wfn.org | San Antonio Pastor Enters Race for Moderator

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

12-March-1997 
97127 
 
           San Antonio Pastor Enters Race for Moderator 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Mission Presbytery has endorsed the candidacy of the Rev. 
Louis H. Zbinden Jr., pastor of First Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, 
Texas, for moderator of the upcoming 209th General Assembly (1997) in 
Syracuse, N.Y. 
 
     Zbinden becomes the third candidate for the Assembly's top leadership 
post, joining elders Patricia Brown of Cincinnati Presbytery and D. Eugene 
Sibery of Peace River Presbytery in Florida. 
 
     "This [running for moderator] is the last thing I ever thought I'd 
do," Zbinden told the Presbyterian News Service March 11, the day his 
candidacy was announced.  He said numerous friends, seeing that he'd been 
elected a commissioner by Mission Presbytery, encouraged him to run. 
 
     "Whatever happens with Amendment B, there needs to be a word of 
healing and reconciliation spoken to the church," Zbinden said, "and my 
friends have told me that they believe God will give me that word."  One 
thing he will surely communicate, he said, "is that supporters of the 
amendment are not bigots and opponents are not heretics.  I would like to 
be in a position to encourage the building up of the church and the 
building up of each other." 
 
     One gift Zbinden said he brings to the moderatorial race is "a zeal 
for outreach."  During his tenure at First Church, he said, he has 
consistently preached the need for the church to meet human need. "We know 
and profess that God loves all people," Zbinden noted.  "The question is, 
Can God love them through the Presbyterian Church?'" 
 
     A graduate of Rhodes College (formerly Southwestern College) in 
Memphis, Tenn., and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, Zbinden has 
served San Antonio's First Church since 1971.  Prior to that he served 
pastorates in Lenoir, N.C., and Ft. Defiance, Va. 
 
     In a long career of service to the church, Zbinden has moderated two 
presbyteries -- Mission Presbytery and the former Presbytery del Salvador 
-- and served on the boards of several Presbyterian educational 
institutions, including Presbyterian Pan American School, Austin College, 
Trinity University and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.  He has 
also served on the boards of the Texas Presbyterian Foundation and Mo-Ranch 
Conference Center. 

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