Third candidate for PCUSA moderator among those favoring a ‘third way’
The Layman Online, February 4, 2003
A Presbyterian pastor, the signer of “A Call to the Church” in 2000 that urged the Presbyterian Church (USA) to seek “a third way” to resolve the denomination’s problems, has become the third candidate for moderator of the 215th General Assembly.
James Foster ReeseAt its Jan. 28 meeting, New York City Presbytery unanimously endorsed its interim executive presbyter since June 1999, the Rev. James Foster Reese. The 215th General Assembly will meet May 24-31, in Denver, Colo.
The other two moderatorial candidates are the Rev. Harold Kurtz of Portland, Ore., a longtime missionary and the retired executive director of Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, and the Rev. Susan Andrews, the senior pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, Md., and a member of the board of directors of the Covenant Network that seeks to overturn the constitutional ordination standard of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Until his retirement, Reese, 79, supervised program and outreach organization for the African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American members of the denomination.
In the fall of 2000, 113 middle-governing executives – including Reese – signed a document that stated, among other things, that “We believe seeking a third way is critical and is already present among us.”
That document was enthusiastically endorsed by three groups that represent the radical left in the Presbyterian spectrum. The Covenant Network endorsed it, saying that the call may help to “bring new insights and new commitments.” More Light Presbyterians endorsed it, urging the continuation of efforts aimed at getting “the church to change its policies.” The Witherspoon Society endorsed it, saying such an effort may help to bring the “excluded into full membership in the family of God. It is a matter of speaking and of acting; of caring for people one by one, and seeking changes in society that make life better for all people.”
“A Call to the Church” was released after a group of 10 church leaders – five in favor of maintaining the historical, Biblical standards for church officers and five wanting the church to allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals – gathered for Bible study.
The five participants from renewal groups rejected the call and distanced their Bible study conversations from it. They issued a statement, saying that, “in agreeing to participate in these meetings, [we] claim neither the authority nor the intention to negotiate any constitutional standard of the PCUSA. We studied Scripture together with others.”
“We are troubled that our participation in these Scripture discussions would be understood by any as seeking a political settlement. It is not. Involvement in the issues of our day and church, including meeting with those with whom we disagree, has never been, nor is it now, about our way, or their way, or some other third way which might be mutually satisfying. Rather it is about Christ’s way. Alone.
“Therefore, we have not, and we will not, engage in any search for an alternative to Scripture’s clear and plain teaching, for we believe, as our Preliminary Principles declare ‘Insofar as Christ’s will for the Church is set forth in Scripture, it is to be obeyed.'”
Born in Harrodsburg, Ky., Reese attended Knoxville College in Tennessee, Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary and the University of Pittsburgh. Beginning his ministry in 1949 at a Camden, Ala., church, Reese then served as pastor of the First United Presbyterian Church from 1959-67 on the campus of Knoxville College near Selma, Ala., where he led and participated in the historic Selma sit-ins, protesting the city’s Jim Crow laws and practices. He also served for a year as a professor of homiletics at St. Paul’s Theological Seminary in Kimuru, Kenya.
After his return to the United States, he worked for four years as an education consultant to the Synod of Catawba in North Carolina then joined the denomination’s national staff – first in Philadelphia, with the Board of Christian Education, then in New York with the Vocation Agency, the Presbyterian News Service reported.
After the 1983 Presbyterian reunion, Reese was called as the first director of the Racial Ethnic Ministry Unit, and served in Louisville in that capacity from 1987 until his retirement in 1994. The unit was disbanded as part of the 1993 restructuring commonly known as “shape and form.”
He and his wife, who live in Cherry Hill, N.J., have three adult children – Mildred, James and Foster.