to
Planned Parenthood
When Do We Become
Human?
“When does a human
being become ensouled?. . When do we become human? In Jewish thought, a fetus is
not considered to be a person until it is born. Up to that time it is a part of
the mother’s body . . . a rabbi friend of mine . . .commented that his view was
that the reason the fetus was not a person until it was born was that this was
when ensoulement took place – as the capacity of the independent human being for
developing a relationship with God. Now, of course, this is one Rabbi’s view,
but it is a view that I think is implicit in liberal Protestantism, though
rarely articulated . . . . .I lean more in the direction in which my Rabbi
friend seems to be pointing.”
>2005 address to
Planned Parenthood
War on the Unborn?
“But even for those
who regard all abortion as the taking of human life, there is still moral
precedent within especially of Christian thinking on war and peace to allow
abortion. Christians have written at length on when it may be considered moral
to engage in war – this is Just War theory. Frances Kissling made a cogent
argument in 1991 that if war can be just, then abortion must be also. I have
often thought, however, that the reason this connection is so infrequently made
is because Just War theory requires that the decision maker must be a “competent
authority.” Women, who are the primary, though at times not the only, decision
makers about abortion, have not been and are not now considered capable of moral
reasoning by patriarchal religion.”
>2005 address to Planned Parenthood
BISHOP YVETTE FLUNDER
Is
the UCC ready for a pentecostal African American lesbian president or for that
matter a Bishop? Dr. Yvette Flunder chairs the board of the UCC’s Justice and
Witness Ministries, and is founding pastor of the City of Refuge UCC in San
Francisco. Dr. Flunder has been a keynote speaker at the UCC Synod 2003 and is
also ordained as the Presiding Bishop of Refuge Ministries/Fellowship 2000 a
multi-denominational fellowship of primarily African American Christian leaders
and laity representing churches and organizations around the U.S. She is a
graduate of the Pacific School of Religion and has her D. Min. from San
Francisco Theological Seminary. Certainly of all the available candidates, she
is the one with the most experience in hands-on social action ministry in an
urban setting. Dr. Flunder is the Executive Director of the Ark of Refuge, a
consultant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Congressional
Black Caucus health brain trust, and the Department of Health and Human
Services. With a strong Pentecostal background, Yvette is a dynamic leader in
her late 40’s, known for her ability to inspire and preach.