Indiana pastor and Long Island layperson join race for moderator By Jerry L. Van Marter Presbyterian News Service Wednesday, September 30, 1998 LOUISVILLE, Ky.-The Rev. Walter J. Ungerer, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Kokomo, Ind., and C.W. Kim, a layperson from Long Island Presbytery, have been endorsed as candidates for moderator of the 211th General Assembly (1999), which meets June 19-26 in Fort Worth, Texas. Kim, who if elected will be the first Asian American to head the 2.6-million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as moderator, was endorsed Sept. 21. Ungerer was endorsed by Wabash Valley Presbytery the following day. They join the Rev. Frank Diaz, recently retired interim executive director of the General Assembly Council, as announced candidates for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s top elected post. Diaz was endorsed earlier in September by Grace Presbytery. A Korean-American educator Kim, a Korean-American educator, is an elder in Setauket Presbyterian Church on Long Island, New York. He has served as a member of the Council of Long Island Presbytery and as vice moderator of the presbytery and moderator of the Synod of the Northeast. He was a commissioner to the 1998 General Assembly, serving as moderator of the Assembly Committee on Pensions, Benefits and the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kim is professor emeritus of microbiology and medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. An internationally renowned academic, he is the author of more than 100 medical and scientific papers and books. Kim's father was an ordained minister and his wife, Soo, is also a third-generation Christian, her grandfather and father having been ordained as Presbyterian ministers. An Indiana pastor Ungerer has been at the Kokomo church for 22 years. A graduate of New Brunswick (N.J.) Theological Seminary and Princeton Theological Seminary, he previously served four pastorates in New York, New Jersey and Ohio. Twice a commissioner to the General Assembly (1982 and 1991), Ungerer has also served as vice moderator and moderator of his presbytery, as well as chair of its Permanent Judicial Commission. He has served as an officer of the Synod of Lincoln Trails. He also served for six years on the General Assembly Council, completing that service in 1997. Ungerer has been active in the renewal movement within the Presbyterian Church, serving as a board member and then as president of Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns, a forerunner of Presbyterians For Renewal. Ungerer and his wife, Janet, have three children and four grandchildren. In 1989, he was the recipient of a heart transplant. |
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