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Joan Brown Campbell to Speak at RCCongress 2010


From Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>
Date Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:09:21 -0700

Joan Brown Campbell to Speak at RCCongress 2010

Director of the Department of Religion, Chautauqua Institution

RCCongress 2010:

The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell is an ordained minister with standing in two denominations: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the American Baptist Church.

She was the first woman to be Associate Executive Director of the Greater Cleveland Council of Churches; the first woman to be Executive Director of the U.S. office of the World Council of Churches; the first ordained woman to be General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; and the only woman in the clergy procession of over 200 for the enthronement of Desmond Tutu as Archbishop of South Africa. Tutu referred to her as "a woman of courage and compassion" and noted "her voice helped to bring an end to the evil of apartheid." Today, she is the first woman Director of Religion at the historic Chautauqua Institution, a center for religion, the arts, education and recreation.

As General Secretary of the National Council of Churches and as Executive Director of the U.S. office of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Campbell participated in some of the great historic events of the last century. She led a delegation to present the Catholic edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible to Pope John Paul II. She organized volunteers to work for the election of Carl B. Stokes as the first black mayor of a major American city. She worked with Martin Luther King and brought him to her own congregation, the first white church in Cleveland to receive Dr. King. Dr. Campbell served as an honorary election monitor with President Kaunda of Zambia in the election of Nelson Mandela as the first African president of South Africa, and she negotiated with Fidel Castro and President Clinton for the return of Elian Gonzales to his father in Cuba. Together with Paul Gorman, Carl Sagan, Dean James Morton, and Albert Gore she was a founder of what is today the National Religious Partnership on the Environment. In addition, she was the co-director with Rev. Jesse Jackson of the mission to Belgrade where, with the help of the Serbian Orthodox church, they successfully negotiated the release of American soldiers held captive. She led peace missions to the Middle East including meetings with the major leaders in the region.

She holds numerous national and local offices, including: current member of the board of Rainbow Push, past member of the U.S. State Department advisory committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, Trustee for the Council for a Parliament of the World Religions, the Fund for Education in South Africa, the advisory committee for Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba, life member of the NAACP, Chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women and many others. Most recently, Dr. Campbell has become one of the founding members of the Council of Sages for Karen Armstrong's Charter of Compassion Initiative through TED.

" If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must expand this idea to understand that our neighbor lives next door to us around the world. "

~ Joan Brown Campbell, Making the "Beloved Community" Real, Sacred Circles, Washington National Cathedral

http://www.rccongress2010.net/

Religion Communication Congress | Voice: 212-870-2985 | Fax: 212-870-2171 | info@rccongress2010.org


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