{"id":5374,"date":"2008-06-05T12:12:37","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T12:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/06\/it-looks-like-wright-isnt-reti.html"},"modified":"2008-06-05T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2008-06-05T12:12:37","slug":"it-looks-like-wright-isnt-reti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/06\/it-looks-like-wright-isnt-reti.html","title":{"rendered":"It looks like Wright isn’t retiring after all"},"content":{"rendered":"

I feel sorry for Moss, it looks like he lost out on this deal<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Wright was officially to have stepped down last Sunday, June 1. And from the pulpit at 7:30 a.m. that day, Wright’s hand-picked successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, preached what should have been his first sermon as senior pastor of Trinity, one of the Chicago’s largest congregations and among the most influential religious institutions in America. Instead, on church bulletins on June 1, Moss was identified simply as “pastor” rather than “senior pastor,” even as Wright assumed the title “pastor emeritus.” Indeed, Trinity members familiar with the developments say that on May 27, Moss was summoned to the church’s massive brown sanctuary for a meeting that included Wright, several church board members and other senior leaders. According to those sources, Moss, 37, expected the meeting to finalize transition plans. Instead, Wright suggested the board merely declare Moss “senior pastor-elect” because the younger cleric needed “supervision” \u2014 effectively ensuring Wright remains Trinity’s preacher-in-chief. Wright’s essential argument hinges on a technicality: Moss is an ordained Baptist minister who has yet to be fully ordained in the United Church of Christ, the predominantly white protestant denomination of which the roughly 8,500-member Trinity is the largest congregation.
\n[…]
\nOfficials at the United Church of Christ’s national headquarters in Cleveland are aware of the leadership tension at Trinity. However, they say, individual U.C.C. churches are autonomous and the national body can do little to intervene. Barbara Powell, a U.C.C. headquarters spokeswoman, noted that “Trinity didn’t follow the normal U.C.C. guidelines for the [pastoral] search” (Wright handpicked Moss, apparently without a formal search committee), but said it was hard to imagine that Moss wouldn’t successfully complete the ordination process.
\n[…]
\nHis parents were civil rights movement activists married by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his father is a prominent Cleveland minister. Educated at Morehouse and Yale, Moss had since 1997 led an Augusta, Ga., congregation, boosting its membership from 125 to some 2,100. In a January 2007 interview with Trumpet, a Trinity-affiliated magazine, Wright recalled introducing Moss to the congregation. “I had prayed to God to send someone to God’s church. God answered my prayer in Otis,” Wright told the publication. “Don’t think,” he added in the interview, “I would turn over 36 years to someone I didn’t have complete confidence in.”
\nIn accepting the Trinity job, Moss apparently bypassed an opportunity to assume leadership at his father’s church. Moss moved his wife and two children to Chicago, where he was to serve as an associate pastor at Trinity during the two-year transition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does Wright now give back his retirement house and the money that the church gave him?
\nAn interpretation of this post from the Reformed perspective<\/a>:
\nIn the PCA there is much more oversight of the individual churches. People who have a problem with the pastor or the elders have recourse to the presbytery that the church reports to. We have the best of both worlds, autonomy to run our church but oversight if we go beyond bounds of our denomination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I feel sorry for Moss, it looks like he lost out on this deal: Wright was officially to have stepped down last Sunday, June 1. And from the pulpit at 7:30 a.m. that day, Wright’s hand-picked successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, preached what should have been his first sermon as senior pastor of Trinity,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,402],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-religion-2"],"yoast_head":"\nIt looks like Wright isn't retiring after all - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/06\/it-looks-like-wright-isnt-reti.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It looks like Wright isn't retiring after all - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I feel sorry for Moss, it looks like he lost out on this deal: Wright was officially to have stepped down last Sunday, June 1. 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