Faith Angle Michael Cromartie Forum 2025

Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump. His other books include City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era, which he co-wrote with Michael J. Gerson, and Wealth and Justice: The Morality of Democratic Capitalism. He was formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and currently serves as a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. Wehner is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and his work also appears in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Affairs.

Gregory A. Smith is a Senior Associate Director of Research at Pew Research Center, where he studies religion’s role in American public life, including religious change in the U.S., the intersection of religion and politics, American Catholicism, religiously unaffiliated Americans, and many other topics. He has led major public opinion studies, including the Center’s three Religious Landscape Studies and its profiles of religiously unaffiliated Americans, also called “the nones.” Greg has authored numerous survey reports examining Christianity’s role in America’s identity, religion’s role in American society, Americans’ belief in God, the attitudes and beliefs of U.S. Catholics and U.S. Protestants, and Americans’ knowledge about religion, among others. His expertise is frequently cited in prominent media outlets such as NPR, CNN, and The New York Times. Greg holds a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia.

Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post and a research professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Seminary. From 2023 to 2024, he was a member of the Post’s Editorial Board. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Hamid is the author of several books, including most recently The Problem of Democracy. His previous book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs. His forthcoming book The Case for American Power will be published in 2025 by Simon & Schuster. In 2019, Hamid was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. He is also the co-founder of Wisdom of Crowds, a podcast, newsletter, and debate platform. Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

Nayyera Haq is a broadcast journalist and host who tells the stories of how democracy works —  and doesn’t work — for all kinds of people. Nayyera has interviewed global leaders and local activists, drawing on years spent in the trenches of the nation’s most competitive campaigns and in the halls of government working to resolve global challenges.  Nayyera is the rare host with a nuanced understanding of both domestic and international current affairs.

Nayyera regularly hosts multiple hours of programming a day on cable television and satellite radio. Nayyera most recently launched and anchored the Black News Channel’s two-hour, nightly newscast, The World Tonight. As the network’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Nayyera’s editorial lens highlighted the people at the heart of policy and communities caught in conflict. Her versatility as a broadcast host also found her filling in for the network’s prime time programs.

Adam Nicholas Phillips is the Chief Executive Officer at Interfaith America. Adam leads the institutional operations and strategy of Interfaith America, which is the nation’s largest bridge-building organization with programming and narrative efforts across campus, corporate, and civic spaces. Having spent two decades at the intersection of faith and public life, Adam previously served as a Biden-Harris Administration official leading Faith-based and Localization efforts at the United States Agency for International Development, where he served in both a development and diplomatic capacity. Working closely with the White House and Department of State, in his role at USAID Adam oversaw development policy, new and non-traditional partnerships, as well as democracy initiatives in nearly 100 countries. An ordained minister, Adam has also led and started new congregations, led faith mobilization efforts at advocacy organizations like ONE and Bread for the World, and worked on various political campaigns. Adam has been a TEDx speaker, and his work has been featured in The Atlantic, CNN, Washington Post, NPR, Huffington Post, Relevant Magazine, and the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club.

Christine Emba writes about ideas for The Washington Post’s Opinions section. She is the author of Rethinking Sex: A Provocation. Before coming to The Post in 2015, Christine was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at the New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. She grew up in Virginia and holds an A.B. in public and international affairs from Princeton University.

Karen Tumulty is an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. In her previous role as a national political correspondent for the newspaper, she received the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine, where she had held the same title. During her more than 15 years at Time, Tumulty wrote or co-wrote more than three dozen cover stories. She also held positions with Time as congressional correspondent and White House correspondent. Before joining Time in 1994, Tumulty spent 14 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered a wide variety of beats. During her time there, she reported on Congress, business, energy and economics from Los Angeles, New York and D.C. Tumulty is a native of San Antonio, where she began her career at the now-defunct San Antonio Light. Tumulty holds a bachelor of journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School.