Minister writes letter recanting his elder’s signature on petition
The Layman Online, January 27, 2003
The minister of Angela A. Davis, a 214th General Assembly commissioner who signed the petition to call the assembly back into session, said he determined that she did not favor the special meeting.
Therefore, the Rev. Andrew Jacob of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Ohio, said he wrote a letter, over Davis’ signature, asking that her name be withdrawn from the petition.
“It was never her intention,” Jacob said.
He said that after he learned that the petition included the name of Angela A. Davis, one of his congregation’s 44 members, he contacted her and questioned her about her intention to call the special meeting. He said Davis did not deny having signed a petition calling for the special session but claimed that she told him she did not want to be a party to the effort.
In announcing his decision not to call a special meeting of the assembly, Moderator Fahed Abu-Akel referred to the letter that Davis’ minister wrote on her behalf – “one of them indicating confusion as to how her name ended up on the list.”
Davis served as an elder-commission to the 214th General Assembly from the Presbytery of the Western Reserve, which lists her as a member of its Justice Committee. She was one of 31 elder commissioners who signed petitions calling for the special meeting.
The Layman Online’s efforts to reach Davis were unsuccessful because the telephone number she listed on her signed petition for the meeting has been discontinued. Jacob said he would call Davis himself and tell her that The Layman Online requested that she return a call to its toll-free number. She did not respond to that request.
There is a discrepancy in the signatures of Davis on the request for a called meeting of the 214th General Assembly and Jacob’s letter saying she did not intend to make that request. The first document is signed Angela A. Davis. The second is signed Angela M. Davis.
When Jacob was asked if he could explain the difference, he expressed edginess with The Layman Online’s question. “How far are you going with this probe?” he asked.
Later, he said that Davis’ middle name is Annamarie — and that he used the “m” on his letter for her.
Jacob said he could not state why Davis signed the petition. He suggested that she might have believed she intended to express the opposite viewpoint.
However, the petitions calling for the special meeting are clear. They include no option for opposing the called meeting. The following is a verbatim facsimile of what Davis signed calling for the special meeting: