President’s Speaker Series

Kieran Dodds is a Scottish photographer known for his research-driven photo stories and portraiture. His personal work looks at the interplay of environment and culture, and the importance of spiritual belief in global conservation.

In 2022 philanthropists Roberta and Harold Ahmanson led a group of pilgrims on a tour of churches and sacred spaces that communicate the glory of the New Jerusalem through their art and architecture. Dodds, who accompanied the pilgrims, brings the splendor of these New Jerusalem spaces to Lindgren Gallery on the George Fox University campus in an exhibit he calls "Heading Home: Glimpses of New Jerusalem.” 

The exhibit will be on display in the Lindgren Gallery from Oct. 28 to Dec. 6. A gallery reception will take place on Monday, Dec. 2 from 4-5:30 p.m. Dodds will then speak to students in a chapel service scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 5 at 10:50 a.m.

Dr. Julia Wattacheril is a physician, scientist, and inventor and she uses human-centered approaches to research the integration of various disciplines into clinical care. Specifically, she is leading ground-breaking studies on healthcare that combine clinical expertise, ethical capacities, and data science among others. She is also the director of the Metabolic Dysfunction Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Wattacheril has an MD and residency from Baylor University with a Vanderbilt University fellowship, numerous publications, and honors.

Dr. Wattacheril's clinical specialties include all aspects of transplant hepatology, general hepatology and gastroenterology with emphasis on metabolic liver disease and obesity. She specializes in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease as well as all forms of hepatitis, chronic liver disease, and liver cancer in addition to liver transplantation. Her research interests include hepatic steatosis, insulin resistance, gut hormones and metabolic liver disease in adults. Her current research concentrates on the relationship between proteins and lipids that differentiate steatosis from steatohepatitis using an integrated omics approach.

Dr. Wattacheril completed the Gotham Fellowship at the Center for Faith and Work and continues to develop innovative ways to implement spiritual tools to help healthcare providers and the patients they serve. She has a particular heart for connecting with people at the fringes of any sphere but particularly in academic medicine.

Who was George Fox? Was he the founder, or a founder, of the Religious Society of Friends? How has this English dissenter been viewed both in his own time and over the course of Quaker history, and what role did Fox himself play in crafting the public image of Quakerism? This lecture explores Fox’s legacy and points to the ways that interpretations of the past change over time and shape the way we engage with and understand heroic figures.   

Dr. Robynne Rogers Healey is chair and professor of history and the co-director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia where she teaches in both the undergraduate program and the Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Humanities program. She is associate editor of the series Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies and in that series co-wrote with C. Wess Daniels and Jon Kershner Quaker Studies: An Overview—The Current State of the Field.

Dr. Healey convened the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists and served as publications chair for the Canadian Friends Historical Association for ten years. Her publications include From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850, two edited collections with Penn State University Press—Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830 and Quaker Women, 1900–1920, and many articles and chapters in the field of Quaker history.

In 2020, Sabrina Little completed her PhD in Philosophy at Baylor University. Before Baylor, she studied Philosophy of Religion at Yale Divinity School and Philosophy and Psychology at The College of William & Mary. Her main areas of interest are virtue ethics, moral psychology, and classical philosophy. She is writing about the nature of moral habituation and exploring emotional precursors to moral virtues. She also writes about character education and moral exemplarity. Her first book, The Examined Run was released in March 2024.

Little also runs at an elite level and has been selected to represent the United States on five national teams. She lives in Newport News, Virginia and is an assistant professor in the department of Leadership and American Studies at Christopher Newport University.

Her lecture will focus on the details of developing virtues, particularly those defined by a balance, with courage as the primary example.

Elio Constantine is Lebanese, born and raised in Beirut, with an MBA in Finance and an MS in Non-Profit Management. In 2020 Elio joined Heart for Lebanon, a non-denominational Christian organization creating faith-defining environments that give under-resourced families and children in Lebanon the chance to encounter God and grow spiritually. He led the "Restore Beirut" response team, coordinating efforts to rebuild the city, and restore its people’s hope in Christ. Elio also built and managed Heart for Lebanon's Monitoring and Evaluation department.

