You can also subscribe to the Calvary podcast on your favorite podcast app.
You can also subscribe to the Calvary podcast on your favorite podcast app.
The Rev. Sam Teitel is a Unitarian Universalist minister, poet, and lapsed punk rocker. He serves as the minister of The Church of the River in Memphis, Tennessee. His favorite parts of scripture are the parts that people usually try to ignore. He loves checking out new restaurants and record stores in Memphis with his wife, Sandra, their son, Gideon, and their Jack Russell Terrier, Tommy.
Dr. Jemar Tisby is a professor of history at Simmons College of Kentucky. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the Church’s Complicity in Racism and How to Fight Racism. Tisby has co-hosted the podcast “Pass the Mic” for all of its seven-year history and his writing has been featured in multiple national news outlets. Dr. Tisby speaks nationwide on the topics of racial justice, U.S. history and Christianity. He earned his PhD in history where his research examines race, religion, and social movements in the 20th century.
Kaitlin Curtice is an award-winning author, poet-storyteller, and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi nation who was raised in the Christian faith, Kaitlin investigates the intersections of spirituality and identity. She believes truthfully sharing the stories and contradictions of our histories and faith traditions can contribute to communal healing. As an inter-spiritual advocate, Kaitlin participates in conversations on topics such as colonialism in faith communities. Her forthcoming book, Living Resistance, claims that “resistance is for every human who desires their neighbors’ flourishing.”
Dr. Nichols, a native of Memphis, TN, is the organizing pastor of Freedom’s Chapel Christian Church (DOC). Following the death of a childhood friend, Dr. Nichols created A More Excellent Way, Inc., an organization with a mission to help individuals from all walks of life to enter into, engage in, and maintain spiritually healthy relationships while eliminating relationship violence. She is a founding member of MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope) and serves as Inter-Faith Officer for MIFA (Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association). She has been a visiting professor in Gweru, Zimbabwe, a church planter throughout China, and a Holy Land pilgrim. Dr. Nichols’s deepest passions are transformational teaching and working with others to seek justice, love, and mercy.
Rabbi David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. Known for his honest engagement with the place of religion in public life, Rabbi Wolpe explores Torah in fresh and faithful ways. Author of eight books, including the national bestseller Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times, Wolpe has been named the most influential Rabbi in America by Newsweek and twice named among the 50 most influential Angelinos by LA Magazine. He has taught at a number of universities, including UCLA, Hunter College, Pepperdine, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and has written for numerous prominent news outlets. His next adventure will be serving as a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.
The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor is a New York Times best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest. After serving three congregations—two in downtown Atlanta and one in rural Clarkesville, Georgia—she became the first Butman Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College, where she taught until 2017. Since then, she has spoken at events with wonderful names like Wild Goose, Evolving Faith, Awakening Soul, and Gladdening Light, but her favorite gig is being a full-time caretaker of a farm in the foothills of the Appalachians with her husband Ed and very many animals.
Pádraig Ó Tuama’s interests lie in language, violence and religion. Having grown up in a place that has a long history of all three (Ireland, yes, but also Europe) he finds that language might be the most redeeming of all three of these. In language there is the possibility of vulnerability, of surprise, of the creative movement towards something as yet unseen. He is inspired by any artist of words: from Krista Tippett to Lucille Clifton; from Patrick Kavanagh to Emily Dickinson; from Lorna Goodison to Arundhati Roy. Ó Tuama loves words — words that open up the mind, the heart, the life. For instance — poem: a created thing.
The Rev. Canon Borg was not raised in the church and lived outside the US (and a conventional Christian culture) until she was eight. At age 26 she had a compelling experience reading the Gospels. That interaction began an unsettling and transformational journey into Christianity and its traditions. At age 40 Borg was ordained in the Episcopal church, which has remained her spiritual home for 32 years. Her commitment to her faith requires continual rethinking and reimagining what Christianity is and why it matters. She is very concerned about the future of Christianity, particularly American Christianity. Borg’s adult formation has been profoundly shaped by the life and work of her late husband (the scholar Dr. Marcus J. Borg), the South African Bush, the horse, and the work of John D. Caputo. She hosts a monthly virtual gathering called the Second Saturday Conversation that explores Christianity in and for the 21st century.
Father Greg Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, an intervention program that builds job, life, and relational skills with former gang members. Known for his bestselling book Tattoos on the Heart, Boyle tells stories of shared life that provoke laughter as often as tears. Homeboy Industries has spawned more than 250 partnerships with social enterprises around the globe. Father Boyle travels widely and speaks on the importance of meeting violence with humanity.
Dalia Mogahed is the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, where she leads the organization’s pioneering research and thought leadership programs on American Muslims. With John L. Esposito, she co-authored the book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. President Barack Obama appointed Mogahed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009 and she was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about U.S. engagement with Muslim communities. Her 2016 TED talk was named one of the top TED talks of that year. Mogahed is a frequent expert commentator in global media outlets and international forums. She is also the CEO of Mogahed Consulting.