Women, Women, Women

During the 217th General Assembly, we will celebrate several milestones for Presbyterian women -- the 100th year that women were ordained as deacons in the United Presbyterian Church of North America; the 76th year that women were ordained as elders in the PCUSA; and the 50th year that women were finally ordained as ministers of the word and sacrament in our denomination.

We should also rejoice that two of the four candidates for the Moderator of the PCUSA are women. They are the Rev. Joan Gray, recently the interim pastor of the College Park Presbyterian Church, the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, and the Rev. Deborah A. Block, pastor of the Immanuel Presbyterian Church of Milwaukee, WI, of the Presbytery of Milwaukee. (The other candidates are the Rev. Kerry Carson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Conrad, IA, of the North Central Iowa Presbytery, and the Rev. H. Timothy Halverson, pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Church of Cape Coral, FL, of the Peace River Presbytery).

It is, however, ironic that we are commemorating these women's historical milestones in Birmingham, AL. Ten years before the 1983 re-union of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) and the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Northern), delegates from 260 Southern Presbyterian congregations that split from PCUS gathered in Birmingham to form the National Presbyterian Church. It eventually morphed into the Presbyterian Church in America. Among others, they split largely on the role of women in the church and other theological issues. That is why to this day there are no women ministers in the PCA.

The meeting was held at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, 13 miles from the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex where we will be meeting to celebrate the leadership roles women have played in the Presbyterian Church USA, especially as ministers of word and sacrament and possibly elect another woman as our new Moderator.