Sweeny Lecture

Jim Wallis is a writer, teacher, preacher and justice advocate who believes the gospel of Jesus must be emancipated from its cultural and political captivities. He is a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, preacher and commentator on ethics and public life. 
He is the inaugural holder of the Chair in Faith and Justice and the founding Director of the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice. In 2022, Washingtonian magazine named Wallis one of the 500 most influential people shaping policy in DC. 
Raised in a Midwestern evangelical family, as a teenager Wallis questioned the racial segregation in his church and community, which led him to the Black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University. 
He is the founder of Sojourners, and is the author of 12 books, including America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to America; God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it; The Great Awakening; The Call to Conversion; and Christ in Crisis: Reclaiming Jesus in a Time of Fear, Hate, and Violence; and host of the popular podcast The Soul of the Nation. 
He served on President Obama’s White House Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and has taught faith and public life courses at Harvard and Georgetown University. He also serves as a Research Fellow at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Wallis has previously taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Georgetown University in 2007 when he gave the college commencement address. 
“Coach Jim” also served for 22 seasons as a Little League coach for his two baseball playing sons.

Rev. Dr. Steve Bland Jr., is the Senior Pastor of Liberty Temple Baptist Church; a 2000+ member congregation in Detroit, Michigan. Liberty Temple Baptist Church has grown by well over 1700 members in the past 15 years under Pastor Bland’s dynamic leadership, and offers vibrant worship, insightful teaching, inspiring preaching, and over 51 comprehensive ministries that meets the holistic needs of the church, family, and surrounding community we serve.  He is the former Pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois, where he served faithfully for over 14 years.

James W. (Jim) Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator who has lived for 35 years as a settler on Three Fires land in inner city Detroit.  He is currently teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and lecturing in Intercultural Communication Studies at the University of Oakland (Michigan). He holds a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Chicago, is the author of five books on theology/spirituality and two poetry chap books. He has also written extensively in both academic and popular journals on questions of race, class and colonialism in connection with religion and urban culture.  He is in demand as a speaker on a wide variety of topics related to his interests and a recognized artist on the spoken-word poetry scene in the inner city.