Church communicator to direct FaithfulAmerica.org Sept. 30, 2004 NEW
YORK (UMNS) - A former United Methodist communicator has been selected
as the director of FaithfulAmerica.org, an online advocacy service
sponsored by the National Council of Churches. Vince
Isner of Fairfax, Va., will begin his work Oct. 18 in the NCC’s
Washington office. Isner has worked as a writer, director and producer
for United Methodist Communications and the United Methodist Publishing
House, and he was communications director for the United Methodist Board
of Church and Society. He
also has worked as an independent producer, most recently responsible
for developing two DVD/Web-based study projects for Wesley Ministry
Network, a program of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. He is a
graduate of Centenary College, Shreveport, La., and United Theological
Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. FaithfulAmerica, found at www.FaithfulAmerica.org,
was launched in May as an effort to build an online community for
people of faith. "We are a new voice that rejects both the
fundamentalism of the right and the view on the left that faith has no
place in public discourse," stated the program’s brochure. "We believe
in the separation of church and state, but not the separation of moral
principles from the political process." The
online community wants to promote dignity and equality for all people,
work to end human suffering and act as "stewards of God’s creation." It
is not aligned with any political party but is "dedicated to respectful,
political and religious debate that looks for truth on all sides
without compromising a commitment to justice." Members
receive e-mail alerts about letter-writing campaigns, petitions and
various causes; can network with one another online to organize
community events; and have access to sermons and commentaries about the
moral and spiritual challenges of the day. Financially,
the online community depends on its members for support. The Rev.
Robert Edgar, the NCC’s chief executive and a United Methodist pastor,
told the agency’s executive committee that such membership also allows
for better communication and outreach. "It’s a way in which we now can
speak to more than 120,000 people on a regular basis," he explained. Edgar said the hope is to grow FaithfulAmerica.org’s membership to several million people. The
community’s first major project was to place an ad of U.S. faith
leaders apologizing for torture in Iraqi prisons on television in Arab
countries. More recently, the site hosted a "real-time" news conference
on the atrocities taking place in Sudan. FaithfulAmerica members sent
some 52,000 letters to the U.S. Congress, calling upon it to name Sudan
as a place of genocide. News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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