 outStanding
in the Field
Spanning Church and State
by Elizabeth Terill
Chances
are good that New Jersey’s new secretary of state won’t be corralled by his
official job description. That just isn’t Buster Soaries’s style.
The Baptist minister and PTS alum (Class of 1989) was recently named to his position in
the state cabinet by Governor Christie Whitman. It is an unusual job for a clergyman.
According to New Jersey’s constitution, the secretary of state is responsible for
keeping “the Great Seal of the State,” which really means having a finger on the
pulse of New Jersey’s cultural institutions, assuring accurate election tallies, and
maintaining state records. The Martin Luther King Commission and the Many Faces, One
Family program also fall under the secretary’s jurisdiction.
But the Rev. Dr. Deforest B. Soaries Jr. (“Buster” to most who know him)
views his position as an arch connecting the State Department to grassroots New Jersey
communities and churches. He sees no reason to narrowly define the good that can come from
his appointment and plans to work toward the betterment of New Jersey’s citizens by
making the position one of high visibility, rather than its traditional low profile.
For example, the 47-year-old preacher wants to increase awareness of and assistance for
the many New Jersey residents who struggle against poverty and marginalization. He also
hopes to be an instrumental liaison between the state police and the Black community while
the police are being investigated for claims of unjustified targeting of Black motorists.
He’s already proven to be a key player in helping to smooth the racial tensions
created when Governor Whitman’s former campaign manager recently made racial comments
spurring a maelstrom of controversy. The comments were rescinded; Governor Whitman and her
administration survived; and Buster Soaries emerged as a man who can effectively bridge
two worlds.
Buster Soaries
That should be enough to keep him busy. But while serving as secretary of state,
Soaries will continue what he’s been doing since 1990 — shepherding the First
Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens. When inSpire interviewed him on a Sunday afternoon,
Soaries was fresh from preaching his third service of the day and preparing to guest
preach at another congregation that afternoon. In a show of commitment to his church,
Soaries just signed a ten-year contract to continue as First Baptist’s pastor, a
position that involves preaching weekly and running the 100-plus-member men’s Bible
study group, among numerous other things. High energy apparently accompanies
Soaries’s high visibility.
When he came to First Baptist, the congregation lacked unity of direction and purpose.
Since then it has grown to more than 5,100 members, begun a ten million dollar building
project, and branched out to create six nonprofit organizations. Those organizations,
including a neighborhood redevelopment corporation, a credit union, and a housing company,
have done much toward revitalizing and building hope within Somerset County. Soaries has
taken a leadership role.
It didn’t take long to see the connection between Soaries’s religious life
and his work within state government. The two-hour February swearing-in ceremony that
began his term was a religious service, a rarity for government events. Soaries later
heard a high-ranking official say he’d heard the word “God” in the ceremony
more times than he’d heard it in his life to date. The official wanted Soaries to
know that was all right with him.
Soaries hopes people of differing religious, racial, social, and economic backgrounds
can come to better know one another, becoming aware of and interested in each other’s
needs and abilities. He wants to see less reactive behavior in response to expected
discrimination, and more instances of potentially hostile groups working together to meet
one another “where their need matches our need.” He explains a successful
program in which churches find suitable candidates for a bank’s employment needs,
recruiting among their members to match qualified applicants with the bank’s
available positions. Soaries thinks cooperative efforts like this may help narrow chasms
between groups that have an inadequate understanding of each other.
At home as at work, Soaries tries to foster a sense of other-awareness. He and his
wife, Donna, strive to build an appreciation for others in their nine-year-old twins,
Malcolm and Martin. To help offset the fact that the Soaries household is not an average
family setting, the boys’ 1998 Christmas gift was a penpal relationship with two
other little boys — twin seven-year-olds who live in an African nation. The children
will correspond, each set of twins learning about the other, perhaps someday meeting in
person. Soaries dreams Martin and Malcolm will grow up to be “normal people,”
and longs to instill in them the values, ideals, and compassion he believes God sought
when choosing Joseph as Jesus’ adopted father.
All in all, Buster Soaries probably isn’t going to be a typical secretary of
state. But then, he’s not a typical pastor or father or businessman. So far, that
seems to be working out pretty well.
Elizabeth Terrill is a 1998 M.Div. and 1999 Th.M. graduate of the Seminary
who is searching for a call in pastoral ministry in the United Church of Christ. Her home
is in Porter, Indiana.
© Copyright 1998 Princeton Theological Seminary
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