Washington, D.C. — With another contentious year of regressive policies on the horizon from the White House, Capitol Hill, and state legislatures, people of faith have never had a more critical role to play.
That’s why the Center for American Progress has come up with a list of the top 10 faith leaders and groups to watch in 2018. These leaders, on the front lines of working to build a better world, can help articulate a moral vision for the nation on issues such as religious liberty; criminal justice reform; social and economic equality; voting; and everything in between.
These leaders are emblematic of the best of faith communities: a hopeful belief that justice can and will be done by people working with and for one another, and the perseverance to fight despite seemingly endless challenges.
The 10 leaders and groups to watch are:
- Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss and religion scholars from American Values Religious Voices
- Rev. Julian DeShazier, senior pastor at University Church in Chicago
- Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, leading activist and scholar on Philosophical theology and ethics
- Simran Jeet Singh, scholar of religion and expert in South Asian religious history
- Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas
- Rev. Jeania Ree Moore, director for civil and human rights with the General Board of Church and Society, the United Methodist Church’s social justice agency in Washington, D.C.
- Rev. Ronald C. Smith, pastor of Wayman Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Union Springs, Alabama
- Mississippi faith leaders fighting discrimination
- Allyson McKinney Timm, a theologically trained human rights attorney and elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)
- Reform Ohio, a project of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that is organizing for criminal justice reform in Ohio
Read the column: “10 Faith Leaders to Watch in 2018” by Gwen Calais-Haase and LaShawn Y. Warren
For more information or to talk to an expert please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected], or 202-478-6327.