The Rev. Nancy Jo Kemper, who retired last year as executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, received a distinguished alumni award from Yale Divinity School on Tuesday.
A 1967 graduate of Yale Divinity School, Kemper was awarded the William Sloane Coffin '56 Award for Peace and Justice, which is given annually to someone who exemplifies a "passionate and prophetic witness, a courageous devotion to the dignity and worth of all persons, and who has made a notable contribution to the work of peace and reconciliation," according to a news release. Coffin was a chaplain at Yale whose children Kemper taught in a New Haven Sunday school.
Kemper holds ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ and in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); she is pastor of New Union Christian Church in Versailles. She served as executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches from 1991 to 2009.
"Over the years, I have seen her mobilize members to speak on behalf of living wage and universal health care, on behalf of comprehensive health care, on behalf of comprehensive tax reform and environmental protection, against the death penalty and genocide in Darfur," Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., said in the news release.
