The Beatitudes Society Advisory Board

Diana Butler Bass

Author

Diana Butler Bass is an expert in American religion who works as an author, speaker, and independent scholar. She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of six books on American religious practice including Christianity for the Rest of Us, 2006. The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church, 2004, has been lauded as one of the most important books on mainline Protestantism in the last two decades.

Diana has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. From 1995-2000 she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations.

David Batstone

Professor of Ethics, University of San Francisco
President, Not For Sale Campaign

Dave is Professor of Ethics in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco. He received his B.A. from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, his M.Div from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and his PhD from the Graduate Theological Union. Following graduation, he taught at the GTU before taking up a faculty post at USF in1994. He is the author of Not For Sale.

Del Brown

Dean Emeritus, Pacific School of Religion

Writer

In the 1970’s Del was founding chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He then moved to Iliff School of Theology where he was the first occupant of the Harvey H. Pottoff chair in Christian theology and twice vice president and academic dean. Upon his retirement from Iliff, Del was invited to be dean of the faculty and professor of theology at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. When he retired (again) in 2005, he was named PSR’s first dean emeritus.

Shaken by the absence of an effective progressive Christian voice during the 2004 election campaign, Brown changed the direction of his vocation to begin writing and speaking to lay audiences, Christian and secular. He recently wrote an online “blogbook” entitled Progressive Christian Beliefs: An Introduction for Liberals who are Searching, Conservatives who are Open, and Others who are Curious. In February 2008, a slight revision of this blogbook—with the title, What Does a Progressive Christian Believe?—was published by Seabury Books.

Jennifer Butler

Executive Director, Faith in Public Life

An ordained Presbyterian minister, Butler most recently served as the Presbyterian Church (USA) Representative to the United Nations (UN). During her nine years at the UN, Butler represented the denomination on a range of issues, including women’s rights, genocide in the Sudan, and the war in Iraq. As a member of the UN Executive Council of the Committee of Religious Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), Butler was a leading spokesperson and published author on the issues of religion and human rights. Her book on the Christian Right and international policy was published by the Pluto/University of Michigan Press in October 2006.

Butler served in the Peace Corps from 1989 to 1991 in a Mayan village in Belize, Central America. A graduate of Princeton Seminary, she holds a Master of Social Work from Rutgers University and Bachelor of Arts from the College of William and Mary. She grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and is married to Glenn Zuber; they have one son, Eli. Butler attends church at Journey’s Crossing in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Alexander Carpenter

Student, Graduate Theological Union

In 2006, Alexander was a Beatitudes Society Fellow with the Center for American Progress' Faith in Public Life initiative. Currently, he is the Online Communication Manager for the San Francisco-based Interfaith Power and Light environmental campaign. In addition, Alexander runs media projects for Spectrum magazine and edits four blogs. A graduate of Andrews University - English Literature and Religion - he's spent a year in Bangladesh assisting with micro-credit projects with Muslim and Hindu women and another year in India working in Bollywood. He lives in Berkeley, CA, while completing a masters degree in media, politics and religion at the Graduate Theological Union.

Patricia deJong

Pastor, First Congregational Church of Berkeley, CA

Van Jones, Esq.

Founder and President, Green For All

Co-founder and Board Member, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Oakland, CA

Van is the founding director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Founded in 1996 and named for an unsung civil rights heroine, the Center seeks to replace the U.S. incarceration industry with youth opportunities and community-based solutions. In 2002, the Center's "Books Not Bars Campaign" helped stop the construction of a costly and controversial "Super-Jail" for Oakland's youth. Presently, the Center is working to close all of California's scandal-plagued youth prisons and replace them with regional rehabilitation centers. Van is also a passionate advocate for the environment and for responsible business. A new project of the Center, Reclaim the Future focuses on the solutions that emerge when the racial justice and ecology movements meet. By investing in Green Jobs, Not Jails, we can ensure that the rising Green Wave lifts all boats. Van serves on numerous governing boards, including: Rainforest Action Network, WITNESS, Bioneers, the New Apollo Project and the Social Venture Network. Van's efforts have earned him many honors, including the Reebok International Human Rights Award, the Ashoka Fellowship, and the Rockefeller Foundation "Next Generation Leadership" Fellowship. Born in rural west Tennessee, Van graduated in 1990 from the University of Tennessee at Martin and, in 1993, from the Yale Law School.