Currently, Constantine oversees Heart for Lebanon's Middle East Center for Justice and Missions. The Center exists to promote and advance a Christ-centered, Bible-based understanding of the work of missions that address the injustices of this world by pointing people to the just Lord we serve. The Center serves as Heart for Lebanon’s advocacy arm, primarily for Churches, faith-based organizations, and educational institutions. It advocates for justice through unconditional holistic ministry that points people to the Just Lord we serve. The center also provides hands-on experience and training for interns, impact teams, and missional leaders.

Constantine will address the root cause for the injustices happening in Lebanon and the region, how we are called to live in justice, and how the Biblical approach to justice is global and can be applied anywhere in the world.

Dr. MaryKate Morse is the 2024 recipient of the Richard J. Foster Award in Spiritual Formation. The Award recognizes those whose intellectual and practical work helps others come into an ongoing transformational relationship with Jesus Christ. Having served George Fox and Portland Seminary for more than 30 years, Dr. Morse's practice, publications and presence made her an exceptional choice for this year's award.

Dr. Morse is a professor of leadership and spiritual formation in the Leadership and Spiritual Formation DMin track. In her role as lead mentor, she sets the overall ethos of the program and coaches other program instructors. Together, they design the course content for each semester, lead the four academic retreats, and facilitate the online learning experiences.

Dr. Morse began her ministry living in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia and Peru doing evangelism, theological education by extension, and social projects with the Aymará Indians. Upon her return, she studied at Western Evangelical Seminary, where she received a master's degree in biblical studies and then a master's degree in divinity.

The seminary hired her to teach biblical languages and commissioned her to research spiritual formation for seminary students. She was certified as a spiritual director, and was recorded as a pastor with the Evangelical Friends.

She then completed her doctorate at Gonzaga University in organizational leadership, where she studied the characteristics of renewal leadership as modeled by Jesus. She planted two churches: The first was a contemporary church model led by herself and two other pastors; the second was an emerging church model, where she led a diverse leadership team.

Thomas Paulson is a 1973 graduate of Kansas State University in civil engineering. He retired in 2008 as vice president, Canadian capital projects, ConocoPhillips, where he had executive responsibility for planning and execution phases for major projects in Canada covering arctic gas developments, pipelines and oil sands developments.

In his 33-year career with ConocoPhillips, he worked in refining, chemicals, and exploration and production at multiple U.S. and international locations in project management. His accomplishments included management team member on the Ekofisk deck elevation project in Norway, project manager of the Houston chemical complex rebuild in Houston, project manager of the Judy/Joanne development in the United Kingdom, manager of chemical projects in the U.S. and internationally, project manager of the Qatar chemical complex in Qatar, manager of infrastructure engineering and project management in the newly merged ConocoPhillips organization in Houston, and project manager for the QatarGas 3 LNG project through sanction in Qatar.

Paulson currently serves on the Kansas State University College of Engineering Dean's Advisory Council and the industrial advisory board for George Fox University. He is a registered professional engineer in Oklahoma and he has been involved in Engineers Without Borders since retirement.

Dr. Daniel Bennett is a George Fox University alumnus and associate professor of political science at John Brown University, where he has taught since 2016. He will address how Christians can help respond to the problem of political polarization.

He is the author of Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics, and Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement. His research focuses on the politicization of religious freedom, group attitudes and constitutional rights, legal advocacy in the United States, federal judicial selection, and more.

Dr. Bennett has written popular articles for Christianity Today, Religion and Politics, and The Dispatch, among others. He has appeared in national and local media, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, National Public Radio, and KNWA. He is the director for the Center for Faith and Flourishing, and has served in advisory roles with the American Values Coalition and Neighborly Faith. In 2023 he was named as a Public Life Fellow with the Center for Christianity and Public Life.

Michael Wear is the Founder, President and CEO of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution based in the nation's capital with the mission to contend for the credibility of Christian resources in public life, for the public good. For well over a decade, he has served as a trusted resource and advisor for a range of civic leaders on matters of faith and public life, including as a White House and presidential campaign staffer. Michael is a leading voice on building healthy civic pluralism in twenty-first-century America. He has argued that the spiritual health and civic character of individuals are deeply tied to the state of our politics and public affairs. 

Michael previously led Public Square Strategies, a consulting firm he founded that helps religious organizations, political organizations, businesses and others effectively navigate the rapidly changing American religious and political landscape.

Michael is the author of The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life, a paradigm-shifting book that advances a vision for spiritual formation in the context of political life. Michael’s first book, Reclaiming Hope: Lessons Learned in the Obama White House About the Future of Faith in America, offers reflections, analysis and ideas about the role of faith in the Obama years and what it means for today. He also writes for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Catapult Magazine, Christianity Today and other publications on faith, politics and culture.

What does it mean to be human? This lecture explored this question from both scientific and Biblical perspectives, with an emphasis on awe. The lecture identified shared values in both the scientific and spiritual approaches to exploring human distinctiveness. Dr. Praveen Sethupathy included concepts from science/genomics that invited the audience to marvel at who we are and how it relates to our calling as image bearers of God.

Dr. Sethupathy is professor of physiological genomics in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics at Cornell University, where he leads a research lab focused on genomic approaches to understand physiology and human disease.

He received his BA degree from Cornell University and his PhD in genomics from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute under the mentorship of NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, he moved in 2011 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics. The same year, he was selected by Genome Technology as one of the nation’s top-25 rising young investigators in genomics. In 2017, he returned to Cornell University as an associate professor.

Dr. Sethupathy has authored over 115 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals such as PNAS, Cell and Science and has served as a reviewer for over 45 different journals. Recent honors include a faculty merit award for outstanding teaching and mentoring and the prestigious American Diabetes Association Pathway To Stop Diabetes Research Accelerator, which is awarded to only three people per year.

Dr. Brian L. Johnson is the first minority president in Warner Pacific University’s 83-year history. Johnson is an accomplished professor, scholar, speaker and administrator. He has published seven academic and scholarly books, including two books on William Edward Burghardt Du Bois.

Dr. Johnson received his PhD in English from the University of South Carolina, specializing in 17th to 19th century American literature, and his MA in English from The University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Before taking the helm at Warner Pacific, he was the vice president/senior campus administrator at Mercy College in Manhattan, New York. From 2014 to 2017, he served as the president and CEO at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. He also served as interim vice president for strategic planning and institutional effectiveness and assistant provost/assistant vice president for academics at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Dr. Johnson is a sought-after speaker, accomplished professor, scholar and academic administrator. He has also received a number of fellowships, including a 2004-05 non-resident fellowship within the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Drew Van der Werff started his career at Deloitte, helping advise and develop statistical models for the Department of Defense and the largest financial institutions in the world. Drew then joined Goldman Sachs and was the second hire on the Goldman Sachs Digital Assets team. He was critical to their current-day strategy and helped scale the team from two to where it is today, including contributing heavily to their tokenization efforts, DeFi / on-chain strategy, cryptocurrency offerings, and regulatory engagement. Most recently, Drew helps lead Brevan Howard Digital investing efforts around technical infrastructure supporting blockchain networks and applications. 

Drew graduated from George Fox University in 2013 as a business administration major, has published research in multiple peer-reviewed journals, passed the CFP exams, became a CFA charter holder and sits on the Advisory Board for George Fox's Financial Planning Program.

Jonathan Kuttab is executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) and cofounder of Sabeel Jerusalem. He has also helped found the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, Nonviolence International, and Just Peace Advocates Mouvement pour une Paix Juste, a Canadian-based international law human rights nonprofit. A well-known international human rights attorney, Kuttab practices in the U.S., Palestine, and Israel. He serves on the board of Bethlehem Bible College and is president of the Board of Holy Land Trust. 

Kuttab was the head of the legal committee negotiating the Cairo Agreement of 1994 between Israel and the PLO and has authored Beyond the Two-State Solution, suggesting that any solution be predicated on the basic existential needs of the two parties.

As a Christian Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, Kuttab brings personal perspectives in addition to professional insights from decades of experience as a human rights attorney. A question and answer session will follow the lecture. 

Kaitlyn Schiess is a writer, author, and a doctoral student at Duke Divinity School studying political theology, ethics, and biblical interpretation. She graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2021 with a ThM in systematic theology.

She is the author of The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor. Her latest book, The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here, was released in August 2023.

Schiess has written about theology, politics, and culture for Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, CT Women, RELEVANT, Sojourners, Fathom, and the Christian Research Journal. 

