08562
August 6, 2008
Notes about people
The Rev. Marian McClure, former director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Worldwide Ministries Division, is serving as associate director for “Edinburgh 2010: Witnessing to Christ Today”, a centennial celebration of one of the most influential missionary conferences in church history. She is also the North American representative for mobilizing involvement in “2010” preparations, including a worldwide study process focused on nine key mission themes that are posted on the project’s web site.
McClure, who earned a doctorate in political science at Harvard University, worked as a program officer for the Ford Foundation before attending Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and being ordained to the worldwide mission work of the PCUSA in 1996. As Worldwide Ministries director she developed relationships with Christians of the Catholic, Pentecostal, Protestant and Orthodox traditions who are participating in the centenary process and its related June 2-6, 2010 event in Edinburgh.
Queries about “Edinburgh 2010: Witnessing to Christ Today” can be directed to McClure by email or by mail to 600 Riverwood Place, Louisville, KY 40207.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed civil fraud charges against Stanley W. Anderson, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elder from Colorado who made a dramatic pledge of $150 million to the denomination at the 2006 General Assembly.
The SEC charges that Anderson, 63, and four partners offered short-term returns of up to 1,000 percent through trades in notes issued by European banks. In reality, the agency says, the five conducted a Ponzi scheme, taking more than $5 million from investors and losing it all. Nearly $3 million was used for Ponzi-style payments — where early investors are paid from the money provided by later investors — or was misappropriated, according to the Rocky Mountain News.
Joey Bailey, chief financial officer for the PC(USA), told the newspaper the church had no knowledge of the SEC complaint and that it had not received any money from Anderson’s pledge. “The church will continue to hold Mr. Anderson and his family in our prayers,” he said.
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The Rev. Brad R. Braxton, a New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt Divinity School, has been nominated to become pastor of New York’s fabled Riverside Church. The congregation will vote on the nomination Sept. 14.
If elected, Braxton, 39, will succeed the Rev. James a Forbes, who served as Riverside’s pastor for 18 years until his retirement last year. Braxton would be the second African-American, following Forbes, to pastor the 78-year-old church founded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. The church is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.
Braxton, a graduate of the University of Virginia, holds advanced degrees from Oxford and and Emory University. He is currently associate professor of homiletics and New Testament at Vanderbilt in Nashville, and previously taught at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, NC.
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