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04466
October 18, 2004
Former moderator Ken Hall dies suddenly at 79
Service set for Saturday in Pennsylvania
by Alexa Smith
LOUISVILLE — A former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) with a reputation for reconciliation work died Friday afternoon in a Pennsylvania hospital after a brief bout with viral pneumonia.
The Rev. C. Kenneth Hall, 79, died at Butler Memorial Hospital, in Butler, PA, the city where he ministered for 31 years at Hill United Presbyterian Church.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct 23, at Hill United Presbyterian Church in Butler. The Rev. Richard Young of Orchard Park, NY, Hall’s longtime friend and colleague, will officiate.
“Ken Hall was one of the most Christ-centered people God has given me the privilege to know. He was a tremendous role model to me and to many others in the church, with a deep commitment to Christ, a passion for mission, a love of the church and a great sense of humor,” said the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
“He became moderator soon after reunion and at a time of considerable unrest in the church … but his gifts did wonders to bring us together as one body of Christ,” he said. “Over the years I have been privileged to work closely with Ken as he sought reconciliation in Northern Ireland, prayed and worked for unity in our own church, and supported people like me and countless others on our Christian pilgrimage. Thanks be to God for Ken Hall.”
Born Nov. 12, 1924, Hall entered ministry in his early 30s, after serving in the Navy in World War II and after leaving behind a career in chemical engineering. He received his divinity degree in 1954 from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He was ordained May 24, 1954, by Monongahela Presbytery, the United Presbyterian Church of North America.
He served as pastor of Jefferson United Presbyterian Church in Jefferson Hills for three years, then moving to Hill United, where he remained until 1988, when he was elected moderator.
Since 1991 Hall served as minister-at-large for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Foundation before retiring in 2003. He also served on the Board of Directors of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and the Board of Trustees at the University of Dubuque.
Hall was also engaged with the Inter-Church Committee on Northern Ireland, an unprecedented joint effort of the PC(USA), the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), the U. S. Catholic Conference, and the Northern Bishops of the Irish Episcopal Conference that began in 1989. It aimed to make peace by uniting the voice of the churches there and here.
“We decided whatever we did we would do together, which pretty much blew the minds of people in Northern Ireland,” said Josiah Beeman, who helped spearhead the initial efforts to get an interchurch working group on Northern Ireland under way in the mid-1980s.
Hall signed on during his moderatorial year and never left.
“Northern Ireland was Ken’s highest mission commitment from 1988 until the day he died,” Beeman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an Oct. 18 interview.
Among the committee’s initiatives was the creation of jobs for youth as a way of deterring violence and opening opportunities for business education. One of the highpoints of that work was “The Call for Fair Employment and Investment” which was highlighted at the White House Conference on Investment, coordinated by the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1995.
The committee developed opportunities for college students in Northern Ireland to attended church-related colleges in the United States and sponsored “Rev-tours,” where Presbyterian ministers and Catholic priests from Northern Ireland visited U.S. cities to help dispel myths about the conflict.
“It is with great sadness that his many friends in the PCI have heard of the death of Rev. Dr. C. Kenneth Hall,” said a statement issued last weekend by three former moderators of the PCI, the Rev. Dr. Samuel Hutchinson, the Rev. Dr. Godfrey Brown and the Rev. Dr. John Dunlop. “The Presbyterian Church in Ireland owes a great debt of gratitude to him for his selfless and consistently constructive engagement with the complex issues which have engaged our attention for many years.
“He was a great Presbyterian and a good church leader, with vision wider than his own denomination and concerns greater than his own country. … Dr. Hall won the hearts of all who knew him by his gracious manner, his genuine concern for people, his love for his Master, and the obvious esteem in which he was held by his colleagues in the churches in the United States. He was always interested in how things were going in Ireland.
“He was generous in his encouragement; always keen to be constructive and helpful.”
Hall is survived by his wife, Rose; one daughter, Carole, of Butler; and one son, Roger, of Brookline, Maine.
Memorial donations may be made to the C. Kenneth Hall Northern Ireland Fund, through the Presbyterian Foundation, 200 E. 12th St., Jeffersonville, IN 47130, or Hill United Presbyterian Church, 501 Second St., Butler, PA 16001.
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