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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.
Gray graduated from Presbyterian College with a B.A. in 1973. She then continued her education at Columbia Theological Seminary, where she earned her M.Div. in 1976. In 1993 she attended General Theological Seminary (Episcopal), where she earned a Master of Sacred Theology in spiritual direction and received her Doctor of Ministry from Wesley Theological Seminary in 2009.
Gray is considered an expert on church polity and structure, and is the co-author of Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers. She previously served as moderator of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission and a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Advisory Committee on the Constitution. Through five General Assemblies before and after Presbyterian reunion in 1983, she served on the Provisional Constitutional Committee. All of these are very important positions that provided Gray with insight and skill needed to be the moderator of the General Assembly.
Gray was ordained as a minister of the Word and Sacrament on March 12, 1978. Prior to serving as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Gray served seven churches in the Atlanta area — Fellowship, Oglethorpe, Columbia, Hemphill, Good Shepherd, Smyrna, and College Park. In 1978, Joan was the first woman ordained to pastor a church in Atlanta Presbytery, PCUS. At these churches her ministries have included solo pastor, associate pastor, lead pastor/head of staff, parish associate, and interim pastor. She has served as adjunct faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary and Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary and has taught at Princeton Theological Seminary as part of the Continuing Education Faculty.
She served as the interim dean of students and vice-president of student services at Columbia Theological Seminary.
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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.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
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.
Union Presbyterian Seminary is a Presbyterian seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, offering graduate theological education in multiple modalities: in-person, hybrid, and online.
Columbia Theological Seminary is a Presbyterian seminary in Decatur, Georgia. It is one of ten theological institutions affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Jennings Ligon Duncan III is an American Presbyterian scholar and pastor. He is Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary.
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.
Syngman Rhee was a Presbyterian minister who served as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2000.
Bryan Chapell is an American pastor and theologian who currently serves as the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America. He was previously the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois. Prior to that he was president and chancellor of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri for twenty years. Chapell is also an author, lecturer, and conference speaker specializing in homiletics. He served as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in America in 2014.
Bruce Reyes-Chow is a teaching elder (minister) of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Byron Wade is the Vice Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Katie Geneva Cannon was an American Christian theologian and ethicist associated with womanist theology and black theology. In 1974 she became the first African-American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA).
Catherine Gunsalus González is an American historian, theologian, and ordained Presbyterian minister who is professor emerita of church history at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia.
Laura S. Mendenhall is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church USA and was previously the president of Columbia Theological Seminary. She is now the Senior Philanthropy Advisor for the Texas Presbyterian Foundation.
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.
Ben Campbell Johnson was an American ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a professor emeritus of evangelism and spiritual direction at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is known for his work in church renewal movements and on interfaith relations between a variety of faith traditions.
Margaret Ellen Towner is an American religious leader who was the first woman to be ordained a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA).
Kathy L Dawson is a certified Christian educator and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Her work is focused primarily on the development of educational resources and the accessibility of resources for all educators. In 2015, she was recognized as the Educator of the Year by the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators. She is currently the Benton Family Associate Professor of Christian Education at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Deborah Flemister Mullen is an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a theological educator, specifically in the fields of modern American Christianity and Black Church Studies. She retired in January 2018 as Vice President for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Associate Professor of American Christianity and Black Church Studies at Columbia Theological Seminary. Her work actively engages the ongoing debates in American religion and civil society surrounding race, sexuality and social justice. In the academic field she focuses on the creation and leading of graduate theological education curriculum that prepares religious leaders for ministries throughout the world and promotes growth in academic institutions.