wfn.org | Lutheran, Kathryn Lohre Elected Next President of NCC

[<NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

Title: Lutheran, Kathryn Lohre Elected Next President of NCC
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>November 10, 2009  

Lutheran, Kathryn Lohre Elected Next President of NCC
09-253-FI/NCC*

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The governing board of the National Council of
Churches USA (NCC) elected Kathryn M. Lohre on Nov. 10 to become the 26th
president of the NCC in 2013. Lohre is a member of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and assistant director of the Pluralism
Project at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Lohre becomes NCC president-elect on Jan. 1, 2010, and president
three years later. The current president-elect, the Rev. Peg Chemberlin,
will serve those three years as NCC president. They will be installed in
their respective new positions Nov. 12, 2009, at St. Mark's Episcopal
Cathedral in Minneapolis.

Lohre, 32, will be the second youngest president of the NCC since
the Rev. M. William Howard, an American Baptist, became president in 1979
at the age of 33.

Lohre has been on the staff of Harvard's Pluralism Project since
2000 and its assistant director since 2005, serving with Dr. Diana Eck,
the project director and a member of the NCC governing board and chair of
the NCC Interfaith Relations Commission.

As the project's assistant director, Lohre supervises graduate and
undergraduate student research on religious pluralism, provides
leadership to the women's initiative and multi-religious women's network,
convenes and plans events including colloquia, conferences, panels and
public conversations, teaches workshops, prepares grant proposals and
oversees fundraising.

Lohre is a graduate of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., and she
earned a master of divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. St. Olaf
is one of 28 colleges and universities of the ELCA.

She is a member of Faith Lutheran Church in Cambridge, and she
serves as an ELCA representative on the World Council of Churches Central
Committee and on the ELCA Presiding Bishop's Communal Discernment Task
Force. She is a member of the World Council of Churches U.S. Conference
Board of Directors and has served on the NCC Ecumenical Young Adult
Women's Working Group.

Lohre will be a presenter at the Religion Communication Congress
2010 in Chicago April 7-10, 2010.

* Information was provided by Philip E. Jenks at NCC News and
http://www.ncccusa.org on the Web.

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog