Bradley G. Lewis, professor of economics, was elected vice president of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) at its recent 2005 General Synod meetings held at Union College.
“I'm humbled, honored and grateful for your confidence in me,” Lewis told delegates in attendance at College Park Hall. “It's been said that we're facing unprecedented problems. I suppose every generation's problems are unprecedented. I think we have unprecedented opportunity.”
Lewis, 58, is an elder at First Reformed Church in Schenectady's Stockade section and vice chairman of Schenectady's Metroplex Development Authority board. He came to Schenectady in 1969 after graduating from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where he majored in economics.
He was an accounting manager and a corporate auditor for the General Electric Co. before taking a leave of absence to earn his master's degree and doctorate from the University of Chicago. He joined the Union faculty in 1979.
Lewis was active in church activities growing up in the Midwest, but “drifted away a little bit” during college in the 1960s.
“I was deeply affected by the death of Martin Luther King, and there were other things going on during that time I was wrestling with, and I felt like the church wasn't addressing these issues,” he said. “I certainly wouldn't have expected that I would have become as involved in the church as I am.
“After I took the position at Union, I started feeling like it was time to get back to church,” said Lewis, whose wife, Cathy, is a member of the Schenectady City Council.
He found First Reformed to be “a serious place that allowed you to think and discuss things about your faith.”
Strengthening his involvement with the church, Lewis became a deacon and later an elder, took Bible studies and has been active in other ways, most recently helping lead the church's new Sunday early morning service.
The RCA has some 284,000 members and 940 churches. Held in June, the General Synod recommitted to the church's 10-year goal to revitalize existing congregations, build new ones, encourage greater unity in ministry and mission, and become a multicultural church.