Freda Gardner (April 7, 1929 - May 9, 2020) [1] was the professor emerita of Christian education [2] at Princeton Theological Seminary, and was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1999. She was elected as Moderator, the church's highest elected position, at the 211th General Assembly, on the second ballot. [3]
Gardner was the first woman to serve as a tenured faculty member at Princeton Seminary, teaching there from 1961 until her retirement in 1992. In 1981 she was named Educator of the Year, [4] in 1994 she was a recipient of the Women of Faith award, [5] and in 2001 she was recognized as a Champion for Children. [6] She had written numerous books on religion and ministry. [2]
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country, known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The Presbyterian Church (USA) was established with the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state.
The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the second-largest Presbyterian church body, behind the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the largest conservative Calvinist denomination in the United States. The PCA is Reformed in theology and presbyterian in government.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening. In 2019, it had 65,087 members and 673 congregations, of which 51 were located outside of the United States. The word Cumberland comes from the Cumberland River valley where the church was founded.
Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Established in 1812, it is the second-oldest seminary in the United States, founded under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the College of New Jersey. It is also the largest of ten seminaries associated with the Presbyterian Church.
Francis Landey Patton was a Bermudan-American educator, Presbyterian minister, academic administrator, and theologian, and served as the twelfth president of Princeton University.
The fundamentalist–modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and 1930s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity; the authority of the Bible; and the death, resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged: fundamentalists, who insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian orthodoxy; and modernists, who advocated a conscious adaptation of the Christian faith in response to the new scientific discoveries and moral pressures of the age. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed churches and centered around the Princeton Theological Seminary, whose fundamentalist faculty members founded Westminster Theological Seminary when Princeton went in a liberal direction. However, it soon spread, affecting nearly every Protestant denomination in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran churches, eventually were embroiled in the controversy, leading to a schism in the United States.
Joan S. Gray was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) at the 217th General Assembly on June 15, 2006. As moderator, she served as the presiding officer of the week-long General Assembly meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by a two-year term as the ambassador-at-large for the denomination. She has also spent many years working in various churches and is currently serving as part of the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Rick Ufford-Chase, born in York, Pennsylvania, is a peace activist and long-time member of the Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona. He was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on June 26, 2004. Ufford-Chase was 40 years old at the time, the youngest PC (USA) moderator in recent history. Ufford-Chase was the first Presbyterian Church (USA) moderator to serve for two years. Previous moderators served one-year terms.
Marj Carpenter was an American reporter and mission interpreter for the Worldwide Ministries division of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She was elected to the church's top post, Moderator of the General Assembly, in 1995.
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in Ghana. It is popularly referred to as the "EP Church". It has strong roots in the Evangelical and Reformed traditions. The denomination's Presbyterian sister church is the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.
Byron Wade is the Vice Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Francis Amenu (born ?) is a Ghanaian metallurgical engineer who also trained and ordained as a minister. He served in the Evangelical Presbyterian (E.P.) Church, Ghana. In 1999, he was assigned to serve Ghanaian congregations in London, United Kingdom. There in 2003, before returning to Africa, he founded the E.P. Church, UK.
In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. While ordination of women has been approved in many denominations, it is still a very controversial and divisive topic.
The Presbyterian Church of the Philippines (PCP), officially The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines, is a growing evangelical, Bible-based Reformed church in the Philippines. It was officially founded by in 1986 and the General Assembly was organized in September 1996.
Douglas W. Oldenburg was a Christian pastor and President Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in the US. He served as the moderator of the 210th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 1998.
Edward Porter Humphrey (1809–1886) was an American Presbyterian minister, orator, writer, and moderator of the national Presbyterian General Assembly. He was a planner and co-founder of Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
Thelma Cornelia Davidson Adair was an American educator, Presbyterian church leader, advocate for human rights, peace and justice issues, writer and activist. She was active with Church Women United, a Christian women's advocacy movement. Davidson Adair was an ordained Elder for the Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church of New York City in Harlem. Adair was the moderator for the 1976 Assembly United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA). She married, in 1940, the Reverend Arthur Eugene Adair, founder and minister of the church from 1943 until his death in 1979.
The Trinity Theological Seminary is a Protestant seminary located on a 70-acre campus in Legon, Accra. As an ecumenical theological tertiary and ministerial training institution, it serves students in Ghana and the West African sub-region. The focus of the curriculum is pedagogy, guidance, counselling, and fieldwork to adequately prepare students for careers in Christian ministry. The school has charter status, offers certificate, diploma, and degree programmes, and is accredited by the National Accreditation Board of the Ghanaian Ministry of Education.
Cephas Narh Omenyo is a Ghanaian theologian and academic who was the 17th Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana from August 2016 to August 2018.
Edler Garnet Hawkins (1908–1977) was a Presbyterian minister from New York City. He is known for his ecumenical work and for being the first African American to serve as Moderator of the General Assembly for the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.