Three NCC communion leaders named to White House panel

["Philip Jenks" <pjenks@ncccusa.org>]

>Leaders of Three NCC Member Communions
>Among 12 Named to White House Council
>on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

Washington, February 7, 2011 -- Three heads of National Council of Churches 
member communions are among a dozen White House appointments announced 
February 4 to President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and 
Neighborhood partnerships.

The NCC-related nominees are the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, 
presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding 
bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and H.E. Archbishop 
Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

The nominees were named in an email Friday from Joshua P. DuBois, White 
House staff for the advisory council. DuBois said other appointees being 
vetted by the White House are likely to be announced soon.

The previous advisory council, which included NCC President Peg Chemberlin, 
the Rev. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian 
Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, past president 
of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., concluded its work in March 
2010. In November 2010, Mr. Obama signed an executive order to implement  
many of the recommendations of the original council.

Prominent Jewish organizational leader Susan Stern will chair the advisory  
council. She is Special Advisor on Government Affairs to the American Jewish 
Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a humanitarian assistance organization 
helping Jews and non Jews in more than seventy countries around the world.

Leif Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and 
Nancy Wilson, head of the Metropolitan Community Church, are among the 
appointees to the panel, which was launched by President Obama in 2009.

Lynne Hybels, wife of Pastor Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Community 
Church near Chicago, and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Executive Vice President of 
the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative and 
Masorti Rabbis, are also on the list.

Other appointees:

Andrea Bazán, President of Triangle Community Foundation, a philanthropic  
organization dedicated to building a prosperous and culturally rich region  
across North Carolina. Earlier she was the Executive Director of El Pueblo, 
a Latino advocacy and public policy organization.

Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO of Policy Link, a nonprofit 
organization that strives to advance economic and social equity for low-income 
people and communities of color. She formerly served as Senior Vice President
at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Brian Gallagher, President and CEO of United Way Worldwide, the largest 
privately supported NGO, with 1,800 local affiliates in more than 40 countries
and territories, and 2.5 million volunteers.

Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual 
Adoration and past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious,
a support system and corporate voice for leaders of Catholic Sisters in the 
United States.

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of Churches of Christ in 
the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among 
Christians in the United States. The NCC's 37 member communions -- from a 
wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African 
American and Living Peace Churches -- include 45 million persons in more than
100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.

NCC News contact: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 
646-853-4212 (cell, pjenks@ncccusa.org