William G. Sinkford
William G. Sinkford | |
---|---|
Born | 1946/1947 (age 77–78)[1] San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Residence | Portland, Oregon |
Occupation | Senior minister (2010–present) President, Unitarian Universalist Association (2001–2009) |
Employer | First Unitarian Church of Portland |
Title | Reverend |
Predecessor | (as UUA president) Rev. John A. Buehrens |
Successor | (as UUA president) Rev. Peter Morales |
Board member of | Chicago's Meadville Lombard Theological School[2] |
Spouse(s) | Maria[2] |
Children | 2[2] |
The Rev. William G. Sinkford (born 1946/47) serves as the senior minister for the First Unitarian Church in Portland, Oregon.[3] He is more widely known for being the seventh president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA), a position he held from 2001 to 2009.[4] His installation as UUA president made him the first African American to lead that organization.[5][6]
Contents
Career
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Between 1970 and 1980 Sinkford held management positions in marketing with Gillette, Avon Products, Johnson Products, and Revlon; he later founded his own business, Sinkford Restorations.[2] Sinkford "turned to ministry" in 1993.[1]
In 2001 he became the seventh president of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.[4] In 2003, Sinkford said the "main goal of his presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association was to reclaim a "vocabulary of reverence" within the association; he had been struck by the fact that the association's Purposes and Principles "contain not one piece of traditional religious language, not one word"; it includes generalizations about human dignity, justice and "the interdependent web of all existence," but does not do much "to capture our individual searches for truth and meaning."[1] Sinkford has previously considered himself a "card-carrying atheist" who in 1997, after his comatose son had recovered, began to develop a "prayer life centered on thankfulness and gratefulness to God."[1] William F. Schulz who had served as UUA president from 1985 to 1993, supported Sinkford's efforts to use a "wide lexicon" of religious language, and had "long been critical of the position of some humanists that would sanctify secular language and lock us into a calcified rationalism."[1]
Sinkford was succeeded in 2009 by the Rev. Peter Morales.[7]
Education
Sinkford was born in San Francisco and attended Harvard University, where he was among those vocal in their opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; upon commencement in 1968 he joined a group of students calling it "unjust and immoral" and pledging publicly not to serve in the armed forces, even if drafted.[8] He graduated cum laude in 1968, then spent a year in Greece as a Michael Clark Rockefeller Fellow.[4]
In 1995, Sinkford received his M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry.[4] In 2002, Tufts University awarded Sinkford the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links
- The Reverend William G. Sinkford from the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
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- Pages using infobox person with unknown parameters
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- American Unitarian Universalists
- African-American Christian clergy
- Living people
- 1940s births
- People from San Francisco, California
- Harvard University alumni
- Starr King School for the Ministry alumni
- Unitarian Universalist clergy