The Rev. Frances Hall Kieschnick

Founding Director, The Beatitudes Society

Frannie was ordained 23 years ago at All Saints in Pasadena, a church renowned for its prophetic and progressive Beatitudes spirit. Having served at All Saints for five years, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Michael, to raise their family. She served in various parochial positions, including Interim Rector, for the next 10 years before moving on to found alternative, informal, interfaith and family friendly congregations within two parish communities. Reaching out to those questioning the relationship between their faith and the rest of their lives, these faith communities ask what it means to be a follower of Jesus in today's world. A graduate of Yale University and the Episcopal Divinity School, Frannie now serves on the Advisory Board of the Yale Divinity School. She is the Founding Director of The Beatitudes Society and parent of two teenagers.

Michael Kieschnick

President and Co-founder, Credo (formerly Working Assets)

Michael is the president and a co-founder of Credo (formerly Working Assets), a leading social change business. He also serves on the boards of Sojourners, the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Foundation. He has helped to found a number of organizations, including Dads and Daughters and the Secretary of State Project. In his spare time, he teaches a course on social innovation at Stanford University and plays tennis and basketball with enthusiasm. He has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard and undergraduate degrees in biology and economics from Stanford.

Jane Olson

Chair, Human Rights Watch

Jane Olson has devoted her life to international justice and humanitarian work. She chairs the International Board of Human Rights Watch and serves on the board of the Salzburg Seminar for International Studies. She also chairs the board of Landmine Survivors Network and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Jane has received numerous awards, including the inaugural 2005 Eleanor Roosevelt Award from Feminist Majority; the Silver Achievement Award from the YWCA of Greater Los Angeles; and the Community Achievement Award from Public Counsel. She and her husband, attorney Ronald L. Olson, reside in Pasadena, CA. They have three grown children and eight grandsons.

Iara Peng

Former Director, Young People For
Former Deputy Director, National Programs and Outreach, People for the American Way Foundation

Iara was the director of Young People For, a program of People For the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) that is committed to identifying, engaging and empowering the next generation of young progressive leaders and activists across the country. Before joining Young People For, she was the Executive Director of the Youth Justice Funding Collaborative (YJFC), a nonprofit that supports communications strategies that contribute to real change throughout the country's juvenile justice systems. She is a member of the Board of YJFC. She worked for two years as the Vice President of Doble Research Associates, a public interest consulting firm that researches public opinion and presents a detailed map of how and why people think the way they do about complex public issues. She was also Vice President of Marga, Inc., a consulting firm to nonprofit organizations specializing in strategic planning, board development, fundraising and communications. Iara was a contributing author to A Global Agenda: Issues Before the 57th General Assembly of the United Nations and Education for Civic Engagement in Democracy and has co-authored several publications including Our Nation's Kids: Is Something Wrong and Protecting Our Rights: What Goes on the Internet. Iara holds a Master of Public Administration, with a concentration in nonprofit management, from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and a BA in Political Science and Communications from Rollins College.

Glen Stassen

Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary

Dr. Glen H. Stassen is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, a Christian evangelical seminary in Pasadena, California. He is the author of several books, including Just Peacemaking and Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, which won Christianity Today's award for best book of the year in theology or ethics. Stassen has frequently appeared in the media, including the Los Angeles Times and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor.

Areas of Expertise:
• Just peacemaking theory (the new paradigm in Christian ethics on peace and war)
• Recovering the Sermon on the Mount for Christian ethics
• Churches that practice what they preach
• United States abortion rates