Addie J. Butler is New ELCA Vice President

     PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Dr. Addie J. Butler of Philadelphia was elected vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America today.
     Butler was elected on the fifth ballot with 670 votes, or 67.4 percent of the 994 cast.  Myrna Sheie, the other finalist for the office, received 324 votes.
     "Go, girl!" a woman's voice shouted from the back of the hall where the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly is meeting through Wednesday.  The members rose to their feet in a sustained standing ovation as Butler made her way to the podium.  She is the ELCA's third vice president in its 10-year history.  All have been women, but Butler is the first African American elected to the post.
     "I stand here as vice president of all members of the ELCA," Butler told the assembly.  She ran off a laundry list, including life-long Lutherans, former members of other churches, those of European descent and of minority groups, young adults, youth, "and, yes, fully adult Lutherans as well."
     At a news conference shortly after her election, Butler added, "I want to listen; I want to hear.  I will be asking questions from time to time."
     She also told the assembly that the ELCA is a church "destined to grow" and that she is looking forward to a "long and beneficial relationship between the vice president and the members of this church." She asked for the prayers of the assembly, adding that she "will pray with you for the growth and development of our church."
     Butler succeeds Kathy Magnus as ELCA vice president.  Magnus, who has served in the post for six years, had announced earlier that she would resign the office at the end of this churchwide assembly.  Installation of the new vice president is scheduled for 8 a.m. Wednesday.
     Vice president is the top volunteer position in the 5.2 million-member ELCA.  The office must be held by a lay person.
     ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson commented to the assembly that "God raises up new leaders with new gifts" and that Butler's election marks the beginning of a new era.
     Butler is not without experience as a vice president.  She has served as vice president of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod, one of the ELCA's 65 geographical areas.  "So I have a sense of what it means to be a vice president," she said at the news conference.  She added that the "scope and complexity of the issues will be the greatest difference."
     At that news conference, she said the key challenges facing the ELCA are embodied in seven initiatives brought to the assembly by Anderson and adopted today without debate.  She also cited the goal of more ethnic diversity in the ELCA's membership and the church body's ecumenical relationships as additional challenges.

     Regarding ethnic diversity, Butler said she is not sure why the ELCA has not come closer to its goal of 10 percent of its members being people of color and/or people whose primary language is not English.  She added that the issue is one "that I will be addressing with Bishop Anderson and the Church Council."  As vice president, she will chair the Church Council, which acts on behalf of the churchwide assembly between its biennial meetings.  She did say she has some ideas for improving the picture, but declined to discuss them until she can go over them with Anderson.
     The fourth ballot for vice president was taken Monday morning, about 45 minutes after Butler and the other two then-remaining nominees had given brief addresses to the assembly.  Butler actually received a majority vote on that ballot, garnering 524 of the 1,005 votes cast, or 52.1 percent.  On that ballot, Sheie tallied 252, or 25.1 percent; and Dr. Cynthia Jurisson received 229, or 22.8 percent.  But a 60-percent vote was required for election.
     Butler told the assembly in her earlier address that she was baptized in a Baptist church when she was eight and joined an African American Lutheran congregation in Washington, D.C., in 1969.  Laughter rolled through the hall when Butler said that at the time, she thought the black congregation was typical of the former Lutheran Church in America, one of the predecessors to the ELCA.
     She stayed in the Lutheran church, Butler said, because they teach that "we are saved by grace alone through faith alone.  I resonated to that."
     She also told assembly members that she has moved through progressively responsible jobs in the church at the congregation, synod and churchwide levels.
     Butler is an assistant dean at the Community College of Philadelphia and a member of the board of trustees of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  She is also president of the Philadelphia chapter of the African American Lutheran Association, secretary of the ELCA's Region 7 Council for Mission Development and a member of the candidacy committee of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod.
     Born in 1946, she is a graduate of Howard University, Washington, D.C., and has a master's degree from Pennsylvania State University and a doctorate from the Teachers College, Columbia University, New York.  She is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation, Philadelphia.
     In her address, Sheie told the assembly that the vice president must serve the whole church.  Whomever is elected to the post must value "every individual in the ELCA, every congregation, every synod that makes up the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as who we are."
     Sheie is assistant to the bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod and a member of Zion Lutheran Church, Anoka, Minn.
     Jurisson emphasized the importance of a partnership between clergy and lay people for the ELCA to be an effective church body.  She cited what she said are three important challenges that face the church: to respond to hunger and poverty, to build community and heal divisions in society, and to evangelize in an increasingly secular culture.  To meet these challenges, she said, the ELCA needs a "genuine and inseparable partnership between the ministry of the clergy and the ministry of the laity."
     Jurisson is associate professor of American Church History at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and a member of Messiah Lutheran Church, Elgin, Ill.

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html