Faith Angle Miami 2022 Forum

David Gergen is a professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, positions he has held for over a decade. In addition, he serves as a senior political analyst for CNN and works actively with a rising generation of new leaders. In the past, he has served as a White House adviser to four U.S. presidents of both parties: Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He wrote about those experiences in his New York Times best-seller, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton (Simon & Schuster, 2001). His forthcoming book, Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made (Simon & Schuster, 2022) is a powerful guide to the art of leadership.

A native of North Carolina, Professor Gergen is a member of the D.C. Bar, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the U.S. executive committee for the Trilateral Commission. He is an honors graduate of Yale and the Harvard Law School. He has been awarded 27 honorary degrees. Professor Gergen has been married since 1967 to Anne Elizabeth Gergen of England, a family therapist. They have two children and five grandchildren.

Jonathan Lee Walton was named Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Presidential Chair in Religion and Society, and Dean of Wait Chapel in 2019.  Prior to joining Wake Forest University, he was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church of Harvard University.

Dean Walton is a social ethicist whose scholarship focuses on evangelical Christianity and its relationship to mass media and political culture. His first book, Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism (NYU Press, 2009), examines the theological and political traditions of African American religious broadcasters. His latest book, A Lens of Love: Reading the Bible in Its World for Our World (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), explores the Bible from the perspective of the most vulnerable and violated characters toward developing a Christian social ethic of radical inclusion and human affirmation.

Dean Walton is an outspoken advocate for social justice and civil rights. His work and insights have been featured in several national and international news outlets, including the New York Times, CNN, Time Magazine, and the BBC.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent book is Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

Walter Kim brings a unique combination of skills to lead the National Association of Evangelicals into the next decade as president. After ministering for 15 years at Boston’s historic Park Street Church, a congregation that played a key role in the NAE’s founding, he served as the pastor for leadership and currently serves as teacher-in-residence at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. He also serves on the boards of Christianity Today and World Relief, and on the advisory council of Gordon College.

He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, his M.Div. from Regent College in Vancouver, and his B.A. from Northwestern University in philosophy and history. He has taught classes at Boston College and at Harvard University, and contributed to the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Archaeological Study Bible, and The Soul of Medicine. He is a licensed minister in the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. Walter is married to Toni Kim, and they have two teenagers.

Alan Cooperman is director of religion research at Pew Research Center. He is an expert on religion’s role in U.S. politics and has reported on religion in Russia, the Middle East and Europe. He plays a central role in planning the project’s research agenda and writing its reports. Before joining Pew Research Center, he was a national reporter and editor at The Washington Post and a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1982 and started in journalism at the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass.

Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser in the administration of President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House. Mr. Abrams was educated at Harvard College, the London School of Economics, and Harvard Law School. After serving on the staffs of Sen. Henry M. Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan, he was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration and received the secretary of state’s Distinguished Service Award from Secretary George P. Shultz. In 2012, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy gave him its Scholar-Statesman Award. He is the author of four books, Undue Process (1993), Security and Sacrifice (1995), Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America (1997), and Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (2013); and the editor of three more, Close Calls: Intervention, Terrorism, Missile Defense and “Just War” Today; Honor Among Nations: Intangible Interests and Foreign Policy; and The Influence of Faith: Religion and American Foreign Policy.