wfn.org | United Methodist becomes North American WCC president

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Dec. 14, 1998	Contact: Tim Tanton((615)742-5470(Nashville, Tenn.
{736}

By Tim Tanton*

HARARE, Zimbabwe (UMNS) - United Methodist Kathryn Bannister was elected
a president of the World Council of Churches during the last day of the
organization's Eighth Assembly.

The ecumenical organization has eight presidents who represent different
regions of the world. Bannister is pastor of a four-church parish in
Kansas and has been active in the WCC for seven years. She also is the
first North American president who is both female and a youth - that is,
under 30.

"It never entered my mind that I might be elected a president," she said
during a break in the Dec. 14 business sessions.

In the pre-assembly youth event, it became clear that pushing for the
election of a young person as a WCC president "was a high priority," she
said. Several days into the assembly, each region began assessing
possible candidates, and her name arose during the discussions among the
North American delegates. "Fairly quickly, there seemed to be a great
deal of support," she said.

The WCC is an ecumenical fellowship of 339 churches, and United
Methodists play a major role in it. More than 4,500 people, including
980 delegates, met during the assembly at the University of Zimbabwe,
Dec. 3-14.

As a young woman, Bannister said she brings certain issues to the table,
such as the need for inclusive community. The council is in a pivotal
period of restructuring itself, she said. "It has been very important
both for youth and women in this council to continually make the point
that work towards inclusive community in the programming life of the
council needs to take place in all of its aspects and not just simply be
something that's done on the sidelines."

The council also needs to be stronger in attending to its diversity, she
said. "I long for the day in these structures when people who have been
marginalized in the past are suddenly considered as being of foremost
importance in the life of the council."

Bannister also brings the perspective of a pastor working in the local
church. Often in ecumenical organizations, she finds that she is the
only person actually serving a church, she said.
 
"I serve in a rural place where ecumenism is going on all the time, but
not always in a very visible way to the rest of the country," she said. 

Bannister is the second person under 30 ever elected a WCC president.
The first was Priyanka Mendis of the Church of Ceylon in Sri Lanka, who
served from 1991 to 1998. Mendis laid some groundwork and did a
marvelous job of using her skills to be a prominent young voice,
Bannister said.

In many ways, however, being a young female president is a "brand new
thing" and is still an evolving role, said Bannister, 29.

"I want to celebrate Kathy Bannister's election as one of the presidents
of the World Council," said United Methodist Bishop Sharon Rader of
Wisconsin, a delegate to the assembly. "It's a marvelous gift that the
United Methodist Church has to offer to the whole church."

United Methodists should be mindful of the ways in which Bannister has
grown into the leadership position through involvement in youth
fellowship, training in a United Methodist seminary and now pastor in
the church, the bishop said.

Bannister serves the Rush County United Methodist Parish in Kansas,
which consists of churches in Otis, Bison, LaCrosse and McCracken.

She is a former president of the denomination's National Youth Ministry
Organization. She served for seven years of the WCC's Central Committee,
which directs the work of the organization between each assembly. She
was on the planning committee for the Eighth Assembly and was chairwoman
of the planning committee for the pre-assembly youth event. She also is
one of two United Methodists on the executive committee of the
Consultation on Church Union  - the other member being Bishop William
Boyd Grove. 

"This is a great day for the United Methodist Church not only in North
America but throughout the world, and it's a great day for young people
in the church," said Grove, chairman of the 33-member United Methodist
delegation to the assembly. "It's also a great day for women ... that a
young woman is a president of the World Council of Churches."

In fact, Bannister is one of only two women elected president at the
assembly, a point that stirred some debate during the morning business
session. Several delegates were displeased at the low number of women,
particularly in light of WCC's goals and the recent conclusion of the
organization's Decade of Churches In Solidarity With Women.

The Nominations Committee was unable to bring a slate of at least 50
percent women, United Methodist Bishop Melvin Talbert, moderator of the
committee, told the delegates. "We can only bring what you are willing
and able to bring to us."

Rader said after the business session that the number of women nominated
as president indicates how much work remains to be done in the WCC. 

"I'm very disappointed that there are not more women as presidents for
the World Council," she said. She noted that Africa, Europe and North
America often are relied upon to recommend women for leadership
positions, while other parts of the world aren't doing the same. It
indicates the need for more work in that area, for growing sensitivity
and more openness to women's leadership and perspectives, she said.

An attempt from the assembly floor to fill the European presidential
slot with a female failed. A member of the Nominations Committee
explained that the two previous presidents from Europe had been female,
so it was decided to nominate a male this time.

Past United Methodist presidents have included Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam,
1948-54, and Charles C. Parlin, 1961-68, both from the United States.
Others from related churches who have served as presidents include Sante
Uberto Barbieri, Iglesia Evangelica Metodista in Argentina, 1954-61;
Daniel T. Niles, Methodist Church in Sri Lanka, 1968-75; Jose Miguez
Bonino, Iglesia Evangelica Methodista in Argentina, 1975-83; Dame R.
Nita Barrow of Barbados, Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the
Americas, 1983-91; and Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, African Methodist
Episcopal Church in the United States, 1991-98.

United Methodists and others from the Wesley tradition are stepping into
a variety of WCC leadership roles also.

Professor David Yemba, dean of theology at United Methodist-related
Africa University in Old Mutare, Zimbabwe, was named moderator of the
Faith and Order Commission, an influential board of the WCC. 

The Central Committee's 23-member Executive Committee includes two
people from the Wesley tradition, the Right Rev. McKinley Young of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and the Rev.
Ilaiti Sevati Tuwere of the Methodist Church in Fiji.

The Rev. Jan Love of Columbia, S.C., had been informally discussed as a
candidate for moderator of the WCC, but she withdrew her name from
consideration when His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia (the
Armenian Orthodox Church), decided to be available for re-election to
that post, the top leadership position of the council. 

Love told United Methodist News Service early in the assembly that she
had deep respect for Aram and had been "really thrilled with his
performance" since the WCC assembly in Canberra, Australia, in 1991. 

Aram had initially approached her about being a candidate for moderator,
she said. However, tensions between the Orthodox and the WCC flared last
spring, and the council's senior staff felt that an Orthodox should be
kept as moderator, she said. Aram, the first Orthodox to serve in the
post, was re- elected to a second term by the Central Committee on Dec.
12.

Coming at the end of the Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women,
many delegates felt now was the time for the WCC to have a female
moderator. Love, who served on the Central Committee for 23 years and
has been active in the organization, had been viewed as a natural
possibility.

"There has never been a woman moderator, and I think she was widely
recognized as extremely capable across the board," said the Rev. Bruce
Robbins, general secretary of the United Methodist Commission on
Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns and a WCC Central Committee
member.

Two women, however, were elected vice moderators. Justice Sophia O.A.
Adinyira, of the Church of the Province of West Africa in Ghana, and the
Rev. Marion S. Best, United Church of Canada. The Methodist Church of
Canada was a predecessor body of United Church.

Earlier during the assembly, four United Methodists were elected to the
Central Committee: Robbins; Lois Dauway, assistant general secretary of
the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries and head of its Section
of Christian Social Responsibility in New York; Richard Grounds,
professor at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma and a voting member of
the Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns; and Beate
Kraus, a seminary student from Aue, Saxony, in Germany.

# # #

*Tanton is news editor of United Methodist News Service.

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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