The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II is the new director of the controversial Washington lobbying office of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Nelson, a third-generation Presbyterian minister, previously pastored a small new church development in a troubled neighborhood of inner-city Memphis. He has extensive connections with organizations seeking to carry on the legacy of the civil rights movement in the South, as well as with the Covenant Network of Presbyterians advocating “full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians.”

Nelson has been pastor of Liberation Community Presbyterian Church in Memphis since its establishment in 1999. An introduction to one of Nelson’s published sermons describes the church as “a tent-making new church development that evangelizes the poor into PCUSA membership.” It was the Memphis area’s first African-American church plant in 46 years.

Nelson issued in 2007-2008 for the formation of an African American Presbyterian Network (AAPN). He presented this call as a response to “considerable discussion among progressive African Americans taking place across the country regarding an African American Presbyterian liberation movement.”

Such a movement would “embrace the belief that God through Jesus Christ gives us power to resurrect dying churches; transform stagnant ministries; evangelize the unchurched and build relationships with others without being integrated out of power.”
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The Memphis pastor maintained, “Our imperative is to model a posture of strength through self-help and determination.” He foreswore any denominational funding because “we cannot legitimately expect an unrepentant historic oppressor to finance our freedom.”

Alan F.H. Wisdom is vice president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, DC, as well as director of its Presbyterian Action for Faith & Freedom program.