Cynthia M. Campbell

Contact information

Field of Study: Ministry

Former President of McCormick Theological Seminary Cyrus McCormick Professor of Church and Ministry

Cynthia M. Campbell was the ninth president of McCormick Theological Seminary. A native of Pasadena, California, Cynthia was ordained by the Presbytery of San Gabriel on June 30, 1974 and began service in Dallas, Texas, as an associate pastor at Northminster United Presbyterian Church. While pursuing her doctoral studies, she served as interim pastor at St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, and Madison Square United Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, Texas. In 1981, she became associate professor of theology and ministry and director of the doctor of ministry program at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. In 1988, she became pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Salina, Kansas, one of the first large congregations in the denomination to call a woman as head of staff.

Within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Cynthia has served on numerous task forces and committees. For the General Assembly, she chaired the Special Committee on Examination of Candidates, co-moderated the Presbyteries' Cooperative Committee, and served on the Board of the Vocation Agency. She was a member of the Task Force in Christian Obedience in a Nuclear Age as well as the Special Committee of fifteen, which prepared the final text of the Brief Statement of Faith approved by the denomination in 1990. She was a member of the Committee on Theological Education, served on the General Assembly Council, and was the moderator of the Congregational Ministries Division. Campbell has made significant contributions to the ecumenical church as well. She represented the Presbyterian Church in the United States on the theology commission of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) in the preparation of the final draft of the COCU consensus and chaired the General Assembly special committee on COCU.

She is author of A Multitude of Blessings: A Christian Approach to Religious Diversity (Westminster John Knox, 2007) as well as a monograph, Theologies Written from Feminist Perspectives, published by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She has written articles on theology, ministry, ethics, and worship for The Presbyterian Outlook, Reformed World, Insights, Interpretation, and Reformed Liturgy and Music. She contributed the "Trinity" entry to the Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith and wrote the forward to Presbyterian Polity for Church Officers.

Education
B.A. Occidental College
M.Div. Harvard Divinity School
Ph.D. Southern Methodist University

Courses
I 301: Pilgrimage in Faithfulness
MPL 307: Polity & Worship in the PC(USA)