Edwards becomes fifth candidate for GA moderator
The Layman, March 2, 2012
The Rev. Janet Edwards has announced that she is a candidate for moderator of the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Edwards announced Friday afternoon on Twitter that “It’s with great joy that I share with you that I will be standing for moderator of the 220th GA.” The website for her candidacy is Forward Together With Courage.
In a statement posted on her blog, A Time to Embrace, she wrote, “Today I want to share with you a strong sense of call: The call to stand for moderator … When I first sensed this call back in 2010, I was shocked – and even a little intimidated. But the call was as profound as the most important calls that I have had in my life.”
She continued that, “It is clear that we are in a crucial moment in the church. To move forward together, we must find ways to live as the Body of Christ with power and proclaim the Gospel with joy and courage. This is what we all want to do and I feel that my call is to help move the church in this direction. This is why, in faithful response to this call, as a commissioner to the assembly, I have informed the stated clerk of the General Assembly that I am standing for the office of moderator of the 220th General Assembly.”
Edwards was ordained in 1977 as a minister of the Word and Sacrament by Pittsburgh Presbytery, where she was recently elected to serve as a commissioner to the GA. She was elected as moderator of the presbytery in 1987.
She attends Community of Reconciliation, an intentionally interracial, interdenominational and inclusive church in the heart of Pittsburgh’s university district.
In 2000, she joined the Taskforce on Ministry with Sexual Minorities of Pittsburgh Presbytery, and in June of 2005, she officiated the marriage ceremony of Nancy McConn and Brenda Cole. A complaint was filed against her with the church court for acting in opposition to the PCUSA’s constitution. She was eventually cleared of the charge of unconstitutionally marrying the couple after the Presbytery of Pittsburgh’s Permanent Judicial Commission decided that the service she conducted wasn’t really a marriage because the Book of Order says marriage is a union between a man and woman.
Shortly after Amendment 10A, which allows gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people to be ordained as deacons, ruling elders and teaching elders in the PCUSA went into effect, Edwards came out as a bisexual. She is married. She and her husband have two sons.
She is co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, an organization that “works for the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”
The assembly will be held June 30-July 7, 2012 in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the moderator will serve a two-year term. Other candidates include the Rev. Neal D. Presa, the Rev. Susan Davis Krummel, the Rev. Robert Austell and the Rev. Randolph R. “Randy” Branson.