Rev. James L. Haddix, Ph.D., Pastor & Teacher
James L. Haddix was called to All Souls as her Minister in 1990. He was ordained to Christian Ministry in 1971 at the Congregational Church of Temple, New Hampshire where he served from 1969 until moving to Maine.
He earned his ThM in Biblical Studies magna cum laude at Boston University School of Theology where he received the National United Methodist Scholarship Seminary Award and was named a Frank D. Howard Fellow of the school. He studied languages at Harvard University and spent a summer term at Christ’s Church College in Canterbury, England in the CANTESS program. He earned his PhD in Biblical Studies at Boston University Graduate School. His dissertation was titled Lamentation as Personal Experience in Selected Psalms (1980). He is an adjunctive member of the faculty of Bangor Theological Seminary where he teaches Old Testament (since 1991).
He was a founding member of the Council for Theological Education in New England, serving as the representative of the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ (1983-1990). He also represented the NH Conference on the planning committee for the New England Pastor’s Study Conference (1984-1988), serving as Chairman of the Conference (1985-88). He was Moderator of the New Hampshire Conference, UCC (1987-89) and served on various Conference task forces and committees. He was active in the Bridges for Peace exchange with the Soviet Union (1984-1990). He was Moderator of the Hillsborough Association of the NH Conference UCC (1984-86) and a member (1980-82) of the Association Committee on Church and Ministry, a committee he chaired (1982-84). In Maine, he serves on the Church and Ministry Committee of the Penobscot-Piscataquis Association (Maine Conference UCC) (1994-2000; and 2011 to present). He first taught classes and seminars for clergy, local churches and for the United Church of Christ in 1974. He taught in the NH Conference Leadership Training for Church Educators program and, later, in the ACCT program of the Maine Conference UCC.
Haddix earned a certificate from the Drug Dependence Institute of the Yale School of Medicine and Psychiatry (1971), was a founder of the Contoocook Valley Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, and a Counselor-Organizer of “Project Discovery”, a pilot-program for education/treatment of adolescent alcohol/drug abusers in cooperation with Beech Hill Hospital of Dublin, NH. He was also a nationally registered emergency medical technician and served for nine years on the Souhegan Valley Ambulance Service of which he was also a Director (1976-79). He is a certified trainer and instructor for the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis Profile (Psychological Publications, Inc.).
He was Vice-President of the Congregational Christian Historical Society (1986-89), 14 Beacon St. in Boston, and its President (1989-2000); he continued to serve on its Board of Directors (until 2008), a service he began in 1984. He was a member of the Historical Council of the United Church of Christ (1989-2000).
Haddix served as vice-president of a blue ribbon committee on cost and finance for the Contoocook Valley Regional School District (1985-87), a district composed of nine New Hampshire towns. He also served on the District’s Committee on Curriculum, the Life Education Committee, the Partners With Youth special needs committee, a search committee for counseling 
staff, and was closely associated with the work of the Temple (NH) Elementary School. In Bangor, Haddix was a member of the John Bapst Memorial High School Board (1997-2007) where he also chaired the Endowment Committee of the school. He is currently a member of the school's Community Advisory Committee. He was a Trustee of the Mansfield Public Library, Temple, New Hampshire, and served as Chairman of the Library Needs Study Committee (1988-90) and as Chairman of the Library Building Committee (1990). In Bangor, he is a member of the Bangor Mechanic Association which has historically supported the Bangor Public Library.
Haddix is a member (since 1994) and vice-president of the Board of Directors of Philips Strickland House in Bangor, and a corporator of Bangor's Community Health and Counseling Service. He is Vice President of Rotary's Maine Cancer Hospitality House corporation, and a founding member of the Board of the Oncology Support Project of Eastern Maine Charities. He served as a member of the Region III Adult Mental Health Task Force for the Maine Department of Mental Health (2000). He was a member of the corporation of Eastern Maine Health Care System (2005-2010) and was a corporator of the Eastern Maine Medical Center (1995-2005). He is an on-call Chaplain at Eastern Maine Medical Center (since 1990) and a member of the Chaplaincy Committee and the Chaplaincy Intern Program Committee.
In 2001, he was selected as a member of the Northeastern Group of the Pastor-Theologian Program of the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, NJ. In 2004 he was named a member of a special research group at the Center. Also that year he established a local program for Pastor-Theologians at Husson University in Bangor of which he is convener and moderator. In 2007 he was, for three months, Pastor-Theologian-In-Residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry. He is one of the authors whose essays are collected in The Power to Comprehend With All the Saints: The Formation and Practice of a Pastor-Theologian, edited by Wallace M. Alston and Cynthia A. Jarvis and published in 2009 by Wm B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company. He is a member of the College of Pastoral Leaders at the Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Theological Seminary (since 2008).
He has continuing interest and involvement in ecumenical and interfaith conversations and friendships. (right, Temple El Emeth, Youngstown, Ohio, where Haddix has been an occasional guest scholar and speaker.) He is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Maine. He is on the Steering Committee of Confessing Christ, a recognized confessional group within the United Church of Christ dedicated to theological study and conversation. He has published articles in Prism: A Theological Forum for the United Church of Christ, and in The Living Theological Heritage of the United Church of Christ, Volume 7 (The Pilgrim Press). He also has a published hymn, “O God, Whose Steadfast Love”, in The New Century Hymnal (UCC).
He has served in a number of civic organizations and on the boards of several local agencies. He began playing saxophone in the 5th grade. He helped found the Bangor-based Klezmer band, Tzena! Tzena! and he plays in a swing band (18 pieces) known as Sentimental Journey. He was a founding member of the Bangor Region Leadership Institute and has been Chaplain of the Bangor Noontime Rotary Club since 1990. He is a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International. He was a Director of the Good Samaritan Agency in Bangor, a Board Member of Bangor Area Visiting Nursing Association, a Member of the Blue Cross-Blue Shield Community Advisory Council, and Clergy Coordinator from the United Way (1992).
He likes fresh raspberries (they help him believe in a gracious and generous Creator—as do snow peas fresh from the garden, and roses). He enjoys his family, poetry and writing, raising horses, New England screened-in porches, the feel and smell of wood, hikes on forest trails and mountains, lakesides, loons, and thinking about a lot of different things.
Revised and updated: November 7, 2011