Navy Reserve Capt. Gregory C. Horn, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister, has been nominated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral (lower half). Horn is currently serving as deputy chaplain, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, Arlington, Va.
Horn is pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bakersfield, Calif. He has recently served as the senior Reserve Chaplain in the U.S.Marine Corps Office in the Naval Annex. Horn is the second PC(USA) military chaplain selected for Flag Rank in the last year. The first was Rear Adm. Mark Tidd, Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy, who is currently the Deputy Chief of Naval Chaplains and Chaplain of the Marine Corps.
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The Rev. Charles Harper, a Presbyterian minister who is an emblematic figure of the struggle for human rights in the ecumenical movement, has received the Order de Bernardo O’Higgins by the Republic of Chile.
“With this award, my country wants to thank you for your work in defense of human rights and, fundamentally, for everything that you and the World Council of Churches did for so many people who suffered during the military dictatorship,” said Ambassador Carlos Portales, the Chilean representative to the international organizations in Geneva, where the March 4 ceremony took place.
Portales recalled the work of churches and the ecumenical movement during and after the September 1973 military coup “in defense of so many people persecuted during the military regime.”
Harper, now retired, directed the WCC’s Human Rights Resource Office for Latin America from 1973 to 1992.
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The Rev. Frank L. Cooley, a Presbyterian mission worker in Indonesia for 33 years from 1952-1985, died March 3 in Rabun County, Ga.
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, who has served with the PC(USA) in Indonesia for almost 20 years, recalled: “When I first moved to Indonesia in 1991, I asked an Indonesian colleague if he knew of any Westerners who had lived in Indonesia and had really mastered the language and culture of Indonesia so as to be truly integrated and accepted by Indonesians. One person immediately sprang to mind: Frank Cooley.”
Cooley wrote many books on Indonesian history and was the foremost Protestant historian of Christianity in that country. His Ph.D. dissertation from Yale University — Between Altar and Throne — is on the history of Christianity in the Moluccan Islands and the Indonesian translation of the work is still used as a primary text in Indonesia.
Cooley is survived his wife, Carolyn Martin, and three adult children. A memorial service will be held at Nacoochie Presbyterian Church in his beloved north Georgia mountains.
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The Rev. Jamie Evans, 50, a son of famous parents who overcame severe learning disabilities to become a successful pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and then the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, died Feb. 25 in Fresno, Calif.
Born in Hollywood, Calif., Evans was the youngest of four children born to the late Rev. Louis H. Evans Jr and Colleen Townsend Evans. Early in childhood he was diagnosed with a unique combination of severe learning disabilities which he successfully overcame until suffering deep and severe depression in the last year of his life.
Evans graduated from the College of Wooster and Princeton Theological Seminary. He taught at National Cathedral St. Albans School for Boys, which he attended while his father was pastor of National Presbyterian Church, and then served pastorates in New Jersey and California. At the time of his death he was pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Fresno, Calif., which last year left the PC(USA) to become part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
Evans is survived by his wife, Kristy, two children, Nate and Kelly, and extended family and friends. A memorial service was held at First Presbyterian Church Fresno on March 6.