Clifton Kirkpatrick — tall, ecumenically-minded, a nimble public speaker, and sometime lightening rod for controversy — has decided not to seek a fourth term as stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Kirkpatrick’s term of service will be completed at the close of the General Assembly meeting in San Jose in June 2008. His departure leaves the field open for a new leader of the Office of the General Assembly — the chief constitutional officer of the denomination and its representative in meeting with religious leaders from around the world.
The Stated Clerk Nominating Committee, which was selected by the General Assembly in 2006, will accept applications for the position up to Dec. 23, or 180 days before the start of the next assembly. The committee will review those applications and will announce its nominee no later than April 22, 2008, or 60 days before the assembly opens for business. Steve Grace, a lawyer and elder from Michigan, leads the committee.
Kirkpatrick, 62, who is finishing his third four-year term as stated clerk, has worked at the top levels of the PC(USA) for more than a quarter-century. Previously, he served as the denomination’s head of world mission. And in 2004 he was chosen as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
In announcing his decision not to seek another term, Kirkpatrick described his years with the church as a “great blessing” and a “tremendous privilege.” But he also said the work came with “more than a fair share of stresses and strains,” and said he wants more time to be with his family and to serve the church in different ways. (See Kirkpatrick’s statement following this Outlook article.)
Kirkpatrick’s wife, Diane, retired last year as executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Louisville, after serving for 16 years.
In a denomination that’s no stranger to confrontation, Kirkpatrick has stood directly in the path of some of those blazing disagreements. Some evangelicals in the church have criticized him regularly and repeatedly. In 2002, for example, five Presbyterian ministers, after a petition was circulated declaring the denomination to be in “constitutional crisis,” taped a “Call to Repentance and Confession” to the front of the PC(USA) national offices in Louisville, in it describing the denomination as “irretrievably apostate under current management.”
Kirkpatrick has served during a time of continuing loss for the denomination — the loss of tens of thousands of members and of downsizing of the national staff because of ongoing financial pressures.
More recently, the New Wineskins Association of Churches has encouraged congregations to consider whether the time has come to leave the PC(USA), with some departing already for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
But Kirkpatrick has pushed forward, keeping the concerns of the global church before American Presbyterians, stressing the common denominator of mission, and calling on 21st century Christians to model the passion, inclusivity, and dedication to Jesus of the early church. For the most part, he has tried to keep the peace in the denomination he loves without raising his voice.
Among his staff, Kirkpatrick has been famous for his adventures while traveling (in Ghana, he was bitten by a snake while taking a shower); his penchant for showing photographs of his grandchildren; and his zeal for finding a bargain price while traveling on the church’s dime.
After returning from Africa on one trip, and witnessing the poverty there, Kirkpatrick said he was even more convinced that “I probably ought to keep my 10-year-old Honda Civic until it flat-out dies.”
Reaction to Kirkpatrick’s decision not to seek another term acknowledges the flashpoint role he has played.
Kirkpatrick’s tenure “coincided with a time of great controversy and uncertainty about the future,” wrote Terry Schlossberg, executive director of the Presbyterian Coalition, in a statement sent by e-mail. She cited “several very hopeful recent changes in leadership at the General Assembly level,” and said Kirkpatrick’s departure “offers Presbyterians opportunity to find new leadership for this most important office as well.”
John M. Buchanan, the pastor of Fourth Church in Chicago and editor of The Christian Century, was the General Assembly moderator at the assembly at which Kirkpatrick first was elected.
In an e-mail, Buchanan praised Kirkpatrick’s “strong and gentle leadership” and said he watched as “he began to lead our church with such integrity, strength, and grace — at a difficult time.” Buchanan also wrote that Kirkpatrick “established our church’s credibility in ecumenical circles.”
Presbyterians for Renewal is among the evangelical groups that, at times, has disagreed with the direction of the national church.
But Paul Detterman, the group’s interim executive director, said Kirkpatrick will be remembered most for his ecumenical commitment and for trying to keep the church together.
“He has worked harder than almost any other stated clerk in recent memory to be faithful to the whole church, to represent the whole church and not take partisan stands,” Detterman said. “That has made him seem unpopular … in some camps, and it has made him seem indecisive in others.”
Some of the issues Kirkpatrick confronted — such as membership loss — are troubling all the mainline denominations, not just the PC(USA). And during his tenure “we’ve had some horrific assemblies,” Detterman said. “Yet Cliff has always been a voice of reason and stability and prayerful confidence.
Now, after nearly 12 years, someone else will take over the position.
“The Cliff factor will have been removed. It will help us take a realistic look at ourselves. It also puts us into a time of very interesting political posturing, because every thinking person is clear that a radical conservative or a radical liberal is not going to become stated clerk of the denomination. So what we need to find is someone who is constitutionally wise and who is fair, and, most important … a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.”