Eric Lautenbach is a 1988 graduate of George Fox University. He retired as Senior Director-Basketball Sports Marketing at Nike in 2022. As a negotiator of multi -sport, multi-million-dollar equipment and licensing deals for Nike, Lautenbach became one of George Fox's most influential persons in the business world. By maintaining good relationships with the "already famous" and the "up-and-coming" in the world of basketball, he ensured that the best teams in college basketball were wearing the Nike "swoosh". 

During his time at George Fox, Lautenbach was a four-year basketball letterman from 1984-88. He was named a team captain and "Most Inspirational" his senior year after a serious knee injury during his junior season deprived him of a chance to play professionally overseas. 

George Fox University will host a distinguished American Civil War lecturer from the Organization of American Historians. Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is a New York Times best-selling author and commentator on public issues. He is one of Power Line’s 100 “Top Professors” in America. Dr. Guelzo serves as senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities and director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.

An eloquent and riveting speaker, he electrifies audiences with his gift for narrative and historical storytelling, and drawing illuminating connections between past events and modern times. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, National Affairs, First Things, U.S. News & World Report, The Weekly Standard, Washington Monthly, National Review, and The Daily Beast, and has been featured on NPR, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Meet the Press and Brian Lamb’s “Booknotes.”

Delighting her listeners with "her warm, humane musicianship" and "sweet spot of grace," Anna Lee is an active concert violinist, chamber musician, and teacher. She began violin studies at the age of 4 with Alexander Souptel and debuted as a soloist performing the Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 a year and a half later with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Lan Shui.

She spent a large part of her childhood in Japan and Singapore even though she was born in South Korea, and at the age of 6 moved to New York after being accepted to the Juilliard School Pre-College Division under the tutelage of Masao Kawasaki.

Anna Lee has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts, awarded by Office for the Arts at Harvard, the Bernhard and Mania Hahnloser Violin Prize at the Verbier Festival Academy, and the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award.

Anna Lee’s teachers were Masao Kawasaki and Cho-Liang Lin at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy, Ani Kavafian at the Yale School of Music, and Miriam Fried and Don Weilerstein in Boston, where she completed her Comparative Literature degree at Harvard College. Currently, she is an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. She has also taught as a chamber music teacher, most notably at the Kronberg Academy's Mit Musik—Miteinander festival in Germany, Classical Music Institute San Antonio in Texas, and Festival MusicAlp in France.

Dr. Stu Halpern is Senior Advisor to the Provost of Yeshiva University, and is responsible for developing and executing interdisciplinary thought-projects and educational and communal initiatives. During his 12 years at Yeshiva University, Dr. Halpern has served in various capacities, including Chief of Staff to the President, Assistant Director of The Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, and as an Instructor in Bible.

Dr. Halpern received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Psychology in Education from Teachers College at Columbia University, an MA in Bible from Revel, an MBA in Nonprofit Management from Touro University, an EdD from the Azrieli Graduate School of Education and Administration, and rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Chaim Brovender. He has edited or co-edited 17 books, including most recently, Esther in America, Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States, and Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth. He has taught at Yeshiva University, synagogues, Hillels, and adult educational settings across the US, Europe, and Israel, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Tablet magazine, and the Jewish Review of Books.

George Fox's C.S. Lewis Initiative and Honors Program are hosting Dr. Marc LiVecche on campus. He is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at The Institute on Religion & Democracy. He serves as managing editor for the institute’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics. 

Dr. LiVecche received his doctorate from the University of Chicago and his post-doctorate from Oxford University. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. 

Dr. LiVecche lives in Annapolis, Maryland, but spent 12 years doing a variety of things in Central Europe. He helped build sports and recreational leagues in post-communist communities. He worked at a Christian study and research center. He also led seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

Rev. Dr. Brent Strawn’s research focuses on ancient Near Eastern iconography, Israelite religion, biblical law, the Psalms, poetry, and Old Testament theology. He joined the Duke Divinity School faculty in 2019 and has a secondary appointment at the Duke University School of Law. Dr. Strawn is also a member of the Hebrew Bible track in the Ph.D. program in Religion, where he teaches and advises doctoral students in Duke’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Strawn previously taught at Asbury Theological Seminary for three years and at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University for 18 years. 

