People
Episcopal News Service. March 21, 1991 [91079O]
The Rev. William Wipfler has resigned as deputy to the executive for world mission and partnership officer for Asia, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Wipfler, 59, who held the position for two years, will leave on April 19 for "personal and professional reasons." During his tenure as partnership officer, Wipfler helped to shepherd the autonomy process for the Philippine Episcopal Church and to strengthen ties to churches in the Middle East. Prior to his service at the Episcopal Church Center, Wipfler served for many years as Middle East director for the National Council of Churches. In that position he helped raise the consciousness of many U.S. denominations to the urgent search for peace in that troubled region.
The Rev. Diana Luz de Suarez of Panama is now a consultant for Forward Movement Publications and will coordinate its expanding list of Spanishlanguage publications. Her responsibilities for the Cincinnati-based publisher will include Dia a Dia, the Spanish version of the devotional quarterly Forward Day by Day. In 1985 she became the first woman priest ordained in Central America, and has ministered to rural congregations and been a staff member of the cathedral in Panama. A translator and teacher of both Spanish and English, Luz de Suarez will continue her ministry in the Diocese of Panama while working for Forward Movement. Forward Movement is widening its list of Spanish-language editions -- both translations from English and original works -- in conjunction with the Decade of Evangelism.
Bishop Vinton Anderson of the African Methodist Episcopal Church recently became the first black American elected a president of the World Council of Churches (WCC). He was selected one of the WCC's eight presidents during the organization's recent Seventh Assembly, held in Canberra, Australia. Anderson, 53, long active in ecumenical affairs and vice president of the Consultation on Church Union, said that his new office will afford him the opportunity to broaden ecumenism within the U.S. black churches. Last December, Anderson journeyed with 17 other church leaders on a "peace pilgrimage" to the Middle East.
The Rev. Jerome Politzer has retired as president of the Prayer Book Society, an organization he has headed for the past ten years. Politzer, who suffered a heart attack last year, will be succeeded by the Rev. Robert Shackles. The Louisville-based group, which claims to be the largest lay organization in the Episcopal Church, seeks to restore the "traditional theology represented in the 1928 version of the Book of Common Prayer."
Lord Jakobovits, the chief rabbi of Britain since 1967, was recently selected for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, thereby becoming the first Jewish recipient of the lucrative award. A native of Germany, Jakobovits, 70, has long labored for reconciliation between religious and secular Jews and between Jews and Arabs. He is also noted for his efforts in interfaith relations and his spirited interpretation of traditional Jewish values. "Being progressive in religion means a broadening of our vision but not necessarily giving up past insights," Jakobovits said shortly after the $800,000 prize was announced. During a period of residence in the United States, Jakobovits founded the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York in 1958 and was an outspoken opponent of the U.S. Supreme Court's ban on prayers in public schools. Earlier winners of the prize include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.