PITTSBURGH, July 1, 2012—In the first uncontested election for the position since the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was formed in 1983, Gradye Parsons was re-elected Sunday afternoon to a second four-year term as the denomination’s stated clerk.
Parsons’ election was by a voice vote, with commissioners asked to say “Alleluia” if they favored his election. There was no noticeable opposition.
The Stated Clerk Nomination Committee, which the 219th General Assembly appointed to review applications for the position of the denomination’s chief ecclesiastical officer, received only one application and that was from Parsons.
In recommending Parson’s to the commissioners, nominating committee chairman Dennis Hughes recalled the story from the fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel of Jesus calming the storm, a story Parsons referred to in 2008 when he was elected to his first term. Parsons told commissioners then that “we are in the boat together; there will be storms; we will not die.”
The same is true now, said Hughes. After interviewing Parsons, “we sensed a man of deep faith, calm in the storm.”
Regarding the paucity of interest in the position, Hughes said the committee felt “it was not the number of applicants, but the quality of the person who applies that mattered.”
A pastor in Tennessee for 15 years, Parsons also served as executive and stated clerk for Holston Presbytery, and prior to his 2008 election was associate stated clerk and director of operations for the Office of the General Assembly.
