Daughter’s birth changed her life
John H. Adams, Posted Wednesday, Jan 24, 2001
Article updated Jan. 14, 2010
Latin masses nudged Peggy McQuade Hedden to the Presbyterian church so that she could understand what was going on.
In a Presbyterian communicants’ class, she began to trust in Christ.
Her experience as a legislative lawyer and her passion for history and government helped her grasp the contributions Presbyterians have made to the nation.
But it was Kate, the Heddens’ first child, whose birth literally changed her life and made her begin probing deeply into the Christian faith.
Hedden has been in the thick of the effort to reclaim the Biblical and Reformed heritage of the Presbyterian Church (USA) since the 1980s through her service as an elder, a director of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and a director of the Presbyterian Coalition (2000-2005).
One of four children of a Roman Catholic father (a physician) and a Baptist mother, Peggy Hedden, née McQuade, grew up in Natrona Heights, Pa. The McQuades were voracious readers – the family’s library exceeded in quality what was available at the local library – and the children were dutifully Catholic since their mother had signed an agreement to have them raised in their father’s tradition.
But the children had an irrepressibly inquisitive nature, and they begun looking beyond the Roman Catholic Church and its Latin masses. Their investigation of the Christian faith began at a Presbyterian vacation Bible school and continued when they were allowed to enroll in the Presbyterian Sunday school program.
“I was in communicants’ class when I became a Christian,” Hedden said. “I remember saying, ‘Yes, I accept Jesus as my savior and I dedicate my life to him,’ but I can’t say that I felt intentionally discipled in how to study the Bible, how to pray, how to worship.”
A footnote to the children’s experience at the Presbyterian church in Natrona is that Hedden’s three siblings became Presbyterians – as did their mother and father.
For Hedden, the kernel of faith would take years to flower.
In high school, she developed her love for studying government and history. At Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, she majored in political science. She earned her law degree from the School of Law at the University of Chicago.
Her brief legal career – six years researching and drafting legislation for the Ohio state assembly – provided an outlet for her training in law, government and history.
But the hand of providence was unpredictable.
In college and law school, she was on-again, off-again in church attendance. At Allegheny, a Methodist-related school, she recalls attending chapel to hear speakers who preached about sociology, psychology and literature, but not the Gospel. She visited a local Presbyterian church for a few weeks, but quit attending because “nobody showed any interest in me whatsoever.” She says her religious experience during law school was no better.
Then her faith was tested. After two years of dating, Hedden and a Jewish medical student became engaged. She considered converting to Judaism. “But when I actually started confronting the rabbi about what it would mean to marry a Jew, I realized I couldn’t do it. I could not in any sense renounce Christ. I could not in any sense deny that he is the Lord.”
Later, she began dating another law student, James Hedden, and they were wed in 1970. They live in Columbus, Ohio, where he is a retired lawyer and she lists “lawyer/housewife” on her resume.
After the couple settled in Columbus, Hedden went to work as a legislative lawyer for the Ohio state assembly. “One thing became clear,” she said. “When you work with legislation, it’s not a permanent kind of thing. It’s always changing. One of the things that made me quite happy was the thought of raising children and making a more permanent contribution to society.”
But the gloom and doom of environmental activists in the ‘70s gave pause to having a child. “I wondered, ‘Is it a responsible thing to bring a child into this world?’ It is, I thought, if I can trust that God is in charge.”
She said she began to piece together Scripture she had learned as a child and concluded, “I do believe God exists. I believe Jesus is the son of God. I believe God is in control.”
Hedden quit work before giving birth in July 1976 to her daughter Kate, a former member of the staff of InterVarsity (IV) Christian Fellowship at the University of San Diego. Kate is now a part-time IV staff member at Scripps/Harvey Mudd at Claremont College and the mother of three children.
Kate had an enormous impact, her mother said. “Once she was born, I thought, ‘Now what am I going to do with her,’” Hedden said. “I promised God I would get her baptized.”
Once again, Hedden began looking for a Presbyterian church. She settled on Central Presbyterian Church, a small congregation with quaint Gothic-Romanesque architecture and a pastor who preached the Gospel. The first Sunday there, she checked a block on a form saying she wished to become a member.
When called on by a minister and elder, Hedden explained her urgency. She wanted Kate baptized quickly and she believed it important to have the congregation pledge to help her raise her daughter in the community of faith.
“The minister of my former church assured the elder that the family wasn’t flaky, that they could take me as a member without the walls falling down,” she said. It turned out to be an exceptional deal for Central church. Hedden soon became a Sunday school teacher. She enrolled in a Bethel Bible series – two and one-half hours a week for two years. She began to read classical and contemporary Christian writings that brought into focus her studies in government. Since then, her study of the Christian faith has continued unabated.
In effect, Hedden had two vocations: being a Christian and a stay-at-home mother (son, John, a graduate of Grove City College in Pennsylvania, was born in 1979). She became a trustee of Central Presbyterian, served as an elder for 11 years and was a Sunday school teacher for 16 years.
After she began receiving The Presbyterian Layman, she joined a Columbus chapter of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and became the committee’s representative at presbytery meetings.
She was elected to serve as commissioner to the 1988 General Assembly from Scioto Valley Presbytery. She also began writing position papers on theological issues and, in 1995, columns for The Presbyterian Outlook.
Hedden met Warren S. Reding, a retired Pittsburgh lawyer and former chairman of the Lay Committee, and directors Rebecca F. McElroy, Robert B. Fish and Robert L. Howard. She found that they were as zealously committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and renewal in the denomination as she was.
She became a Presbyterian Lay Committee director in 1996. Hedden has served as vice chairman and for four years as chairman of the Lay Committee. Presently she serves as chair of the PLC’s Communication Committee.
“The Lay Committee’s gift to the body has been the privilege of sending important news to so many people in the pews – the lay people – to make them aware of the church beyond their congregations,” she said. “It was only when I began reading The Layman in 1982 that I started to think about what it means to be connected with a confessional church and what it means to have the opportunity and accountability for mission regionally, nationally and beyond.”