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Honorary Degrees to Maldonado, Buchanan

CHICAGO, IL (May 19, 2005) - Honorary doctorates will be awarded to John Buchanan and Jorge Maldonado at the commencement and consecration service for graduates of North Park Theological Seminary on Saturday.

Buchanan is the editor and publisher of Christian Century magazine and Maldonado has had a long and distinguished career with the Evangelical Covenant Church, including his current position as president of El Centro Hispano de Estudios Teológicos (CHET). Buchanan will deliver the commencement address. The service begins at 10 a.m. in Anderson Chapel on the North Park campus.

In addition to guiding the magazine, Buchanan has been the pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. Since his arrival in 1985, the congregation has expanded its mission programs in the community and created ambitious new services and mission programs locally, nationally and internationally.

In 1984, as pastor of Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Ohio, he was featured in U.S. News and World Report as the leader of one of five "model congregations" in the country.

One of the various top positions he has held within the Presbyterian (USA) denomination was moderator of the 208th General Assembly, its highest office. To read more of Buchanan's views, please see Buchanan.

An ordained Covenant pastor, Jorge Maldonado came to CHET in 1993 from Geneva, Switzerland, where he served for five years as the executive secretary for family education within the World Council of Churches. Since arriving at CHET, he has helped the school grow from 50 students to more than 300 while assisting with the development of four satellite campuses.

Maldonado's roots in the Covenant stretch four decades. He served from 1966 to 1977 as the professor of psychology at T.W. Anderson College in Quito, Ecuador. From 1972 to 1977 he also was the director of the theological education department for the Evangelical Covenant Church of Ecuador.

Maldonado moved to the United States in 1978 when he began his pastorate at First Covenant Church in Los Angeles, California. After two years at First Covenant, he returned to Ecuador and served as the general secretary of the Latin American Association of Theological Education Institutions, based in Guayaquil and Quito.

He then became international coordinator of Quito-based EIRENE, the Latin American Association for Pastor Care and Counseling of the Family. While with EIRENE, Maldonado wrote and edited many articles for publications pertaining to family issues in Latin America.

A hymn writer and author, he helped craft "Un Cantico" Nuevo (A New Song), the hymnbook of the Evangelical Covenant Churches in Latin America. He also wrote a book, "Even in the Best of Families," that has been translated in three languages.

Jorge earned his Bachelor of Theology degree from Biblical Seminary of Latin America, San Jose, Costa Rica. He studied at the Central University of Ecuador in Quito in its school of sociology before heading to United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, where he received a Master of Sacred Theology degree.

Before working with CHET, Jorge earned a Master of Theology with an emphasis in missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He also earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller. To read more of Maldonado, please see Maldonado.

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