Featured Preachers and Speakers

Opening Convocation Speakers

Noah Baker Merrill is cofounder and project director of Direct Aid Iraq (DAI), an Iraqi-American aid, advocacy and peace-building effort working with Iraqi refugees. He travels regularly to the Middle East (most recently in early April), and his ministry includes direct advocacy and service with and on behalf of Iraqis, working to secure release from detention, access to medical care, and freer movement for Iraq's internally displaced and refugees. Noah speaks, writes and consults widely with a focus on analysis of the Iraq conflicts and the Iraqi displacement crisis. He seeks to encourage us all to more fully join in building the Kingdom of God together through the integration of worship and witness. Noah is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker).

Worship Service Preachers

We regret to announce that Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ will be unable to join us.

Tony Campolo is an author, pastor, social activist and passionate follower of Jesus. He is the founder and president of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education and has worked to create programs for "at-risk" children across North American and in several developing countries. Dr. Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and for ten years was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. The author of 35 books, he is a media commentator on religious, social and political matters, and has served American Baptist Churches in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth McAlister is cofounder of Jonah House, a nonviolent resistance community in Baltimore, MD. A member of a Catholic religious community for 14 years, she married Philip Berrigan in 1973, with whom she raised three children and founded Jonah House. The Jonah House community seeks to live simply, serve the poor, study scripture, and put flesh on biblical text through their life together, their teaching and their nonviolent resistance. McAlister served two years in federal prison for her participation with a Plowshares action at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY. She has lectured on nonviolent resistance, community, prayer and peacemaking throughout the United States and Canada.

Sr. Dianna Ortiz, OSU is an Ursuline sister from New Mexico who lived in Guatemala in the 1980s, teaching Mayan children in the highlands. In 1989 she was kidnapped and tortured. One of the men overseeing the abuse appeared to be North American. Her courageous efforts to seek answers from the U.S. government compelled the U.S. to declassify long-secret files on Guatemala and shed light on U.S. foreign policy, but the identity of those who tortured her has never been revealed. She is founder of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition and is a member of the Assisi community, an intentional community committed to simplicity, justice and peace in inner-city Washington, D.C.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. is an ordained minister of the Church of God in Christ and the President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. He is a leader in the peace movement, an advocate for poor and minorities, and the National Director for the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign. Rev. Yearwood is an outspoken activist whose vision for social change mandates a 21st century approach to mobilizing and engaging young people to be a part of the political process. A graduate of Howard University Divinity School, Yearwood is a board member of Pace e Bene and a US Air Force Reserve Veteran.