A moment in ecumenical history

Wedel's September song:
a wise and gentle voice

Dr. Cynthia Clark Wedel presided over the National Council of Churches as the tie-dyed sixties ebbed and the double-knit seventies flowed. September 1970, the ninth month of her presidency, was memorable. Ex-Beatle George Harrison released "My Sweet Lord," Salvadore Allende was democratically elected president of Chile, Palestinian terrorists high-jacked eight airliners, the Mary Tyler Moore show premiered, Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt, and President Nixon ordered 1,000 new FBI agents to monitor college campuses.

Wedel, a psychologist and Episcopal laywoman from Dearborn, Mich., was a historical figure in her own right because she was the first woman to serve as president of the sixty-two--year-old NCC. As Wedel began her term 1970, Gloria Steinem was pronouncing the "year of Women's Liberation" in the Washington Post:

Or at least, it's the year the press has discovered a movement that has been strong for several years now [Steinem wrote], and reported it as a small, privileged, rather lunatic event instead of the major revolution in consciousness  ̶  in everyone's consciousness, male or female  ̶  that I believe it truly is. It is a movement that some call "feminist" but should more accurately be called humanist; a movement that is an integral part of rescuing this country from its old, expensive patterns of elitism, racism and violence.

But Wedel's succession to the NCC presidency was not a politically correct response to a movement. By 1970, Wedel had so long been a part of the active vanguard of the women's movement that her National Council election looked like a patriarchal afterthought.

President Kennedy appointed Wedel -- along with her friend and fellow Episcopalian Eleanor Roosevelt -- to the Commission on the Status of Women, where she served from 1961-1963.

She was president of the General Department of United Church Women (later Church Women United) from 1955 to 1958. She was president of the Episcopal Women in the Diocese of Washington and from 1955 to 1961 was one of four women members of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. Wedel was one of three Protestant women to attend the fourth session of the Vatican II Council as a guest of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.

Wedel's doctorate in psychology was from Georgetown University in Washington. She was active in the American Psychological Association, and a member of the Association for Religion and Applied Behavioral Science.

Her professional training served the NCC well. She was the Council's primary mouthpiece during some turbulent national mood swings: the painful transition from LBJ's agonizing departure from office to Richard Nixon's inauguration, the Kent State shootings, the My Lai massacre, anti-Vietnam war protest marches in Washington, and the Woodstock rock festival in New York State.

Cynthia Wedel met each disruption with a wise and gentle voice.

As a psychologist [she wrote shortly before her death] I know very well that a fundamental human need is ... security ... Because change is so threatening to many people who found their security in familiar places, people, customs and behavior, it is no wonder there are strong coalitions ... who oppose changes in family life, the role of women, education, economic arrangements and other areas of both personal and common life.

There is only one source of hope in this situation -- and that source is God ... It is my belief that God -- who is love -- wanted love in God's creation.

Cynthia Wedel's eloquent voice has the ring of prophesy. It speaks to our age as well as to her own -- and, no doubt, it speaks to the age to come.