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Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elects first Native leader of General Assembly

In a landslide vote on June 20, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected its first Na­tive American moderator of a General Assembly.

Elona Street-Stewart, a member of the Dela­ware Nanticoke tribe, ran for comoderator of the 2020 General Assembly alongside Gregory J. Bentley, pastor of Fellowship Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.

The pair’s goal was to promote diversity within the denomination. Back in April, when they announced their joint run, Bentley, who is black, told Presby­terian News Service he believed that together, he and Street-Stewart represented “the pain of our past” as well as the “possibilities of the future.”