c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ A mainline Protestant church that has lost a third of its members since the 1960s while being at the forefront of issues from gay ordinations to condemning the Chief Wahoo sports logo is turning to an ecumenical leader from Cleveland to take it into the next millennium.

The United Church of Christ on Thursday (June 10) nominated the Rev. John H. Thomas, the denomination’s ecumenical officer and an architect of a historic union plan among Lutheran and Reformed churches, to be the next president of the 1.4 million-member church.

Thomas, a pastor for 16 years before moving in 1992 to church headquarters here, is being held up as a bridge between local churches and the national denomination, which has suffered precipitous declines in membership, church school attendance and financial support.

The Rev. Laurinda Hafner, pastor of Pilgrim Congregational Church, where Thomas worships, said Thomas reads Scripture, ushers, unplugs toilets, washes dishes and shovels snow at the church.”I love the fact they’re putting into that position a local church pastor,”she said of Thomas’ nomination.”That’s why this is such a thrill. `Them’ is suddenly us. The person who is going to lead the denomination is the same one who is shoveling snow on Sunday morning so people will be safe going to church.” Thomas was actually the second choice of a national search committee, which originally recommended the Rev. Barbara Brown Zikmund, president of Hartford Seminary, for the post. However, in closed ballots in March, Zikmund failed to receive two-thirds approval from the directors of the Board of Homeland Ministries, one of four top church agencies that were given veto rights over the presidential nomination.

In new balloting this week, Thomas won approval from all four agencies, the church announced. The election will be in July at the church’s annual General Synod in Providence, R.I. The current president, the Rev. Paul Sherry, is retiring at the end of September.

If elected, Thomas would serve a two-year term as acting general minister and president, then be eligible for election to two more four-year terms as president.

The United Church of Christ has been hit particularly hard as mainline Protestant churches have lost millions of members since the 1960s.

Since 1965, when church membership was 2.1 million, the United Church of Christ has lost members every year. Last year it lost more than 17,000 members, falling to a low of 1.42 million. In an even more ominous statistic for the future, church school enrollment dropped from 1.2 million in 1963 to 350,000 in 1998.

Financial support for the national church has also fallen. In 1967, church members gave $10.1 million in basic support to the national church. The $12.2 million contributed in 1997, adjusted for inflation, amounted to $2.54 million in 1967 dollars, the church reported.

Among the reasons offered for the graying and thinning of mainline Protestant churches while conservative churches have grown is a declining emphasis on religious education.

A particular concern is a perceived gap between the views from the pews and from church headquarters, where strong stands on controversial issues often appear insensitive to congregations.

The United Church of Christ is the only mainline Protestant denomination to permit regional bodies to ordain actively gay clergy. On an issue that has upset some local church members, the denomination has been out front in protesting Chief Wahoo, a grinning, red-faced character that is the logo for the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Many Native American and religious groups feel Chief Wahoo is a painful stereotype of American Indians.

Thomas’ strength, some church leaders said, has been to embrace the church’s strong liberal stands on social issues while reaching out to more socially and theologically conservative Christians.

In 1997, despite initial wariness over the church’s stand on homosexuality, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Reformed Church in America voted to join with the United Church of Christ in a sweeping plan to share clergy and Holy Communion.

The Rev. Jim Antal of Plymouth Church of Shaker Heights, Ohio, a UCC congregation, said Thomas is”an incredible bridge builder, and that’s what our denomination needs right now _ someone who loves the church, understands the church and builds bridges between the different aspects of the church.” Antal said Thomas is committed to the church’s stands on social issues, but he also realizes”no matter how right your ideology is, if you don’t bring the local church along, you haven’t succeeded.” Thomas was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Thomas, 48, graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1975. He was a pastor of churches in Cheshire, Conn., and Easton, Pa., before taking the ecumenical post at church headquarters in Cleveland in 1992.

DEA END BRIGGS