First Woman to Serve as Chief Editor of a Prominent Adventist Periodical

by AT News Team

Carmella Monk Crawford has been hired as editor of Message, one of the major outreach magazines of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America, published by the Review & Herald Publishing Association. She is the first woman to serve as the chief editor of Message, which targets the African American population, or Signs of the Times published at Pacific Press near Boise, Idaho.
 
“I think my selection is a strong statement, not just within the Adventist community, but to those with whom we share the gospel,” she stated in a news release from the publishing house. “There is too much work to do, and we need more people on it. Adventist women like me must continue to serve substantively and competently on every level throughout this movement. It’s time for us all to get on it.”
 
Pastor Washington Johnson resigned recently from the editor position because he is being deployed to Afghanistan. He is a U.S. Navy Reserve chaplain.
 
Message has a long relationship with the Regional Conferences in the North American Division of the denomination. It has been sustained through depressions and recessions, wars overseas and urban turmoil here in the U.S. by the commitment of historically black congregations to meet fund raising goals and circulate the magazine in local neighborhoods. It is believed to be the oldest continually-published religious magazine circulated among African Americans.