Clarendon Presbyterian Church

2005 James B. Hunter Human Rights Award

 

In November 2005, the Arlington Human Rights Commission presented the James B. Hunter Human Rights Award to Clarendon Presbyterian Church for its more than four decades of commitment to equality and human rights.  The award is named in honor of the former County Board Chairman, who worked tirelessly for human rights throughout his life.  Excerpts from the church’s nomination are below:

 

The Church’s Mission

 

The mission of the 81-year-old church, which has as its motto, “Progressive, Inclusive, Diverse,” is simple: “All are welcome…. We are a community that tries to reflect the love and justice of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  In an era when many religious institutions are selective about who is fully welcome to participate, CPC not only welcomes all, but works aggressively for the equal rights and participation of all.  Its history includes activism on behalf of persons with disabilities, women and gays and lesbians, working to ensure equal opportunity and treatment in society.

 

The Church’s Work

 

St. Coletta School – Starting in the early 1960s, the church turned over some of its extensive educational space to the St. Coletta School for mentally disabled children.  This was one of the first expressions of the church’s mission to open its facilities at below market rents to support the development and care of disadvantaged persons, giving them more equal standing in the community.  The school was housed at the church for more than three decades.

 

Clarendon Child Care Center—Also in the early 1960s, the church welcomed as a tenant the Clarendon Child Care Center, in support of its unique high quality child care approach to instill in children the values of equality and good citizenship that the church supported.  The center, which has grown and still operates at the church today, has itself become an Arlington institution.  A second day care center operated at the church for two decades simultaneously, also at reduced rent in support of the church’s mission.

 

Women’s Rights—As the church began to reshape and revive itself more actively in the 1980s under the pastor of that era, Rev. Madeline Jervis, the congregation began to focus more intently on human rights, first for the role of women in the church and in the clergy.  The church has been a very vocal advocate for issues of concern to women generally, and particularly regarding the role of women in the Presbyterian Church at large.  Four women who were longtime members among the small congregation were inspired to join the clergy in the 1980s.  In years since, members of the church have been active as a group in marches for women’s rights and other political activities calling for the equality of women.

 

Gay and Lesbian Rights – Simultaneously in the 1980s, the AIDS virus began to spread and give visibility to the health and broader concerns of equality for gays and lesbians.  At a time when fear reigned about the spread of AIDS, CPC decided with little reluctance to open its doors to the Whitman Walker Clinic as a meeting location for persons with AIDS.  This step set the congregation on a path of two decades of work on behalf of the rights of gays and lesbians.  Among the church’s other work on this issue, which today is at the forefront of national religious debate:

 

  • Rev. Jervis served on the board of the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, and the church’s Parish Associates participated in the organization’s work.  Rev. Jervis also served on the board of the Whitman Walker Clinic of Northern Virginia, reinforcing the church’s public commitment to the health and wellbeing of persons who were not always welcomed by religious institutions.

 

  • The church and its leadership has taken an active role at nearly every national meeting of the Presbyterian Church USA in the past two decades to fight for the full participation of gays and lesbians in the life of the church. Clarendon Presbyterian was Virginia’s first More Light Presbyterian church, publicly welcoming gays and lesbians into the congregation, and more recently changed its church wedding policy in response to Virginia’s prohibition on gay marriage.

 

  • In the 1990s, the church opened its doors to the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance, which held annual candidates forums in the church sanctuary for a decade.  Today, as part of its continuing mission for human rights, the church actively supports work by the Gay Men’s Peer Counseling program of Whitman Walker Clinic, and regularly serves as the home of the program’s 10-week “Coming Out” groups for gay men.