
Cord A. Scriven
From North Pacific Union Gleaner, November 6, 1964.
Scriven, Cord Ackman (1896–1964)
By Milton Hook
Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.
First Published: October 7, 2020
Cord Ackman Scriven was an Adventist pastor and church administrator in the United States.
Cord Ackman Scriven was born in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, on March 8, 1896, to Charles Mathias Scriven and his wife Helen McGee (Whiney). His father was a farmer. Cord’s older brother, Russell Emery (b. 1894), had died as an infant. Cord’s younger siblings were Thelma Alzada (b. 1901), Ethel Mae (b. 1906), Violet Maude (b. 1909), John Henry (b. 1912) and twins Ward Andrew and Wayne Albert (b. 1914). When Cord was a youngster his family moved from their Sioux Rapids farm to another located just across the South Dakota border between Egan and Colman in Moody County.1
The South Dakota Conference called Cord Scriven to ministry in late 1916, assigning him to work in Rosebud County.2 He studied at Union College in Nebraska in 1917-1918, then spent the remainder of his life in full-time denominational service.3 He married Leila Grace Levea,4 and was ordained as a gospel minister at the South Dakota Conference camp meeting in June 1920.5
In 1923 Scriven was appointed Home Missions secretary in the Iowa Conference. In 1926 he transferred to the same portfolio in the Atlantic Union Conference and served there until 1931. From then on, Scriven was a conference president, first in the New York Conference (1931-1934), which had the entire state outside the greater New York City area as its territory. In 1934 he was called to the Pacific Northwest to serve as president of the Upper Columbia Conference (1934-1939), the Washington Conference (1939-1943), and the Oregon Conference (1943-1947). Having given leadership to the three largest conferences in the North Pacific Union Conference (NPUC), Scriven’s next step was the presidency of the union itself, a position he held for 17 years (1947-1964).6 Early in 1949, at the invitation of the General Conference, he traveled to Asia to attend the annual meetings of the China and Far Eastern Divisions. His three-month itinerary took him to Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Burma and the Philippines.7
His role as president of the NPUC entailed membership on the governing boards of several church institutions, many of them of major significance for the Adventist church as a whole, not just his own union. He chaired the boards of Walla Walla College in Washington state and of Harris Pine Mills, the church-owned furniture manufacturing company based in Pendleton, Oregon. He served on the boards of the Faith for Today telecast, Voice of Prophecy radio broadcast, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Portland Sanitarium and Hospital, Andrews University, and Loma Linda University.8
While still serving as NPUC president, Cord A. Scriven died from acute leukemia at Portland Sanitarium and Hospital on October 28, 1964.9 Leila survived many more years, passing away in Portland on June 14, 1981.10
Sources
“Cord A. Scriven, President of Adventist Group, Dies.” Oregonian. October 30, 1964.
“Cord Ackman Scriven.” FamilySearch. Accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/97Z4-4BC.
“Leila Grace Scriven obituary.” Gleaner, July 20, 1981.
Martin, W. F. “The South Dakota Conference and Camp-Meeting.” ARH, July 8, 1920.
Morgan, Ione. “Death of Union Conference President.” North Pacific Union Gleaner, October 30, 1964
Nagele, C. J. “Union President to Far East.” North Pacific Union Gleaner, January 11, 1949.
Preston, B. M. “Consecrated Leader Now Sleeps in Jesus.” North Pacific Union Gleaner, November 6, 1964.
“South Dakota Notes.” Northern Union Reaper, February 27, 1917
Notes
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“Cord Ackman Scriven,” FamilySearch, accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/KHZH-ZYT.↩
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“South Dakota Notes,” Northern Union Reaper, February 27, 1917, 3.↩
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“Union College Re-Union,” Educational Messenger, September 1926, 19; B. M. Preston, “Consecrated Leader Now Sleeps in Jesus,” North Pacific Union Gleaner, November 6, 1964, 1.↩
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Cord Ackman Scriven,” FamilySearch, Intellectual Reserve, 2021, accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pedigree/landscape/97Z4-4BC.↩
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W.F. Martin, “The South Dakota Conference and Camp-Meeting,” ARH, July 8, 1920, 21.↩
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Preston, “Consecrated Leader Now Sleeps in Jesus.”↩
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C. J. Nagele, “Union President to Far East,” North Pacific Union Gleaner, January 11, 1949, 1.↩
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“Cord A. Scriven, President of Adventist Group, Dies,” Oregonian, October 30, 1964, 16.↩
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Ione Morgan, “Death of Union Conference President,” North Pacific Union Gleaner, October 30, 1964, 2.↩
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“Leila Grace Scriven obituary,” North Pacific Union Gleaner, July 20, 1981, 23.↩