WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama has resubmitted for Senate approval his choice for a new ambassador at large for religious freedom, the White House announced Feb. 7.
Suzan Johnson Cook
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Obama first nominated Suzan Johnson Cook, an American Baptist minister who worked as a domestic-policy adviser during the Clinton administration, to the post last June. That nomination expired in December amid criticism led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that she lacked experience in global diplomacy.
Cook, an author and motivational speaker who recently toured nationally with Bishop T. D. Jakes, is immediate past president of the 10,000-member Hampton University Ministers' Conference and the first female woman to be elected president of the group that represents African-American denominations.
In 1983 she was the first African-American woman to become senior pastor of a church affiliated with American Baptist Churches USA. After serving 13 years as pastor at Mariners' Temple Baptist Church in New York City, established in 1795 the oldest Baptist church site in Manhattan, she founded the Bronx Christian Fellowship Church in 1996. She retired as pastor of the church, also known as Believers' Christian Fellowship, in 2009.
The ambassador at large position, created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act to monitor violation of religious freedom abroad and to recommend appropriate responses by the United States, has been vacant since Obama took office. The president has been criticized for not filling the post, raising questions about the administration's commitment to religious liberty overseas.
Cook's nomination appeared to be on track last year. She was nominated by a Democratic president and needed only the approval of a Democratic majority in the Senate. Then a single senator's use of a parliamentary maneuver known as a hold-over letter postponed a vote until after the congressional session ended in December, and the nomination expired.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
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Previous ABP stories:
Independent panel criticizes Obama, Bush, Clinton on religious freedom (4/30/2010)
Obama nominates Baptist pastor to be religious-freedom ambassador (6/17/2010)