Dr. John Thomas, who completed his final term as President of the United Church of Christ in September 2009, recently announced that he is living in an adulterous relationship with a fellow national UCC staff member and is consequently separated from and divorcing his wife. The duration of the adulterous relationship with his co-worker, engaged in while he served as President of the UCC in Cleveland, or whether she was a subordinate has not been revealed. UCC Announcement.
Biblical Witness Fellowship, a confessing movement in the United Church of Christ has issued the following statement in reaction to this news.
“It is a great sadness for all of us that our former President John Thomas has broken his covenant commitment to marriage in exchange for an adulterous relationship. His action deepens the crisis of integrity in the UCC with consequences well beyond the tragic dissolution of his own family. During his administration, Dr. Thomas was a champion for the religious legitimization of sexual license and the redefinition of marriage. It now appears that his agenda may have been driven by personal justification of his own behavior rather than by any authentic conviction. The whole church is deeply hurt when our leaders fail to keep their vows and engage in this form of duplicity. It compromises the witness of all of us in the body of Christ. We understand that all of us sin and fall short of the glory of God, and call on our brother John Thomas to repent and seek restoration.”
