Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley; TV Producer, Unitarian Minister

The Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, who worked on WHUT-TV's "Evening Exchange" program before becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister, died Dec. 10 of gallbladder cancer at her sister's home in Vineland, N.J. She was 57.

Before joining the ministry, Rev. Bowens-Wheatley worked for seven years in public television at Washington's WHUT (Channel 32) during the 1980s. She started with a production internship at WHUT's weekly "Black Perspective on the News" and continued as a producer with "Evening Exchange," a news and issue analysis program.

Rev. Bowens-Wheatley, a former member of All Souls Church Unitarian in the District, moved to Boston in 1986 to begin her work in the religious arena. She served as director of public affairs for the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee for two years before becoming program director of the North Shore Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, N.Y., on Long Island. Her work there included recommending funding for organizations engaged in social change initiatives.

In 1991, she returned to Washington to enroll in Wesley Theological Seminary, where she received a master's of divinity degree magna cum laude in 1994.

She then served as a Unitarian Universalist minister at the Community Church of New York City, as district extension minister for the denomination's Metro New York District and as a field consultant for the Unitarian Universalist Association's Department of Faith in Action. In 1999, she was co-interim minister with her husband at a church in Austin.

Rev. Bowens-Wheatley joined the UUA staff as adult programs director in the religious education department in 2000. From 2003 to 2006, she served as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa. She was scheduled to become associate minister at First Unitarian Church of San Diego, but she withdrew because of illness.

She appreciated what she called the "the beauty" of her faith. "What is the strength of our religious liberalism if not to truly 'encourage a free and responsible search' for one's own truth, and to translate the great truths of the world (whether religion or science or literature) in ways that people can hear," she once wrote. "What is our liberal faith for if not to teach respect for difference."

She was born Marjorie Rebekah Bowens in Philadelphia. After high school, she worked as a legal and medical secretary. At 25 , she attended Temple University and majored in radio, television and film and Pan-African studies.

In 1979, she served as a press attaché to Grenada's ambassador to the United States. Afterward, she worked in Washington in public broadcasting and attended graduate school. She received a master's degree in international development, visual media and public relations from American University in 1982.

She was nominated for an Emmy for a program she produced with writer Maya Angelou, and she received a World Hunger Media Award in 1987 for an hour-long documentary, "After the Rains," which explored drought and environmental decay across the Sahara desert.

Rev. Bowens-Wheatley was a founding member of the African American Unitarian Universalist Ministry and a board member of the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation, among her other positions.

She was the author of numerous articles and co-editor, with Nancy Palmer Jones, of "Soul Work: Antiracist Theologies in Dialogue"(2002).

Her marriage to Alfred Edmonds ended in divorce.

Survivors include her husband, the Rev. Clyde Grubbs of Pasadena, Calif.; a daughter from her first marriage, Tonya Talibah Edmonds of Bronxville, N.Y.; her mother, Bernice Bowens of Philadelphia; six sisters; and three brothers.