Advertisement
Holy Week resources and reflections

Kairos moment: Historic inauguration held during conference on African-American leaders

RICHMOND, VA – A new “order of the day” was marked and celebrated by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this week as Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education installed the Rev. Brian K. Blount as its president.

    The descendent of slaves, Blount is the first African-American to lead a predominantly white PC(USA) seminary. Equally as significant is his selection as head of Union-PSCE, located in what was the capital of the Civil War-era Confederacy.
    Blount’s inauguration “indeed delights the spirits of everyone in the wider church, and for this we say God be praised,” said the Rev. Samuel K. Roberts, the Anne Borden and E. Hervey Evans Professor of Theology and Ethics at Union-PSCE. “Brian Blount comes for such a time as this.”
    Roberts, a member of the search committee that selected Blount, joined others in recognizing the historic event during a pre-inauguration conference exploring how to best educate and train the next generation of African-American leaders in the PC(USA).
    “Calling for the Order of the Day: Pedagogies of African American Presbyterians – Implications for Theological Education” took place here May 5-7. Denominational leaders, seminary educators, students and others from across the country and abroad gathered to discuss issues and methods for shaping future church leaders.
    In addition to Union-PSCE, the PC(USA)’s Theological Education Fund, the Black Congregational Enhancement Office and the Office of Congregational and African American Leadership helped sponsor the conference.
    “Today is really truly a kairos moment,” said the Rev. Marsha Snulligan Haney, associate professor of missiology and religions of the world at Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center, the home to the PC(USA)’s Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary. “There is a very strong wind among us.”
    Haney, a co-convener of the conference, told the group that it is time in theological education “to look at what we teach and who we are,” and encouraged the participants to celebrate coming together to hear one another and listen to the spirit of God. Let’s celebrate this opportunity “to come together and to be still,” she said.
    Others echoed the need to analyze and bring the margins to the center, and “to think that another world is possible,” said the Rev. Fernando A. Cascante, assistant professor of Christian Education at Union-PSCE.
    African-Americans, Hispanics and others are still in the margins of the Presbyterian Church and “underrepresented,” he said. That’s true in student bodies of theological education institutions and in churches, Cascante said.
    “So, there is a call for a new order,” he said.
    Blount’s inauguration signals for most here just such a significant shift in the order.
    There is new wind blowing at Union-PSCE, in the community and in the denomination, said the Rev. Syngman Rhee, director of the Asian American Ministry and Mission Center and distinguished visiting professor of evangelism and mission at Union-PSCE. “It is a new wind blowing excitement and new hope,” said Rhee, moderator of the 212th (2000) General Assembly of the PC(USA).
    Previously the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary, Blount comes to his new position as a scholar, writer, and minister ordained in the PC(USA).
    He assumed the presidency of Union-PSCE, which also operates an extension program in Charlotte, NC, in July, succeeding the Rev. Louis B. Weeks.
    “Each of us here has been a boundary breaker in one way or another,” Blount told conference attendees on May 5. “It will be, for me, a wonderful thing to be a … part of this boundary breaking event in the company of so many of you boundary breakers in the faith,” he said.
 

LATEST STORIES

Advertisement