Dr. Strawn has published more than 250 articles, chapters in books, contributions to reference works, and reviews. He is the author of What Is Stronger than a Lion? Leonine Image and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, The Old Testament Is Dying: A Diagnosis and Recommended Treatment, The Old Testament: A Concise Introduction, Lies My Preacher Told Me: An Honest Look at the Old Testament, and Honest to God Preaching: Talking Sin, Suffering, and Violence. Dr. Strawn has also edited or coedited more than 25 volumes, including The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Law.

Dr. Strawn is an ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church and regularly speaks and preaches at churches across the country. He has also appeared on CNN on matters ranging from Easter celebrations to Pope Francis to gun violence, and has served as both translator and member of the editorial board for The Common English Bible.

Rev. Efrem Smith is the keynote speaker for the 2023 Rodney Sisco Symposium. The symposium will explore biblical theology, ministry praxis, and spiritual rhythms for engaging our world as influencers for God's kingdom.

Smith is passionate about life transformation, racial righteousness, thriving churches and community development. He is currently the co-lead pastor of Midtown Church, a thriving and multi-ethnic community in Sacramento.

Smith was the founding pastor of the Sanctuary Covenant Church, a multi-ethnic church in Minneapolis, and co-founded the Sanctuary Community Development Corporation. He formerly served as the superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, providing leadership to 160 churches within California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and Utah. In addition, he served as the president and CEO of World Impact, an urban missions organization committed to empowering urban leaders and planting churches in under-resourced communities.

Todd Deatherage spent 16 years in senior positions in the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government before co-founding the Telos Group. From 2005 to 2009, he was Chief of Staff in the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. He also spent two years as Senior Advisor in the Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, where he specialized in religious freedom in the Middle East. Deatherage worked for a decade in the U.S. Congress, including six years as Chief of Staff to Senator Tim Hutchinson. 

In 2009, Deatherage co-founded an educational non-profit called the Telos Group. He and his colleagues lead a steady stream of high-touch, multi-narrative educational pilgrimages to Israel and organize numerous speaking tours for Israeli, Palestinian and international leaders. The Telos Group has become a leading organization of America’s emerging pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-American, pro-peace movement. Deatherage saw a unique opportunity to make a global impact for peace by educating, inspiring, and equipping key American communities to actively pursue the common good for everyone in the Holy Land. 

Deatherage is a native of Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Arkansas. He began his career as an educator. He and his family currently live in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Astronomer and expert on modern science and the Christian faith, Dr. Deborah Haarsma, will give two talks at George Fox University as part of the Dalton Lecture series. Dr. Haarsma is president of BioLogos based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. BioLogos is a Christian advocacy group that supports the view that God created the world using evolution of different species as the mechanism.

Dr. Haarsma is a graduate of MIT and Bethel College. She previously served as professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin University. Both she and her husband were faculty at Calvin College and have co-authored several texts. Her work appears in several recent books, including Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Design and Christ and the Created Order.  She wrote the book Origins with her husband and fellow physicist, Loren Haarsma, presenting the agreements and disagreements among Christians regarding the history of life and the universe. 

Dr. Haarsma’s afternoon lecture will focus on life beyond earth and the place of humans in the cosmos. In her evening lecture, Dr. Haarsma will discuss trends in our culture on science and faith, ways to distinguish reliable scientific findings from speculation, and research-based practical tips for better conversations with friends and family.

A proven senior level executive leader with more than 20 years of financial services experience will share her thoughts on how success is built. Sabrina Bailey, global head of Investment & Wealth Solutions for London Stock Exchange Group, is scheduled to speak at George Fox University as part of the Reiten Lecture series. Unlike many presentations you may have heard on management style, career ladders, goal setting, key performance indicators, and the like, Bailey will reveal the underrepresented fundamental factors that secure an unshakeable foundation for vocational success. 

Bailey holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from George Fox University. In 2020, she was named “Top Women in Asset Management'' by Money Management Executive. In 2017, she was named “Distinguished Woman Investment Professional of the Year” by Women Investment Professionals. And in 2016, Bailey was named a “40 under 40” by Crain’s Chicago business, being selected for the business leadership honor from more than a thousand nominees. 

