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“I really saw and still see my place as being a bridgebuilder, in the church and in society …”
The Presbyterian Historical Society joins those who grieve and mourn the loss of the Rev. Dr. Joanna Moseley Adams, who died on Aug. 7. Adams was a Presbyterian minister, an organizer and moderator of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, and an inimitable leader within the church and without.
In August 2017, Beth Hessel, then-executive director of the Presbyterian Historical Society, traveled to Atlanta to conduct an oral history interview with Adams. The two spoke for almost two hours, a time chock full of stories and memories recollected and shared by Adams. “This is such a stunning story,” she’d say before diving into a tale about her grandfather, or her great-grandfather, or her beloved mother. She spoke of the early endeavors of her and her husband in prison ministry, work with local children, her passion for ending homelessness and more.
Born on October 17, 1944, Joanna Moseley spent most of her childhood in Meridian, Mississippi. She returned to Atlanta, where she’d been born at Emory Hospital and where her family had deep roots, to attend Emory University. There, she met her husband, Alfred B. Adams; the two were wed during their senior year.
She graduated in 1966 and worked as a high school teacher for a few years. She and Alfred welcomed their first child in 1968 and a second in 1970. During this time, the family was attending North Decatur Presbyterian Church, where she first felt a call to ministry. “The minister one Sunday went to the center of the chancel, and he began his benediction by saying this: ‘God’s not here anymore. We had a date with the Almighty — we kept it; the Lord kept it. But if you want to encounter God, you’re gonna have to get on out of here and go find him … You’ll find it in the world that Christ came to save.’ So we picked up the babies, and got in the car, and I just cried hysterically on the way home. And Al thought I’d lost my mind — but it was the turning point for me.”
In 1974, finding herself “very hungry; it was like it was lunch time, or past lunch time,” and realizing that North Decatur is not far from Columbia Theological Seminary, she drove to campus one day. The only course she could enroll in at first was a night course on Elijah and Elisha, “and so there I am, swimming around in 1st and 2nd Kings … and I loved it,” she recalled. The next year, she became a full-time student.
In 1979, she graduated with honors from Columbia Seminary. That same year, she took to the pulpit as Associate Pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Atlanta — and her heeding of this call was a history-making moment. “I was the first woman in the [Presbytery of Greater Atlanta] to be called to a full-time ordained position—there were women who were on church staffs, but every one of them was what was called an assistant minister,” she said.
While at Central, Joanna recognized Atlanta’s growing homeless population and urged her congregation to get involved. She spearheaded the establishment of a night shelter at the church, which became a template for other congregations and organizations to do similar work. This was in 1983 and was only the first of more than a dozen nonprofit initiatives that Adams helped to begin, including Intown Cares, the Agape Center, and the Georgia Committee for Religious Liberty.
She remained at Central until 1986, when she became pastor of North Decatur Presbyterian Church, hers and Al’s “home” congregation in the area, where they’d attended services in the late 1960s and 1970s. After five years at North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Adams was elected senior pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in northwest Atlanta, where she remained for a decade before accepting a call to co-pastor Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago.
She was Morningside Presbyterian Church‘s senior pastor from 2004 to 2010, and became its pastor emerita in September 2011. She later served as interim senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta before retiring from congregational ministry to focus on her community non-profit board and interfaith leadership commitments.
Adams was an outspoken and passionate supporter of various social rights causes. When Hessel asked her if she was involved in protests — against the Vietnam War or for civil rights — in her teens or early 20s, Adams paused for a moment before replying, “Not until we became Presbyterian.”
She worked on behalf of her fellow Atlantans who had no shelter; she participated in vigils held against the death penalty; she joined the yearslong battle toward ordination and marriage rights for queer Presbyterians, helping to organize the Covenant Network of Presbyterians. “We became convinced that if we didn’t stop the tanks they were gonna mow down everybody in their way, so we formed the Covenant Network. I was one of the founders and ended up being the second or third co-moderator,” she recalled. “We just felt as if we all had a role to play. … I just love the Covenant Network, and I adored Pam [Byers, the organization’s first executive director].”
In 2011, when the church changed its policy to allow for the full inclusion for LGBTQ+ Presbyterians within the church, it was a result of the determination and persistence of those fighting for visibility and their supporters and allies, like Adams and the Covenant Network.
Throughout it all — the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows, the successes and failures — Adams kept her head high and continued to contribute to her community, regardless of the exhaustion and overwhelm. “Live as if what you hope for has already come to be,” she told Hessel during their conversation. “That has helped me so much.”
Before the conversation turned toward the topic of interfaith ministry and action, Adams shared this: “I’ve had a very rich and interesting life, and a meaningful ministry … There are many mornings when I wake up and think, no matter what happens today … if today’s the day my life will end, I’m just … filled up with gratitude. I can’t imagine that little girl preaching to her dolls, having been blessed and just … knowing so many fabulous people, and the congregations that I’ve served — I’ve loved being a pastor, and I love … those moments when I just have the sense that … I am a conduit, that there is a message coming from another realm. And somehow, I’ve gotten to be — today at least — a conduit of realities that can change everything … Oh, that’s so good. Don’t you feel that way?”
Adams’ memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 4 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, 3003 Howell Mill Road. The service will be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person.
To listen to the full oral history interview from August 2017, follow this link to Pearl, PHS’s digital repository.
By McKenna Britton, Presbyterian Historical Society
