wfn.org | Joan Brown Campbell to Speak at RCCongress 2010

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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

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