COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected a Palestinian-American as its top elected official Saturday night.

        The Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, 58, of Atlanta was elected moderator of the 2.5 million-member denomination on the second ballot at the group's 214th annual General Assembly at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

        Abu-Akel said his priorities for the church during his year in office are spiritual renewal, committing to worldwide evangelism and encouraging Presbyterians to cultivate “unity in diversity.”

        The 4-year-old Abu-Akel and his family were driven from their home by Israeli troops in the Arab-Israel War in 1948, he recalled before the General Assembly. His father and seven siblings went to a refugee camp. His mother refused to leave her home. The family later was reunited.

        “You may be afraid,” he told delegates. “It's OK to be afraid. I remember that 4-year-old boy who discovered and is still discovering that Jesus Christ is the only hope for a broken world.”

        Ordained in 1978, Abu-Akel spent 21 years as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta until last year. He is the founder and executive director of the Atlanta Ministry with International Students, director of the National Christmas International House Program and adjunct professor of world religions at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta.

        Abu-Akel failed to receive a majority of votes from 521 commissioners on the first ballot, prompting the second vote, when he received 269 votes.

        The Rev. Laird Stuart, of the Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, and the Rev. Arthur J. “Jerry” Tankersley, of the Laguna Presbyterian Church in Laguna Beach, Calif. also were nominated.

        The church's top-ranking staff member, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, has recommended that the denomination have its largest meeting every other year, rather than every year.

        “The millions of dollars we would save the church are critically important,” said Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General Assembly for the 2.5 million-member denomination.

        The group is the nation's largest Presbyterian denomination. About 2,500 Presbyterians from around the nation are in Columbus for the weeklong event.

        Kirkpatrick also acknowledged that meeting less often might result in less time for debate about homosexuality and other controversial social issues and more time for doing the work of the church.

        “I think an every-other-year assembly is the best way to enable us to have some time between major decisions that really frees up our presbyteries and congregations to be about the mission of Christ and not always consumed with these hot-button overtures,” he said.

        Kirkpatrick said delegates this year will discuss proposals concerning partial-birth abortion, a $40 million missionary program, AIDS and Christian-Muslim relations. Delegates will vote on Wednesday.

        Resolutions, known as overtures, passed at one assembly don't become church law until ratified by a majority of the denomination's 173 presbyteries.

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