Dr. Peter Laurence is executive director of the Education as Transformation Project at Wellesley College. He was the founder and director of the Westchester Interfaith Council in Westchester County, New York; executive director of the Temple of Understanding; national interreligious program officer for the National Conference of Christians and Jews; and developer of the U.S. Chapter for the World Conference on Religion and Peace. He has served as chair of the Board of the North American Interfaith Network and was a member of the Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders for the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993 and 1999. He was an advisor in the initial stages of those two Parliaments and in the formation of United Religions Initiative. Peter has written and edited numerous books, including Education as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality, and a New Vision for Higher Education in America (2000). He serves on the editorial boards of the Religion and Education journal and the Journal of College and Character.
Phil Lane Jr.
Phil Lane Jr. is an enrolled member of the Yankton Dakota and Chickasaw First. National Indian Magazine named Phil named a Modern Indian Sports Great for his record-breaking accomplishments in track and wrestling in 1977. For 44 years, he has worked with Indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America, Micronesia, South East Asia, India, Hawaii, and Africa. For 16 years he taught at the University of Lethbridge, in Alberta, Canada. With elders from across North America, Phil co-founded the Four Worlds International Institute (FWII) in 1982.
Today he chairs the Four Directions International, an indigenous-owned economic development company incorporated in 1996, focusing on the importance of culture and spirituality in development. Phil is an award-winning author and film producer, whose credits include “Images of Indians, “Walking With Grandfather,” and “Healing the Hurts.” He has been honored by Indigenous elders as Hereditary Chief through a traditional headdress ceremony. He was the first indigenous person to receive the Windstar Award, and has been honored by the Foundation for Freedom and Human Rights, in Switzerland, and the Center for Healing Racism in Houston.
Yehezkel Landau
Yehezkel Landau is associate professor of Interfaith Relations at Hartford Seminary. After earning an A.B. from Harvard University (1971) and an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School (1976), Landau made aliyah (immigrated) to Israel in 1978. A dual Israeli-American citizen, his work has been in the fields of interfaith education and Jewish-Arab peacemaking. He directed the OZ veSHALOM-NETIVOT SHALOM religious peace movement in Israel during the 1980s. From 1991 to 2003, he was co-founder and co-director of the OPEN HOUSE Center for Jewish-Arab Coexistence in Ramle, Israel. He lectures internationally on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations and Middle East peace issues, has authored numerous journal articles, co-edited the book Voices from Jerusalem: Jews and Christians Reflect on the Holy Land (Paulist Press, 1992), wrote a Jewish appraisal of Pope John Paul II’s trip to Israel and Palestine in 2000 for the book John Paul II in the Holy Land: in His Own Words (Paulist Press, 2005), and authored a research report entitled “Healing the Holy Land: Interreligious Peacebuilding in Israel/Palestine” for the United States Institute of Peace in 2003. At Hartford Seminary, Prof. Landau directs an interfaith training program for Jews, Christians, and Muslims called “Building Abrahamic Partnerships.”
Jerusha T. Lamptey
Jerusha T. Lamptey is Assistant Professor of Islam and Ministry at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her research focuses on theologies of religious pluralism, comparative theology, and Muslima theology.
Dr. Lamptey earned a Ph.D. in Theological and Religious Studies with a focus on Religious Pluralism at Georgetown University in 2011. She also received an M.A. in Islamic Sciences at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, and an M.A. in Theological and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. Before joining the Union faculty in July of 2012, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University.
Dr. Lamptey’s first book, Never Wholly Other: A Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, March 2014), explores the Qur’anic discourse on religious ‘otherness’. In this book, she draws upon feminist theology and semantic methodology to re-interpret the Qur’anic discourse and challenge notions of clear and static religious boundaries by distinguishing between and illuminating the complexity of multiple forms of religious difference.
Her current book project focuses on comparative feminist theology. In this project, she aims to articulate a comparative Muslima (Islamic feminist) theology in conversation with various Christian feminist theologians. While Islamic feminism has typically distanced itself from other ‘feminisms’ due to their entanglements with colonialism and imperialism, in this project she argues that comparative theological engagement is essential to the development of a Muslima theology that moves beyond exegetical and legal reformulation and toward constructive theology.
Her other publications focus on religious pluralism, Muslima theology, ecumenical relations, Vatican II, and African traditional religions. include “Embracing Relationality and Theological Tensions: Muslima Theology, Religious Diversity, and Fate” in Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others (Oxford Univ. Press, 2013); “Lateral and Hierarchical Religious Difference in the Qur’an,” in Understanding Religious Pluralism (forthcoming 2013); “John Paul II and Islam” in The Interfaith Theology of John Paul II (forthcoming 2013); “From Sexual Difference to Religious Difference: Toward a Muslima Theology of Religious Pluralism” in Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Peter Lang, 2013); “‘Mapping’ the Religious Other: The Second Vatican Council’s Approach to Protestantism,” (Journal of Ecumenical Studies 45:4 [Fall 2010]); and “Mysticism in African Thought” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Scribner & Sons, 2004).
Suzy Lamoreaux
Suzy Lamoreaux is a recent graduate of Rutgers University. She became interested in religion, interfaith dialogue, and the role religions play in societies through her studies of history and French culture. Her undergraduate honors thesis researched the history of North African immigration in 1970s and 80s France, the effects of which have contributed to contemporary French Islamophobia. She gained first-hand knowledge of the issue as a mentor of Maghrebi youth in Paris. In her spare time, Suzy enjoys baking, playing and watching hockey, doing crossword puzzles, and running.
Gary Laderman
Gary Laderman is the chair of the Department of Religion, Emory University, professor of American Religious History and Cultures, and the editor of the publication Sacred Matters. Dr. Laderman is the author of Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (2010). He is the author of two books on death in America: The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883 (1999) and Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America (2003). He has co-edited two encyclopedias, Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions (2003) and Science, Religion, Societies: Histories, Cultures, Controversies (2006). Laderman has been interviewed on topics ranging from death and funerals to horror films and televangelists in a variety of media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers and television programs. He writes for various publications, including Huffington Post.
In addition to serving as chairperson of the department, Laderman is a founder of the online religion magazine, Religion Dispatches. He is continuing to research, write, and teach on the sacred in American life generally, and is currently working on a book project exploring American religious history from a global perspective. He has received funding from the Lilly Endowment, Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, and the Ford Foundation. And he has organized numerous conferences at Emory University.
Lawrence Lerner
Lawrence Lerner is a Wiccan priest, venture capitalist and President of Pagan Pride in Western Washington State. An active member of the Washington state business community, Lawrence is passionate about promoting economic development by investing in and nurturing new businesses. Lawrence is active in the interfaith and social justice communities. He’s a requested speaker across a wide range of topics and was asked to speak at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.