Rev. Dr. Robert O. Smith, (he/him/his), serves as Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC). Smith is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and an ordained Minister of Word & Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

A broadly experienced minister and theologian, Smith is an interdisciplinary scholar who deploys the methodological lenses of critical race theory, decolonial theory, and political theology to better understand the historical sources of contemporary political dynamics.

Smith has co-researched and -written three books on the history of critical race theory (CRT) with Aja Y. Martinez (a professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) drawing on archival, ethnographic, historical, and theological analysis.

Smith graduated from Luther Seminary with the MDiv and an MA is Islamic Studies. He earned his PhD in Religion, Politics & Society at Baylor University. He has served in many ministerial contexts, including campus ministry, ELCA Global Mission, and as an Associate to the Bishop of the Northern Texas–Northern Louisiana Synod. Previously, he served as a history professor at the University of North Texas and as founding director of the University of Notre Dame’s Jerusalem Global Gateway.

Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb is the Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author and editor of 50 books including: Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible; In the Eye of the Storm: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire; Politics of Persecution: Middle Eastern Christians in an Age of Empire; The Cross in Contexts: Suffering and Redemption in Palestine; Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes; His books and numerous articles have been translated so far into thirteen languages.

Rev. Raheb served as the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 1987 to May 2017 and as the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011-2016. 

A social entrepreneur, Rev. Raheb has founded several NGO‟s including the Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World (CAFCAW). He is a founding and board member of the National Library of Palestine, and a founding member of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, a US 501c3 non-for-profit organization. He is an elected member to the Palestinian National Council as well as the Palestinian Central Council.

Dr. Raheb holds a Doctorate in Theology from the Philipps University at Marburg, Germany. He is married to Najwa Khoury and has two daughters, Dana & Tala.

Muna Nassar is the Executive Secretary for Mission and Advocacy for the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC).

Rev. Dr. Cristal Silva McCormick is an ordained minister, a Christian activist, Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Missions, and Director of Latinx Studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Her research critically examines the role of Christian missions in disseminating imperialism, colonialism, and Christian Zionism in Latin America. She is also the author of a forthcoming book on Latine Christian Zionism in the United States. Her activism focuses on organizing solidarity with immigrant and Palestinian communities.

Dr. Santiago Slabodsky holds the Kaufman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at Hofstra University in New York and formerly served as Professor of Global Ethics at the Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles.

An Argentinean scholar, he received the Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award for his book Decolonial Judaism from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He currently serves as associate editor of the transnational journal ReOrient: Critical Muslim Studies, co-editor of the book series Transmodern Times for Rutgers University Press, and co-chair of the Religions, Social Conflict and Peace Studies unit at the American Academy of Religion.

In addition to his position in the US, he has held visiting professorships at institutions in South Africa, Germany, Spain, Costa Rica, North Macedonia, the Netherlands, Turkey, Argentina, and Canada. 

Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam is a native Texan and an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He serves as the inaugural director of the Center for the Repair of Historic Harms at Presbyterian Life & Witness, where he leads domestic and international work that helps congregations, mid councils, national agencies, and community partners move from apology and acknowledgment toward concrete practices of repair and joy-filled re-encounter with historic communities.

Jermaine’s work advances a re-forming approach to reparative justice: repairing historic harms inflicted by others, repairing historic harms inflicted on each other, and creating new solidarities between us. Through community-specific call-and-response practices, he encourages a noncompetitive, open-source repair ethic that allows lessons from one setting to strengthen faithful repair in others.

Jermaine’s current leadership includes General Assembly-directed reparative work with the Hispanic Latino Caucus and the National Black Presbyterian Caucus to address the colonial and economic realities affecting Puerto Rican clergy in the PC(USA), and African American ecclesial repair through truth-telling, accountability, youth leadership development, and new solidarities across the African diaspora. He also leads Liberia Project 180, the Presbyterian Church’s transatlantic repair response to harms set in motion by its cofounding of the American Colonization Society, with attention to youth formation, historical acknowledgment, apology, and reparatory dialogue between African traditional religion and Christianity in West Africa.

Jermaine is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University in the City of New York.

Rev. Dr. Whitney Wilkinson Arreche, ThD, is a pastor and public theologian wondering at the intersections of theology, race, power, and language. She is an ordained Presbyterian minister serving as Pastor of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Bedford, Texas. She serves on the Faith and Order Convening Table of the National Council of Churches, the Social Justice and Public Witness Committee of Grace Presbytery, and is a member of the Fellowship for Protestant Ethics. She has written for Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, The Christian Century, Political Theology Network, and was a contributing author for the books Confronting Racism and White Supremacy in the US: 21st Century Theological Perspectives and Liberating Church: A Hush Harbor Manifesto. She enjoys solo church pastoring, reading, spending time with her spouse and dog, and drinking too much coffee. Her website is whitneywilkinsonarreche.com. 

Rev. Alex Awad was born and raised in Jerusalem. After graduation from St George’s High School, he studied in Europe and then moved to the USA. He finished a BA degree at Lee University and an MA in Education (1976) at North Georgia University. He received an MA in Missions and Evangelism (1989) from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky.

For 26 years Rev. Awad, with his wife Brenda, served as missionaries with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church in Israel/Palestine. Rev. Awad was the pastor of an international church in East Jerusalem and taught courses at Bethlehem Bible College where he served as faculty member, Dean of Students, and board member. In June 2015, Rev. Awad was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bethlehem Bible College's annual commencement.

Rev. Addie Domske (she/her) is a PCUSA minister, trained movement chaplain, and national field organizer for Friends of Sabeel North America. She first encountered Palestine in seminary thanks to a travel study grant. She believes church and God get bigger when we join in collective liberation movements. Addie serves on the Steering Committee of the Palestine Justice Network of the PCUSA and the board of More Light Presbyterians. She is based in Pittsburgh, owns too many books, and seeks to be a person who can grow her own tomatoes. Addie is one of the co-authors of the study guide for Kairos Palestine II -- learn more at her workshop!

Rev. Marietta Macy, MDiv (she/they) was first introduced to the subject of Palestine and Israel while serving as a Youth Advisory Delegate for the PC(USA) General Assembly in 2004 and has stayed connected ever since. She graduated from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 2014 with her M.Div. and from 2013-2019 she served in various roles on the Steering Committee of the Palestine Justice Network of the PC(USA) including as Co-Moderator.

Chauncey Diego Francisco Handy is Assistant Professor of Religion and Humanities at Reed College. As a Chicano scholar of the Hebrew Bible, Chauncey’s work focuses on the intersection of race/racialization, theories of ethnicity, Latinx theorization of identity, and the reception history of the Hebrew Bible. He earned his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary, has an MA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and is an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).