wfn.org | Former church race-relations exec Tanaka succumbs to cancer

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

May 2, 2000        News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington     10-30-71B{230}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- The Rev. Hidetoshi Tanaka, 66, died April 28 at a
hospice near his home in Gaithersburg, Md. He had cancer.

Tanaka was an associate general secretary at the United Methodist Commission
on Religion and Race, based in Washington, from 1984 until his retirement on
disability in mid-1999.

At the commission, he worked with Asian and Pacific Islander constituencies
and was the staff liaison with the Western Jurisdiction. His other
responsibilities included staffing the theological schools review committee
and the committee to eliminate institutional racism.

Born and raised in Japan, Tanaka was a pastor there for six years before he
came to the United States in 1965.  He served in the Iowa Annual (regional)
Conference from 1972 to 1982 and was chairperson of the conference
commission on religion and race. In 1982, he went to Seattle to become the
pastor of Blaine Memorial United Methodist Church, a Japanese church.

Tanaka was an assistant chaplain at Mary Holmes Junior College, a
historically black school, in Westpoint, Miss., during summer 1966. He also
was treasurer for Siouxland Metro Ministry and a member of the advisory
committee for the human relations program of colleges in Sioux City, Iowa.
He had served on the churchwide Commission on Religion and Race and was
president of the Seattle Japanese Christian Church Federation.

Tanaka earned a master of divinity degree from Dubuque (Iowa) University
Theological Seminary.

Survivors include his mother, Tatsuko Tanaka; his wife, Chieko Tanaka;
daughter, Katsumi; and son, Ted.

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United Methodist News Service
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