Holding on to Hope

The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, and bestselling author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage and The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. Father Martin regularly contributes to national and international media via outlets like as diverse as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR’s Fresh Air, FOX’s The O’Reilly Factor, and PBS’s NewsHour. Before entering the Jesuits in 1988, Father Martin graduated from the Wharton School of Business and worked for General Electric. In 2017, Pope Francis appointed him to be a Consultor for the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication. Learn more at his author page or follow him on Twitter.

Valerie Kaur is a seasoned civil rights attorney, author and filmmaker who now leads the Revolutionary Love Project to reclaim love as a force for justice in America. She has won policy change on multiple fronts – hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration detention, solitary confinement, Internet freedom, and more. She founded Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project to inspire and equip new generations of advocates. A daughter of Sikh farmers in California’s heartland, Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School. Her new book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, expands on her “blockbuster” TED Talk and inspiring 2016 Watchnight speech. Follow her on Twitter.

The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church. 

Dr. Cheryl Bridges Johns – Cheryl Bridges Johns is the Robert E Fisher Chair of Spiritual Renewal & Christian Formation at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. She has 30 years pastoral experience and an ecumenical calling, representing the Pentecostal Tradition in various venues such as the National Council of Churches, World Council of Churches, and Global Christian Forum. 

Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia currently serves as the Executive Director of Religions for Peace USA. He has been a servant-leader in the interfaith movement for over 2 decades. He is also a member of Board of Trustees of Parliament of the World’s Religions as well as North American Interfaith Network. He is also a founding trustee of Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Global Sikh Council. He is former advisory board member of the Journal of Interreligious Studies. He has served on board of National Religious Coalition Against Torture as well as World Sikh Council – America Region. In 2016, he was awarded Luminosa Award for Unity by Focolare Movement and in 2020 he was honored by the National Council of Churches in the USA with its 2020 Gwynne Guibord Award for Excellence in Interreligious Leadership. Locally he has worked with Interfaith Association for Central Ohio for over 20 years and is co-editor of landmark Ohio Bicentennial book Religion in Ohio: Profiles of Faith Communities. 

Shane Claiborne is a speaker, activist, and best-selling author, and founder of The Simple Way. He leads Red-Letter Christians. 

Rabbi Shoshanah  Conover is the 8th Senior Rabbi in Temple Sholom of Chicago’s 153-year history and is the first female Senior Rabbi in the city of Chicago. Dedicated to social justice, Torah and Talmudic teaching, and an ability to forge deep, personal relationships with all congregants and diverse faith leaders, Rabbi Conover brings a wisdom and passion to the pulpit. Rabbi Conover is a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and has received several awards for the work of her rabbinate. Her poems and essays have been published in numerous collections. 

The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, is the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She was ordained in 1981 and served three different congregations in Ohio before being elected bishop of the ELCA Northeastern Ohio Synod in 2006. She was reelected synod bishop in May 2013, shortly before her election as ELCA presiding bishop. Eaton’s four emphases for the ELCA are: We are church; We are Lutheran; We are church together; We are church for the sake of the world. These four emphases are fundamental to identifying who the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is. 

Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi is the Executive Director of the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, a global network that bridges grassroots peacemakers and global players to work towards sustainable peace. Dr. Elsanousi was the director of Community Outreach and Interfaith Relations for the Islamic Society of North America. He also served on the Core Group Taskforce for the Department of State’s working group on Religion and Foreign Policy. Dr. Elsanousi holds a bachelor’s degree in Shariah and Law from the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, a Master of Laws from Indiana University, a graduate diploma in philanthropic studies from the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, and a Ph.D. in Law and Society from the Indiana University School of Law. 

María del Mar Muñoz-Visoso is executive director of the Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC. Before joining the Bishops’ Conference, Mar worked for the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, where she served in various capacities, including being co-founder and first executive director of Centro San Juan Diego, a pastoral institute and adult education center for Latinos, director of Hispanic Ministry, and editor of El Pueblo Católico, the Spanish-language archdiocesan newspaper. Mar has a B.A. in Communications from CEU San Pablo University in Valencia, Spain, and a Master of Theological Studies (M.T.S.) from the Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. 

Dr. Eboo Patel is the Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a non-profit organization working to make interfaith cooperation a social norm in America. He is a respected leader on national issues of religious diversity, civic engagement, and the intersection of racial equity and interfaith cooperation. He is the author of four books and dozens of articles and is a frequent keynote speaker at colleges and universities, philanthropic convenings, and civic gatherings, both in person and virtually. He served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. 

Dr. Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice previously served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, national security advisor to President George W. Bush, and provost of Stanford University.