In May 2021, Bailey took on her current role at London Stock Exchange Group. She spearheads the development and delivery of strategic vision and direction for the company’s Global Investment & Wealth Solutions business. This includes embracing and leveraging technological advances to deliver innovative, customer-centric offerings. 

Bailey will give an hour lecture with refreshments and a social hour to follow.

Shaun Horne leads the justice and care ministry at New City Church. He's passionate about restorative justice, as well as local and global missions. He has his undergraduate degree in biblical studies and preaching, and his master's degree in strategic ministry. He will visit the Newberg campus to speak at two university chapels.

Horne's church, New City, is in the heart of Phoenix, Arizona. Through the Justice & Care ministry, he works to bring the hope of Jesus beyond the walls of the church to the surrounding community. Every person has infinite value, and deserves to be treated with dignity, respect, and love. New City Church provides opportunities for the congregation to carry out the gospel message through community practices that help the city flourish by restoring hope, loving thy neighbor, and bringing the good news to a world that needs it.

Horne seeks out conversations surrounding race and equity in order to fulfill the Biblical vision of unity and reconciliation. His vision focuses on abiding in God, and caring for those within the community.

Kobe Campbell is a passionate preacher and speaker who has served countless churches and organizations. She will visit the Newberg campus from Charlotte, North Carolina to speak on mental health at chapel. 

Campbell was named one of Charlotte’s Most Influential Women by Charlotte Lately magazine. She was also awarded as a Rising Star Under 30 by WILMA magazine. She received her bachelor degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her master’s degree in Christian counseling from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Campbell is currently preparing to release her first book titled Why Am I Like This?: How to Break Cycles, Heal From Trauma, and Restore Your Faith.

With a kind, compassionate, and energetic spirit, Campbell helps people find the truest versions of themselves. She is the owner of The Healing Circle Therapy & Wellness Center in Charlotte North Carolina. She is passionate about helping people heal from the trauma as they discover who they are apart from what they’ve been through.

Renowned Christian author and teacher Richard J. Foster is set to present an award in his name to pastor and fellow author Trevor Hudson at a special gathering on campus.

A selection committee selected Hudson as the first recipient of the Richard J. Foster Award in Spiritual Formation. George Fox will welcome Foster, a 1964 alumnus of the institution, to its Newberg campus to present the inaugural award to Hudson. The presentation will be followed by Hudson’s keynote speech and a reception. The public is encouraged to attend the event in the university's Canyon Commons dining hall.

The Portland Seminary, School of Theology, and Spiritual Life Office helped make this honor possible. The award recognizes those whose intellectual and practical work helps others come into an ongoing transformational relationship with Jesus Christ. 

Award recipient Hudson is the author of more than 20 books, the most recent of which, Seeking God: Finding Another Kind of Life with St Ignatius and Dallas Willard, was released in September. He is also an ordained minister in the Methodist Church of South Africa. After spending more than 40 years in pastoral ministry, Hudson now gives his time to lecturing, teaching and writing in the areas of spiritual formation and spiritual direction. He lectures at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, and works closely with the Renovaré Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation, a Christian organization Foster founded that is dedicated to helping people become more like Jesus. 

Foster is an expert on spiritual formation – the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ for the glory of God and for the sake of others. He earned his undergraduate degree from George Fox and his doctor of pastoral theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He is best known for his 1978 book, Celebration of Discipline, which examines spiritual disciplines such as meditation, prayer, fasting, study, solitude, confession and worship. It was named by Christianity Today as one of the top 10 books of the 20th century. 

Scott Finnie, PhD, has been a faculty member in Eastern Washington University’s Africana Education Program and history department since 1992 and currently serves as director of Africana studies and as director of race and cultural studies. He has made more than 40 presentations worldwide in the last 10 years, including visits to Oxford in England, Mexico City, Atlanta, San Francisco, San Diego, Sao Paulo, and Honolulu. His presentations have covered themes surrounding civil rights, affirmative action, servant leadership, diversity and cross-cultural communication, the American criminal justice system, and faculty hiring in higher education.

In addition, he has published a dozen articles in numerous publications, including The National Social Science Journal, Investigating Diversity: Race, Ethnicity and Beyond, The Oxford Round Table Journal, The Council on Undergraduate Research Quarterly, and The International Journal of Servant Leadership.

View the event recording

People today are not asking, "Is Christianity true?" They're asking, "Why are Christians such bigots?" Nancy Pearcey, professor of apologetics at Houston Baptist University, takes on the headline issues of our day: abortion, assisted suicide, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the hook-up culture. She shows that we will be much more effective if we dig down to the worldview level. The secular ethic rests on a radically dehumanizing worldview that denigrates the body and demeans the person. By contrast, Pearcey shows how to craft the biblical ethic in a way that is more positive and more appealing than the secular ethic.

Pearcey is the author of Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality. Her earlier books include The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo, Finding Truth, and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners: How Now Shall We Live (coauthored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) and Total Truth. Her books have been translated into eight languages.

She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. A former agnostic, Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth. She was highlighted as one of the five top women apologists by Christianity Today and was hailed in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."

Dr. Paul D. Miller is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He serves as co-chair of the Global Politics and Security concentration in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program.

He is a research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, a visiting professor with the American Enterprise Institute’s Initiative on Faith and Public Life, and a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Dr. Miller spent a decade in public service as Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the National Security Council staff, an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, and a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.

Dr. Miller writes widely on international affairs, political theory, religion and public life, and film and culture. His most recent book, Just War and Ordered Liberty, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. His next book, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong With Christian Nationalism, is forthcoming from InterVarsity Academic Press in 2022.

Joseph Pearce is Senior Editor at the Augustine Institute, 

Giboney has served as a delegate for the Democratic National Convention and as the co-chair of Obama for America's Gen44-Atlanta initiative. Together with Michael Wear and Chris Butler, Giboney published Compassion (&) Conviction: The AND Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement .

Giboney addresses the George Fox community about being a faithful Christian witness and all that entails. Watch video

George Fox University provost Andrea Scott dives into an interview with Antipas Harris, author of Is Christianity the White Man's Religion?: How the Bible Is Good News for People of Color. Follow along as they tackle the book's themes and discuss its takeaways.

This fall, every employee is reading the book and engaged in discussions around it as part of George Fox's commitment to initiatives and programs surrounding diversity and change in our university. Watch video

Sunggu Yang joined George Fox’s College of Christian Studies in 2017 as an assistant professor of Christian ministries. Before his arrival, Yang served as the Louisville Institute’s Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, where he taught courses ranging from homiletics and worship to prophetic ministry. One of his innovative courses was “Film & Preaching: The Gospel According to Hollywood.”

Yang is the author of two books, King’s Speech: Preaching Reconciliation in a World of Violence and Chasm (2019) and Evangelical Pilgrims from the East: Faith Fundamentals of Korean American Protestant Diasporas (2016), and two books that are in progress, Picasso and Preaching: An Aesthetic Homiletic for the 21st Century and Sacred Waters: Pastoral Essays for Aspiring Preachers.

Ordained by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Yang has preached at various venues around the nation. He holds a PhD in religion from Vanderbilt University (2015), a master’s degree in liturgical studies from Yale Divinity School (2010), an MDiv from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University (2009), and a bachelor’s degree in theology from the College of Theology at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. He lives in Sherwood with his wife, Rebecca Jeong, and their daughter, Stella.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, spoke on balancing work, family and faith. VMware is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology, and a recent article on VMware in Forbes described the company this way: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that VMware stands at the center of the IT universe. The company’s software touches nearly every element of modern IT architecture.” VMware employs more than 24,000 employees and revenue for fiscal 2018 was nearly $9 billion.

Gelsinger brings almost 40 years of technology and leadership experience. Since coming to VMware in 2012, he has doubled the size of VMware, which software powers the world’s complex digital infrastructure. The company’s compute, cloud, mobility, networking, and security offerings provide a dynamic and efficient digital foundation to over 500,000 customers globally, aided by an ecosystem of 75,000 partners. Based on his efforts, Fortune Magazine named Gelsinger one of its top “Businesspersons of the Year” in 2018.

Prior to joining VMware, Gelsinger was president and chief operating officer of EMC’s Infrastructure and Products Group. There, he was responsible for all of EMC’s products – including storage, data analytics, security, management and data protection products, analytics, and the large majority of EMC’s revenue.