Social-Activist Pastor To Retire From The Storm's Eye

Social-activist pastor to retire from the storm’s eye

By Amy Smith
NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

After a 38-year mission that has taken him from county jails to state prisons, to state hospitals, to the rectory of two churches, the Rev. Gordon Jones will part company with the pulpit and the congregation of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.

Jones, who turned 62 on June 2, will join 23 million other Americans in retirement, only to pursue another life-long ambition. Through a seven-year sabbatical granted to him by the church vestry, Jones will teach English at a liberal arts college near Tiverton, R.I., where he and his wife, Dorothy, will live.

WITH HIS 19 YEARS at St. Andrew’s coming to a close Sept. 1, the modest rector does not hedge when given the chance to claim his greatest victory in the ministry.

“Survival,” he says, crinkling his nose in a wide grin.

His remark is said in jest, but the man whom friends describe as being very shy of personal publicity is indeed a windblown survivor of a turbulent front-page news era -- Jones has never waited silently in the church wings for a storm to blow over.

Early in his vocation, the clergyman took his ministry behind the walls of the Toledo County Jail in Ohio, and later to a state prison in Boston, Mass. He describes these experiences as “sobering.”

“I WAS WITH the kind of people that I had never had anything to do with -- I was scared to death when I started.” Eventually, he recalls, “I found that many of the prisoners were in some ways the victim as much as the offender.”

Later, Jones began the Episcopal Church in East Lansing, where he was rector for 12 years while teaching in the department of religion at Michigan State University.

After arriving in Ann Arbor in 1962, Jones quickly became engaged in social reform. When voices for the poor and the oppressed began to emerge, the rector joined priests and nuns, rabbis and other ministers who were determined to make religion work for the welfare of the people. It was Jones who played a key role in the open housing struggles of the early ‘60s.

ONE CONTROVERSY in 1970 eventually led to the formation of the Interfaith Coalition of Congregations, a group of about 25 churches which today still continues its aid to the poor. St. Andrews is one of the coalition’s major contributors in both personnel and finances.

The establishment of the coalition stemmed from a series of church readings by Charles Thomas of the “Black Manifesto,” a document of grievances and demands of black people. Thomas, a leader of the Black Economic Development League in Ann Arbor, became a regular visitor at various Sunday church services, but his presence not always was welcome.

SEVERAL CLERGYMAN did yield their pulpits for Thomas to read the Manifesto, but others were not as willing. Thus began months of sit-ins and debates and negotiations between the league, welfare representatives and church leaders which resulted in the formation of the coalition.

“He (Thomas) walked right down the center aisle in the middle of a morning worship service and demanded the pulpit,” Jones recalls. “And at that time it was more of a case of letting him speak or calling the police. So I let him speak...I felt he had something to say.”

THE RECTOR notes that while Thomas’ reading of the Manifesto caused some anger to flare among church-goers elsewhere, only a minority of St. Andrew’s members were opposed to the reading.

“They are very understanding and wonderfully accepting,” Jones says of his congregation.

Then in the mid-1970s another major change began to take form: the ordination of women priests into the Episcopal Church. But again, says Jones, the members of St. Andrew’s accepted women into the church as part of an awakening of their consciences.

Since 1978, several women have been ordained priests at St. Andrew’s, including the Rev. Kate Mead, vicar of Holy Cross Church in Saline, and the Rev. Susan McGarry, an associate on the St. Andrew’s staff.

ALTHOUGH IN other parishes nationally, some believe that a woman can’t bring the same wholeness to the church as a man can, that is not the belief at St. Andrew’s. In the 1981 Rector’s Report and Address, Jones has written: “In the past 19 years, 89 different persons have served on the vestry of the parish, and 23 of them have been women. St. Andrew’s is better off for it.”

As much as Jones has rejoiced in being at what he terms the eye of the storm, he says: “I look forward to turning that responsibility over to someone else and doing what in some sense I have always enjoyed most in my ministry, mainly teaching.”

Jones was graduated from Temple University, in Philadelphia, and received his seminary training at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. He did post-seminary training at the College of Preachers in Washington. From there he traveled to Canterbury, England, where he concluded his formal studies at the Central College of the Anglican Communion.

The Rev. Gordon Jones . . . survival is his victory
NEWS PHOTO BY ROBERT CHASE

Series of festivities to honor pastor, wife

The Rev. Gordon M. Jones Jr. and his wife Dorothy will be honored at a series of events today and Sunday, celebrating their 19 years in the parish. The events, with the theme “Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord,” will begin with a parish sherry party at 5 p.m. today at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Leo Lighthammer, 2 Regent Court, and will be followed by several potluck dinners in parishioners’ homes. Dessert will be served at the church at 9 p.m. Surprise entertainment is planned.

A Festival Eucharist will be celebrated at the 10 a.m. service at St. Andrew’s on Sunday, followed by a reception. A special church school presentation will be a part of the Eucharist.

The final “Joyful Noise” event, a birthday farewell dance, will be at 4 p.m. Sunday at Travis Pointe Country Club. The dance, featuring the Pegasus Dance Band, is limited to 200 people with advance reservations necessary. The retiring rector’s birthday is close to the date of the celebrations. For further information, call the church office, 663-0518.