UCC pastor elected commissioner to GA
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, December 5, 2005
A United Church of Christ minister, whose congregation bills itself as being “radically inclusive,” has been elected senior vice moderator of the Pittsburgh Presbytery and a commissioner to the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The minister, the Rev. Denise R. Mason, is the pastor of the Community of Reconciliation Church in Pittsburgh, a union congregation affiliated with the PCUSA, the American Baptist Church, the Disciples of Christ, the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church.
Denise R. MasonAccording to the presbytery’s standing rules, the person selected as the senior vice moderator is automatically elected to serve as a commissioner to the General Assembly. A commissioner to last week’s presbytery meeting made a motion to suspend the standing rules in order to consider another nominee for commission, but that was defeated.
Several commissioners to presbytery expressed their concern that Mason, because she is a United Church of Christ minister, would have no personal stake in the outcome of the decisions by the General Assembly but that she could have an impact on the direction of the denomination on controversial issues such as ordaining homosexuals and homosexual weddings:
The Community of Reconciliation Church is affiliated with six activist groups promoting the ordination of homosexuals and, in some cases, church recognition of homosexual marriages.
- More Light Presbyterians and the Covenant Network (PCUSA)
- The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (American Baptist Church)
- Open and Affirming Program (United Church of Christ)
- Open and Affirming Network (Disciples of Christ)
- Reconciling Ministries Network (United Methodist Church)
Community of Reconciliation was begun by the presbytery in 1968 as a response to the Civil Rights movement, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and the violence that broke out in Pittsburgh and other American cities.
It became a five-denomination union church in 1982 and Mason became its pastor in 2000. Immediately before accepting the call to Pittsburgh, she was a member of the staff of the national office of the United Church of Christ, serving as minister for church life and leadership.
Mason worked as a certified public accountant before receiving her master of divinity degree from Howard University and becoming a United Church of Christ minister.
Her election as a commissioner to the General Assembly apparently meets the requirements of the PCUSA’s Book of Order.
G-16.0301(3) of the Book of Order allows presbyteries and the General Assembly to establish union churches “with one or more particular churches of churches other than those of the Reformed faith but which recognize Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, accept the authority of Scripture, and observe the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.”
The Book of Order also says the ministers of union churches, even if they are not Presbyterians, “shall be full and responsible members of each governing body of immediate jurisdiction.”