Even though the PCUSA voted to retain a ban on homosexual ordination at its annual meeting, the general assembly also elected as moderator a Chicago pastor who does not object to the ordination of homosexuals.

John M. Buchanan was seen as the centrist of the three candidates for the denomination's highest elected nonpaid position. Buchanan succeeded Marj Carpenter for the one-year post. He defeated Norman D. Pott and John Clark Poling. Pott, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in San Rafael, California, and a member of the adjunct faculty of San Francisco Theological Seminary, is a strong supporter of the ordination of homosexuals. Poling, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, opposes homosexual ordination.

Buchanan, 58, told the PCUSA delegates he sees "no scriptural reason that homosexual persons should not be ordained," but he wants to leave the decision to local churches and presbyteries.

"I can live in a church that trusts churches and presbyteries to make their own decisions," he says.

Because a majority is needed to elect a moderator, the vote went to a second ballot. Buchanan received 309, or 56 percent, of the 549 votes. Poling received 210 votes and Pott 30 votes.

Buchanan, pastor of the 4,100-member Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago since 1985, moderated the 1994 general assembly committee that investigated the Re-Imagining controversy (CT, July 18, 1994, p. 49).