Mentoring Committee

Norman K. Gottwald is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at New York Theological Seminary and Adjunct Professor of Old Testament at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. He is best known in academic and social peace and justice circles for his pioneer work in social critical study of the Hebrew Bible as published in his books The Tribes of Yahweh (reprint 1999), The Hebrew Bible -- A Socio-Literary Introduction with CD-ROM (1985), The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics (rev. ed., 1993), and The Politics of Ancient Israel (2001).

Joyce Hollyday is an Associate Conference Minister for the Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ. She is co-director of "Rekindle the Gift," an oral history and renewal program among African-American congregations in the Southeast Conference growing out of the American Missionary Association tradition. Joyce is a co-founder and co-pastor of Circle of Mercy, a new congregation in the mountains of western North Carolina celebrating the transformative power of the gospel.

During her 15 years as Associate Editor of Sojourners magazine, Joyce traveled widely in the United States and around the globe to write about faith-based struggles for justice and peace. She went to the Middle East in 1997, and visited South Africa twice--once to cover the persecution of the church under apartheid, and a decade later to observe that nation's unprecedented Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She was a founding member of Witness for Peace in Nicaragua, and part of the first team to go to that country to establish a nonviolent, prayerful presence in its war zones in the 1980s. She has worked as an adjunct professor of homiletics, a court advocate for survivors of domestic violence, and a chaplain on a children's cancer ward. She is a founding board member of Word and World.

Joyce's Books include On the Heels of Freedom (Crossroad Publishing, 2005), Then Shall Your Light Rise: Spiritual Formation and Social Witness (Upper Room Books, 1997); Clothed with the Sun: Biblical Women, Social Justice, and Us (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), and Turning Toward Home: A Sojourn of Hope (Harper & Row, 1989).

M. Carmen Lane is a black catholic lesbian feminist activist in perpetual struggle and discernment regarding her call to ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. She works in the Sexual Assault Program at Michigan State University. Carmen is an anti-oppression educator with a particular interest in working with groups to make linkages between multiple forms of oppression. She has done this work within the anti-sexual violence and Christian social justice movements. She has been on faculty at the Rochester School and Stringfellow mini-school and is one of our newest board members.

Reverend Nelson Johnson is pastor of the Faith Community Church and Director of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC. A longtime activist around issues of labor and racial justice, he is on the board of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. e is a member of Word and World Board.

Melanie Morrison is co-director of The Leaven Center in Lyons, Michigan, a retreat and study center dedicated to nurturing the relationship between spirituality and social justice. She is an anti-oppression educator, activist, pastor, spiritual director, and practical theologian. As a white protestant lesbian feminist, she is passionate about working with individuals and organizations to better understand the connections between racism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism – and finding ways to subvert and transform the dominant order. She is the author of three books including The Grace of Coming Home: Spirituality, Sexuality, and the Struggle for Justice.

Ched Myers has worked for more than 25 years with various peace and justice organizations and movements, including the Pacific Concerns Resource Center and the American Friends Service Committee. He currently codirects Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, an ecumenical organization promoting biblical literacy, church renewal and faith-based witness for justice.

With a degree in New Testament, Ched has served as adjunct faculty at several seminaries, including Fuller Theological Seminary and Claremont School of Theology in southern California, the Seminary Consortium on Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago, Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, and Memphis Theological Seminary. His primary commitment, however, is to popular theological education, and he travels extensively giving seminars and retreats with faith and justice groups across the ecumenical spectrum. He was one of the original conveners of Word and World.

Ched's books include Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (Orbis, 1988), Who Will Roll Away the Stone: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians (Orbis, 1994), and most recently The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics (Church of the Saviour, 2001). He is a regular contributor to Sojourners, The Other Side and The Witness magazines. For more information see www.bcm-net.org and click on "Theological Animation."

Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II is presently Pastor of Liberation Community Church (LCC) in Memphis, Tennessee. Liberation Community Church (LCC) is an African Centered congregation. Located next to the second poorest zip code in the United States, the ministry reflects the communal nature of Africentric Christianity among the urban poor. He is alo the Associate Director of the Ben L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis. He is a member of the Word and World Board.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann is a United Methodist pastor and community activist in Detroit. A regular contributor to Sojourners, The Witness, and The Other Side, he is author of Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis, 1989) and editor of Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow (Eerdmans, 1994). He is director of Graduate Theological Urban Studies for SCUPE in Chicago. He is a founding board member of Word and World.