Yesterday was the first of December and as is the procedure of the Presbyterian Church in Canada the Principal Clerk, Stephen Kendall, announced the nominees for Moderator of the next General Assembly. The presbyteries have between now and April 1, 2010, to vote on the following individuals:
The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Dent, minister, St. David’s Presbyterian Church, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
The Rev. Dr. Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Dean of Students and Professor of Hebrew Bible, Vancouver School of Theology
The Rev. Dr. Herb Gale, Associate Secretary, Planned Giving, The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
Interesting demographics – three pastors/no elders; two men and a woman; evenly divided between parish ministry, academics, and governing body work.
The Moderator will be installed and preside at the 136th General Assembly which will convene on June 6, 2010, in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Was waiting to see how long it took to get this news out!
This might be interesting or trivial news; all these Candiates are American (United States) born! More Biographical material will be released soon!
Hi Al,
Glad to know someone is keeping track of this. I did see the announcement yesterday but held off a day both because of not having time and hoping the bios would be available. I’ll update when they appear.
And FYI – I now have copies of both Church Union in Canada and Resistance to Church Union in Canada. The Resistance book is a fascinating read. Thanks for the recommendation.
One other interesting demographic note – geography.
The three nominees are about as evenly spread geographically as they could be: Dent on the east coast, Dutcher-Walls on the west coast and Gale in Central Canada.
Thanks for pointing out the geographic diversity Colin. Hard to get a wider range of geographic representation than one from each coast and one from the population center. (Actually, since Canada has the third Arctic Ocean coast there is some diversity missing. Maybe next year.)
Still waiting for the official bios;
Gale came to Canada in 1983 from the PCUS, although the PCUSA merger may have happened before his papers were received by PCC. Two pastorates (St. James PC, Stouffville and Westminster-St. Paul’s Guelph) in Ontario, before assuming his present position in 2003.
Dutcher-Walls came to Canada in 1995 as Professor of Old Testament at Knox College Toronto, before moving west to Vancouver in 2004.
Dent came to Canada, and studied in both Montreal and Vancouver, was ordained in the PCC about 20 years ago and served in Saskatoon, SK, Cornwall, ON, Nelson BC, Armstrong BC, and since 2007 in St John’s NL.
RE: Ruling Elders as Moderator is still fairly new (under 20 years) in PCC. A few nominations, but only two laypeople served as Moderator; a Diaconal Minister named Tamiko Nakamura Corbett in 1996, and Elder Wilma Welsh (former longtime staffer at PCC HQ and onetime Missionary in Taiwan) in 2006. No moderator candidate from Arctic coast; most northerly minister resides in Dixonville AB, a couple hundred km south of 60 degrees (NWT border).
FINALLY!!
Moderator Candidate Biographies have been posted on the PCC Website:
http://www.presbyterian.ca/pcconnect/daily/4079
Thanks for the info
February’s Presbyterian Record (Inc.) has further biographies:
http://www.presbyterianrecord.ca/2010/02/01/three-reverend-doctors-nominated-for-moderator/
The white smoke has risen over PCC HQ this morning–no foolin, and not from the bomb Toronto Police detonated last night….
Rev. Dr. Herbert F. Gale is the Moderator-Elect..
http://www.presbyterian.ca/pcconnect/daily/5165
Thanks Al, I’ll get on it. And I hope there were no complications from that bomb.