Columbia Union Honors Josephine Benton

According to the Columbia Union Visitor:

The Columbia Union leaders presented Benton with their Notable Person of Honor award at their year-end meetings. “We’ve been talking about equality in ministry in the Columbia Union for 40 years,” said Columbia Union Executive Secretary, Rob Vandeman said before presenting Benton with the award. “Shame on us that when Josephine Benton was an associate pastor at Sligo church, then senior pastor at the Rockville church, that we as a church family didn’t have the courage to ordain her. We don’t know how to apologize as a church for the time it has taken us to recognize the contribution that you and other women have made to the ministry.”

[snip]

Benton who is now a grandmother of five and great-grandmother of five joked, “I’m glad they didn’t wait until 2015 to do this because by then I would be a very old woman.”

The entire article is very worth reading as it summarizes the Mohaven event and Pastor Benton’s contributions to Seventh-day Adventist ministry.