February 7, 2011

WASHINGTON – Three heads of National Council of Churches member communions are among a dozen White House appointments announced February 4 to President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood partnerships.

The NCC-related nominees are the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; and H.E. Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

The nominees were named in an email Friday from Joshua P. DuBois, White House staff for the advisory council. DuBois said other appointees being vetted by the White House are likely to be announced soon.

The previous advisory council, which included NCC President Peg Chemberlin, the Rev. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Rev. Dr. William J. Shaw, past president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., concluded its work in March 2010. In November 2010, Mr. Obama signed an executive order to implement many of the recommendations of the original council.

Prominent Jewish organizational leader Susan Stern will chair the advisory council. She is Special Advisor on Government Affairs to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a humanitarian assistance organization helping Jews and non Jews in more than seventy countries around the world.

Leif Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Nancy Wilson, head of the Metropolitan Community Church, are among the appointees to the panel, which was launched by President Obama in 2009.

Lynne Hybels, wife of Pastor Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago, and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative and Masorti Rabbis, are also on the list.

Other appointees:

Andrea Bazán, President of Triangle Community Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to building a prosperous and culturally rich region across North Carolina. Earlier she was the Executive Director of El Pueblo, a Latino advocacy and public policy organization.

Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO of Policy Link, a nonprofit organization that strives to advance economic and social equity for low-income people and communities of color. She formerly served as Senior Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation.

Brian Gallagher, President and CEO of United Way Worldwide, the largest privately supported NGO, with 1,800 local affiliates in more than 40 countries and territories, and 2.5 million volunteers.

Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration and past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a support system and corporate voice for leaders of Catholic Sisters in the United States.

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's 37 member communions – from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace Churches – include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA