Dr Martin Accad
Born in Lebanon, Martin Accad lived there through the civil war (1975-1990). He studied theology in Beirut and earned an MPhil and a DPhil at Oxford University (1996-2001). In 2001, he returned to Lebanon, where he currently directs the Institute of Middle East Studies at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. He is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, specialising in Middle-Eastern Christianity and Christian-Muslim relations. His life vision is to bring about positive transformation in thinking and practice between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East and Beyond. Martin has contributed many academic articles and is currently working on a book.
He blogs regularly at: IMESLebanon.wordpress.com
Dr Lina Andronovienė
Originally from Lithuania, Revd Dr Lina Andronovienė is Lecturer in Practical Theology at Scottish Baptist College. She is also the Director of Non-residential Bible School of the Lithuanian Baptist Union and Director of Studies at International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation. Although much of her life and ministry have been among Baptists, she remains involved in wider church life, especially in the area of developing contextual worship resources. A musician and artist as well, as a theologian, she speaks at conferences on various aspects of ethics, spirituality, and theology of culture.
Lucy Berry
Lucy Berry is a poet, a minister and a mum. She writes accessible, edgy, sometimes irritable poems about God, faith and church. One of her main interests is the us-and-them dynamic which exists in all human groupings and which can render churches unchristian. She is fascinated by the fundamentalisms to be found in family, in faith groups, and in both secular and religious institutions. Lucy worked as an advertising writer before training as an art therapist. She has taught creative writing to young women offenders in Holloway prison. She was resident poet for four years on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show before training for ordination with the United Reformed Church.
She jointly owns The Promise Consultancy, advising not-for-profit organisations on the significance of trust and truth issues within internal and external communications. She runs workshops on any aspect of organisational identity, integrity and authenticity – churches included. She belongs in a mixed heritage household; a comfort and a challenge.
Professor Walter Brueggemann
Theologian and author (in an interview specially filmed for Catalyst Live in Cincinnati, Ohio)
Dr Rob Ellis
Rob Ellis has been pastor to two Baptist churches, and taught at Bristol Baptist College before moving to Regent’s Park College in 2001 where he has been Principal since 2007. Since watching Wales lose narrowly to the All Blacks on a small black & white TV in 1963 he has been a keen (indeed, very keen) sports fan: not just rugby, almost anything really.
His teaching and writing has ranged over a number of areas of theological interest including the theology of intercessory prayer (Answering God), pastoral theology and divine suffering (with Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy a particular interest), and theology and film. His most recent major project, however, has been to try and bring his theological thinking to bear on his lifelong passion, sport. The Games People Play: Theology, Religion and Sport was published in the Spring of 2014 and was described as “groundbreaking,” and “a must-read for anyone hoping to understand how sports fits within the Christian tradition.”
Karl Henlin
Rev Karl Henlin has been a minister of the Gospel since 1987 and serves as pastor of the Gregory Park Circuit of Churches in Jamaica. He has served the Jamaica Baptist Union as President and has acted as General Secretary on two occasions. He is an executive member of the Caribbean Baptist Fellowship. He has earned degrees at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and serves the community as Chairman of the Portmore Community College. He is married to Lisa and they have two young adult sons.
Dr Stephen Holmes
Steve Holmes is a Baptist minister, presently employed as Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He has written a number of books, including The Holy Trinity: Understanding God’s Life (2012), Baptist Theology (2012) and The Wondrous Cross (2008). He speaks regularly at a wide variety of Christian events. He lives in Fife with Heather, a clinical biochemist, and their three daughters.
Sir John Houghton
Sir John Houghton CBE, FRS has held posts of Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Oxford, where he was involved in novel instrumentation for observing the Earth’s atmosphere from space, Chief Executive of the Meteorological Office and Chairman of the Scientific Assessment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is currently President of the John Ray Initiative and Honorary Chief Scientific Advisor to the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (C3W) . His many awards include the Japan Prize (2006), gold medals from the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Meteorological Society and honorary doctorates from 13 universities including Oxford, Wales and Dalhousie, Canada. His books include The Physics of Atmospheres (3rd edition 2002) Global Warming: the Complete Briefing (4th edition 2009), The search for God: can science help, and In the eye of the storm (autobiography) published in 2013.
Glen Marshall
After twenty years of pastoring churches (Altrincham, Barnsley and Wakefield) Glen became a tutor at Northern Baptist Learning Community in 2004 and Co-principal in 2013. He teaches mission and preaching.He was involved in Fresh Streams for twenty years, serving as co-chair. He currently chairs Urban Expression North West and serves on the BMS Council.
Glen spends his spare time enjoying and trying to understand jazz, learning to play the sax, and avoiding DIY He can’t decide if he prefers The West Wing or The Wire. He is however convinced that Ardbeg is the finest of all scotch whiskies.
Tom Price
Tom Price is a tutor at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, and an Associate Tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He holds degrees in Christian Apologetics (MA) and Philosophy (BA).
Tom is also a speaker for RZIM Europe and The Damaris Trust, and was previously the Founding Editor of UCCF’s website bethinking.org. Tom’s specific interests include: meta-ethics, analytic and continental arguments for God, faith and reason, suffering, cultural apologetics and C S Lewis. He is passionate about mission that engages with where people really are. Tom is married to Caroline, has two young children, and they live in Oxford.
Father Richard Rohr
Theologian and author (in an interview specially filmed for Catalyst Live in Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dr John Upton
John Upton is executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board (VBMB) in the United States. He was elected president of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) during the 20th Baptist World Congress held in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2010.
Upton has had a long association with the BWA. He is a former member of the BWA General Council and the Executive Committee, and served on the Baptist World Aid Committee, the Commission on Christian Ethics, and the Executive Committee of the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of six regional fellowships of the BWA. From 2005-2010, he was chair of the Congress Program Committee.
Prior to being elected executive director of the BGAV and the VBMB in 2001, Upton served as group leader of the Mission Mobilization Group of the BGAV, beginning in 1995. Earlier, he was pastor of Urbanna Baptist Church in Urbanna, Virginia, from 1984-1986 and 1991-1995. Between 1986 and 1991 he and his wife, Deborah, served as missionaries in Taiwan through the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Upton attended the Baptist-affiliated Averett College (now Averett University) in Danville, Virginia; the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in the USA; and the Taiwan Language Institute. He received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Kerrala, India.
Professor Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He has written or edited over 15 books and 70 scholarly articles on a range of subjects including the possibility of doing one’s work “in the Spirit” to the relevance of theology in the life of the everyday churchgoer and the possibility of actually loving your enemies.
His most significant books include Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation (1996; winner of Grawemeyer Award in Religion, and one of Christianity Today’s 100 most important religious books of the 20th century); Allah: A Christian Response (2011); and A Public Faith: On How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (2011).
Dr Tanya Walker
Tanya Walker is an apologist for RZIM Europe and a guest lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA). Her undergraduate degree was in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Christ Church, Oxford University, and she holds an MA in Islamic Studies and a PhD which considers the implications of Islamic law in the West (both from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London). Tanya co-leads the Evangelists Network for the European Leadership Forum, and the RZIM Europe training weekends. She has been invited to address a range of groups and contexts, including the Parliamentary Forum on Religious Freedom in Ottowa and the Global Church Forum arising from the Lausanne Congress, as well as university missions and church groups. Tanya is married to Toby and they are based in Oxford.
