By
Gradye Parsons
Gradye Parsons, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA) – the denomination’s top ecclesiastical officer – has announced that he won’t seek election to a third four-year term. That means the 2016 General Assembly will be asked to name a new stated clerk. It also means that the PCUSA is facing a clean sweep of leadership at the top, as Linda Valentine, executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, left that post as of July 10.
The Stated Clerk Nomination Committee, led by retired synod executive Carol McDonald, is expected to post application materials online in October. All applications must be submitted by Dec. 21, and the committee will announce its nominee no later than April 19.
Parsons, a teaching elder first elected stated clerk in 2008, sat down for a conversation with The Outlook about the challenges facing the PCUSA and his hopes for the denomination in the years to come.
The decision
Parsons, 63, said he struggled with the decision not seek another term, as he still enjoys both the work and his colleagues. He and his wife, Kathy, plan to move to Kodak, Tennessee (near Gatlinburg), to help care for their aging mothers and to be closer to the families of their two adult children. Parsons said he might do some consulting, “a little preaching, a little teaching. Nothing that requires a daily alarm clock.”
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The “clean sweep in leadership” needs to go through more than just the Moderator, Stated Clerk and head of the PMA. It needs to go down deep, into the leadership over the decades that have produced a 56% loss of membership. The PCUSA has lost its ability to be an effective corporate witness within either the public or private sector – no responsible leader in either sector will listen to an organization that has shown such a wanton disregard for its “customers/members” values and such an inability to correct its direction in the face of massive financial loss and public support.