Christians have always played a significant role in our nation’s politics and will continue to have a voice in shaping our county. However, perspectives on political involvement among believers vary widely. Some view the political sphere as aligning with their interests, while others perceive it as opposing their values. For some, the State is seen as God’s servant for the common good; for others, it represents a threat to their faith and liberty. While some Christians dedicate their careers to political change, others believe the Church should remain separate from the political realm. The way Christians’ political engagement is perceived profoundly impacts our Christian witness. 

What are the appropriate ways for individual Christians and churches to engage in politics? What patterns of Christian political involvement exist beyond party affiliations and reactions to political media? How do Christian social responsibilities and ethics influence our political engagement? How might a church’s political stance in the U.S. evolve with changing cultural circumstances? And how can our political engagement make our Christian witness more compelling to our neighbors? Join us as we explore these important topics and more. 

Conference Speakers

Tim Alberta
Award-winning journalist, author, staff writer for The Atlantic

Tim Alberta is an award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and staff writer for The Atlantic magazine. He formerly served as chief political correspondent for POLITICO. In 2019, he published the critically acclaimed book, American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump and co-moderated the year’s final Democratic presidential debate aired by PBS Newshour.

Tim attended Schoolcraft College and later Michigan State University, before moving to Washington DC and reporting for publications including the Wall Street Journal, The Hotline, National Journal, and National Review. He covered some of the biggest stories in national politics—the battles over health care and immigration on Capitol Hill; the election and presidency of Donald Trump; and the ideological warfare between and within the two parties.

In 2019, he moved home to Michigan and reported from gun shows and farmers markets, Black cookouts and white suburbs, crowded wholesale stores and shuttered small businesses. He wrote a regular “Letter to Washington” that kept upstream from politics, focusing less on manifest partisan divisions and more on elusive root causes: the hollowing out of communities, the diminished faith in vital institutions, the self-perpetuating cycle of cultural antagonism, the diverging economic realities for wealthy and working-class citizens, the rapid demographic makeover of America—and the corollary spikes in racism and xenophobia.

Tim joined The Atlantic in March 2021 with a mandate to keep roaming and writing and telling stories that strike at the heart of America’s discontent. His work has been featured in dozens of other publications nationwide, including Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair, and he frequently appears as a commentator on television programs in the United States and around the world. His latest book is The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

Dr. Ryan Burge
Data expert on religion and politics in the United States; associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University

Dr. Ryan Burge is one of the foremost experts on religion and politics in the United States— creating hundreds of data visualizations a year that try to help people understand the American political and religious landscape.

Born and raised in a small town in Southern Illinois, Ryan was an active member in a Southern Baptist Church through his childhood and teenage years. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Greenville College (now University) in history/philosophy. He then pursued a graduate degree in Political Science from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. His dissertation was on religion and political behavior in the United States.

After graduating, Ryan served as a post-doctoral fellow at SIU’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, before landing a teaching position in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University, where he currently serves as associate professor.

In the last several years, Ryan has become the go-to source for data on religion for members of the media, denominational leaders, and other scholars. He has written for several websites including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and POLITICO. Much of his writing can be found on his Substack, Graphs about Religion.

Mark Charles
Native American activist, public speaker, consultant, and author

Mark Charles is passionate about creating common memory, as he works to build a healthier national community, especially across racial lines. The son of an American woman (of Dutch heritage) and a Navajo man, Mark is a graduate of UCLA, who works as an author, speaker, podcaster, activist, preacher, and consultant. He is one of the leading authorities on the 15^th-century Doctrine of Discovery and in 2019 co-authored the award-winning book, Unsettling Truths—The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery.

Mark is a dual citizen of the United States and the Navajo Nation and works tirelessly to initiate a national dialogue on race, gender and class, a conversation he hopes will be on par with the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions that took place in South Africa, Rwanda, and Canada. Mark is currently writing his second book, Decolonizing Faith. He has been featured on numerous media outlets including PBS NewsHour, CNN, Esquire, The Guardian, Voice of America, the Karen Hunter Show, Native News Online, Indian Country Today and the recently released documentary Bad Indian: Hiding Out in Antelope Canyon.

Justin Giboney
Attorney, political strategist, minister, co-founder and president of the AND Campaign

Justin is an attorney, political strategist, and ordained minister in Atlanta. He is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign, a coalition of urban Christians who are determined to address the sociopolitical arena with the compassion and conviction of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has managed successful campaigns for elected officials in the state and referendums relating to the city’s transportation and water infrastructure.

He is the co-author of Compassion (&) Conviction—The AND Campaign’s Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement and has written op-eds for publications such as Christianity Today and The Hill.

Dr. Mark Young
Denver Seminary president

Dr. Mark Young, president of Denver Seminary, is a theological educator and pastoral leader with over 40 years of global ministry experience. Prior to joining Denver Seminary in 2009, he served as professor of world missions and intercultural studies at Dallas Theological Seminary from 1995–2009 and was the founding academic dean of the Biblical Theological Seminary in Wroclaw, Poland.

Mark has authored several publications, including The Hope of the Gospel: Theological Education and the Next Evangelicalism, One True Story, One True God: What the Bible Is All About, “Marriage and the Mission of God,” published in Marriage: Its Foundation, Theology and Mission in a Changing World, and “Recapturing Evangelical Identity and Mission” published in Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning.

Mark holds a PhD in Educational Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a ThM in New Testament Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary. He has served as the President of the Board of Directors for the Association of Theological Schools and is a member of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education, Evangelical Theological Society, OMSC Missions Leaders Forum, and several other organizations.

Contact:
Jason Woodman, director of Public Engagement for The Gospel Initiative, is available before, during, and after the event to answer questions.