Rev. Dr. Janet Edwards has been an ordained minister for over 30 years. She currently serves as Co-Moderator of More Light Presbyterians, a network that seeks full inclusion of LGBT people in the church, and is a board member of Demos, a public policy research and advocacy organization. She also blogs for the Newsweek/Washington Post site “On Faith” and at www.TimetoEmbrace.com.

Rev. Edwards’ faith has always informed her progressive activism — from acting as precinct captain for MoveOn.org in the 2004 presidential election to presiding at the wedding of two women, for which she was tried twice by her church and ultimately acquitted 9-0. Rev. Edwards lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and two dogs.

Elizabeth Denlinger Reaves is the Deputy Director for Policy and Outreach at Sojourners, one of the largest networks of progressive Christians in the nation. Elizabeth leads the design and implementation of new issue campaigns, helps craft messaging and talking points, and oversees online advocacy for the organization. She also managed the 2009 Mobilization to End Poverty in the first spring of the Obama administration to advocate for national goals to reduce poverty.

Sojourners’ mission is to articulate the biblical call to racial and social justice. Known for their publications – a magazine by the same name and the God’s Politics blog (www.godspolitics.com) – Sojourners has been challenging political leadership to work with people of faith to accomplish progressive change for the past 40 years. Its CEO Jim Wallis is author of the best-selling “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It”.

Elizabeth’s recent issue campaign work includes the Vote Out Poverty campaign during the 2008 elections, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and issues such as human trafficking, healthcare reform, climate change and creation care, common ground on abortion, military spending and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A large part of her job is taking the complex political issues from the Beltway and discerning (with a little help from her friends) the moral issues from a faith lens in order to shape and share priorities with Sojourners’ membership. The other part is explaining to secular Washington how to include people of faith and values-based principles in public policy decision-making.

Before coming to Sojourners, Elizabeth served as assistant policy director at the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, the leading patient advocacy organization for raising awareness and research funding of the disease. She lives with her husband Scott in Washington, DC.

George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. In January 2006 he founded the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. A former assistant to the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., he has a long history of anti-war and human rights activism. He is an ordained minister (Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.) and president of the Karl Barth Society of North America. He is the 2010 recipient of the Karl Barth Prize awarded by the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany. Among his recent books is: Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims and People of Conscience Speak Out (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008). He is married with two children and two grandchildren.

Eric Sapp has spent much of his career focused on the intersection of faith and politics. He is a founding partner of the Eleison Group, the primary political consulting firm working with Democrats and the progressive faith community on outreach and communication to faith and values voters. Eleison was one of the lead consultants on the DCCC's '08 "Red to Blue" program and has received numerous awards for its groundbreaking work on a number of successful Democratic and progressive campaigns.

Eric also serves as Executive Director of the American Values Network, a faith and values based non-profit that has received significant recognition this past year for it's successful media campaigns targeting faith, veteran, and independent voters on climate and economic justice issues.

Prior to founding Eleison, Eric was Senior Partner at Common Good Strategies (CGS), a firm that rose to national prominence following the success in ’06 of its new approach to faith outreach and messaging for the DSCC, US Senators Casey and Brown, Governors Strickland, Granholm, and Sebelius, Rep. Shuler, and the Michigan, Kansas, and Oregon state Democratic Parties.

Before joining CGS, Eric worked as a legislative aid for Representative David Price and Senator Edward Kennedy on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Eric is a regular speaker on faith and politics on television and radio shows, most often providing a Democratic perspective on conservative broadcast programs.

He was born in Durham, NC and grew up in south Florida. He graduated with honors from Davidson College and received a Master of Divinity and a Master of Public Policy from Duke University. Eric has served for five years in the parish as a youth pastor and director of Christian Education. He lives in northern VA with his wife and high school sweetheart, Julie.

Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, is the Institute for Welcoming Resources and Faith Work Director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Before coming to the Task Force, she served as Interim National Coordinator for the United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns, as pastor of Spirit of the Lakes United Church of Christ and as Program Staff for the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence.

Rev. Voelkel is the author of To Do Justice: A Study of Welcoming Congregations, A Time to Build Up: Analysis of the No on Proposition 8 Campaign and Its Implications for Future Pro-LGBTQQIA Religious Organizing, Preventing Sexual Abuse: A Course of Study for Teenagers (Pilgrim Press, 1996) as well as numerous articles and sermons which have appeared in such journals as Spirit Currents, The Journal of Religion and Abuse, Creating Change and Parenting for Peace and Justice. She is a faith-based community organizing trainer as well as workshop presenter on a wide variety of faith-based justice issues. She is a graduate of Earlham College and Yale Divinity School and is currently working towards a Doctor of Ministry at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

Rev. Voelkel is a theologian, pastor and organizer and has devoted her life’s ministry to following Jesus’ command to minister in partnership with “the least of these,” ones whom society has deemed outcast, unclean or unworthy. This commitment constantly challenges her to ground her thinking and her acting in real-life situations that make real-life differences.

As a way to balance her spiritual life, Rebecca is also a runner, hiker, biker and avid community-builder, spending time with friends and family as often as she can. In the past couple of years she has begun to grow organic vegetables and delights in cooking food harvested from her garden for her friends and family. She and her partner, Maggie, are parents of Shannon MacKenzie, their three year-old daughter.