Title: Butler, Jurisson and Sheie are ELCA Vice President Candidates
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 17, 1997

BUTLER, JURISSON AND SHEIE ARE
ELCA VICE PRESIDENT CANDIDATES
97-CA-16-DM

     PHILADELPHIA (ELCA)   Dr. Addie J. Butler, Dr. Cynthia A. Jurisson
and Myrna J. Sheie are the three nominees for vice president of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who will be listed on tomorrow's
fourth ballot in voting for the office.
     The three received the most votes among seven nominees on the third
ballot, which was taken this morning.  Butler received 357 votes, Jurisson
202, and Sheie 163.  To be elected on the third ballot, 760 of the 1,008
legal votes cast would have been needed.
     Each of the three will have the opportunity to address the Churchwide
Assembly Monday morning, immediately before the fourth ballot is taken.
Election on that ballot will require 60 percent of the legal votes cast.
     Butler is an assistant dean at the Community College of Philadelphia
and a member of the board of trustees of Lutheran Theological Seminary at
Philadelphia.  She also is president of the Philadelphia chapter of the
African-American Lutheran Association, secretary of the ELCA's Region 7
Council for Mission Development, and a member of the Candidacy Committee of
the ELCA's Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod.  Born in 1946, she is a
graduate of Howard University and has a master's degree from Pennsylvania
State University and a doctorate from the Teachers College, Columbia
University.  She is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the
Reformation, Philadelphia.
     Jurisson is associate professor of American Church History at the
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where she also chairs the Extension
Education Committee.  She was an ELCA  representative from 1992-1996 to the
bilateral ecumenical dialogue with the African Methodist Episcopal Church;
chaired the planning committee for the ELCA Convocation of Teaching
Theologians, 1994-96; and is a member of the Wisconsin Multi-Synodical
Candidacy Committee.  Jurisson is a member of Messiah Lutheran Church,
Elgin, Ill.; is  a graduate of Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., and
Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn.; and has a Ph.D. from Princeton
Theological Seminary.  Born in 1958, Jurisson is not ordained; the ELCA
vice presidency is restricted to lay people.
     Sheie, a member of Zion Lutheran Church, Anoka, Minn., is assistant
to the bishop of the ELCA's Saint Paul Area Synod.  A graduate of Augsburg
College, Minneapolis, Sheie was on the staff of the former American
Lutheran Church's Division for Life and Mission in the Congregation before
the ELCA began operating in 1988.  She is a member of the board of the
Augsburg Youth and Family Institute, Minneapolis.  Sheie was born in 1946.

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html