Presbyterians Elect Activist Pastor as National Leader

The Rev. John Fife of Tucson, an activist pastor who led a movement to shelter immigrants from Central America, is the new moderator of the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination.

Fife, 52, was elected this week to the highest office of the 2.9-million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at the denomination’s 204th General Assembly, which meets here through Wednesday.

Fife has been a major force in the North American sanctuary movement, an underground network that sheltered immigrants from U.S. government agents. In the 1980s, Fife and his congregation, Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, defied government officials by giving sanctuary to people fleeing wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. Fife was also at the center of a successful class-action lawsuit filed by religious and refugee organizations challenging government regulations on asylum.

He currently serves as a member of the North American Advisory Board of the Human Rights Commission of El Salvador.

Representatives to the assembly will also fill the denomination’s top staff position, stated clerk, for a four-year term before the assembly adjourns.

Fife was elected on the second ballot by a slender margin over the Rev. W. Frank Harrington, 57, pastor of 9,600-member Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, the denomination’s largest congregation. Fife received 286 votes, Harrington 238.

Fife’s election comes one year after a heated and highly publicized 1991 General Assembly at which Presbyterians resoundingly rejected a report on human sexuality that was deemed too liberal. He focused his campaign for moderator on issues of finance and vision. He will serve for one year.

The church’s anticipated $12-million deficit, he said, could be attributed to lack of a “compelling vision” strong enough to engage Presbyterians at the grass-roots level.