wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Rev. Susan Andrews elected moderator on second

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Note #7706 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Rev. Susan Andrews elected moderator on second ballot
GA03014

Rev. Susan Andrews elected moderator on second ballot

by Emily Enders Odom

DENVER, May 24  The Rev. Susan R. Andrews, the only woman candidate for
moderator of the 215th General Assembly, was elected on the second ballot
with the votes of 269 of the 548 commissioners.

	Andrews, a member of National Capital Presbytery, is the first woman
pastor ever elected to serve as moderator. She led the voting on the first
ballot and attained the required majority on the second.

	The Rev. Harold E. Kurtz, an honorably retired minister and a former
executive director of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, finished second
with 179 votes. The Rev. James Foster Reese, the interim executive presbyter
of New York City Presbytery, finished third with 64 votes.  

	Andrews, who was elected on the 28th anniversary of her marriage to
the Rev. Simmons Gardner, has served since 1989 as pastor and head of staff
of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, of Bethesda, MD. Gardner is a chaplain
at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.

	In his nominating speech for Andrews, the Rev. C. Eric Mount, a
minister commissioner from Transylvania Presbytery, described her as
tough-minded, with tears in her eyes and hugs in her arms.  

	Her father urged her to be magnanimous, he said, and she is.

	Recalling a childhood memory in which she imagined herself curled up
in the velvet-lined offering plate, carried forward as an offering to God,
Andrews called on all Presbyterians to present themselves as a collective
offering to God as a gift of hope for the world.

	Andrews called up a more painful memory, of a personal experience of
exclusion, in responding to a question from the Rev. John Mann, of Twin
Cities Presbytery. Mann had asked about the exclusion of his gay son from
full participation in the life of the church. Andrews said: Thirty-one years
ago, when I stepped onto the campus of my seminary the first day, I had a man
come up to me with anger in his eyes and say, How dare you assume that you
can come onto this campus and study for the Gospel ministry? 

	It is my fondest dream that in my lifetime we will move beyond
this, she said, and open up the full privileges of membership, including
ordination, to all of our gay brothers and sisters. I am on record for
believing that, and I still do.

	Andrews tempered her statement with the observation, This is not the
year to send out an overture to our presbyteries. She said the Assembly
should defer to the Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church,
better known as the theological task force, which is addressing ordination
issues as part of its work.

	Its in Gods hands, she said, and it will be in Gods time.

	Its in Gods hands, and it will be Gods time.

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