• Gary S. Selby is Professor of Ministerial Formation at Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan, where he teaches courses in spiritual formation, preaching, leadership, and ministry. Before coming to Emmanuel in 2017, he was the Carl P. Miller Chair of Communication at Pepperdine University and Director of Pepperdine’s Center for Faith and Learning.

    Gary holds a PhD in Public Communication from the University of Maryland and a Master of Theology from Harding University Graduate School of Religion. His research centers in early Christian rhetoric, the rhetoric of the civil rights movement, and Christian spirituality. In addition to numerous essays and book chapters, he is the author of three books, Martin Luther King and the Rhetoric of Freedom: The Exodus in America’s Struggle for Civil Rights (Baylor University Press, 2008), Not With Wisdom of Words: Nonrational Persuasion in the New Testament (Eerdmans Press, 2016), and Pursuing an Earthy Spirituality: C. S. Lewis and Incarnational Faith (InterVarsity Academic Press, 2019).

    He also spent 22 years in local pastoral ministry, first with the Silver Spring, Maryland Church of Christ, and then, beginning in 1985, for 19 years with the Church of Christ in Columbia, Maryland. For the last nine of those years, he was also on the faculty of George Washington University, teaching in their communication program.

    Gary has been married for 42 years to his wife, Tammy Rogers Selby, and is the proud father of two married sons and five grandchildren. He loves music, hiking, traveling, and reading good novels. For all the different things he gotten to do, his heart is in local ministry and his passion is for preparing women and men to change the world by serving the local church.

  • Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He is a theologian, professor, award-winning author, and serves as president of the Oblate School of Theology. He holds Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Ottawa and Newman Theological College Edmonton and Master’s degrees from the University of San Francisco and University of Louvain, Belgium along with a PhD/STD from the University of Louvain. Apart from his academic knowledge in systematic theology and philosophy, he has become a popular speaker in contemporary spirituality and religion and the secular world. He writes a weekly column that is carried in over 70 newspapers around the world.

    His experience spans from: Teacher of philosophy, Newman Theological College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Member of OMI General Council; community-builder, lecturer and writer.

  • Dr. Holly Carey is Professor of Biblical Studies and Chair of the Department of Biblical Studies at Point University (West Point, GA). She holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies and Humanities from Point University, an M.A. in Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, KY), and a Ph.D. in the New Testament and Christian Origins from the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). When Dr. Carey returned to Point University as a professor in 2007, she became the university’s first female full-time professor in the Biblical Studies department.

    Dr. Carey has most recently published her book, Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2023). In addition to numerous articles and essays, her dissertation entitled Jesus’ Cry from the Cross: Towards a First-century Understanding of the Intertextual Relationship between Psalm 22 and the Narrative of Mark’s Gospel (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2009) is the first full-length treatment of a contextual reading of Psalm 22:1 in Jesus’s “cry of dereliction.” She serves as a member of the SBL Mark Seminar Steering Committee, is a contributing editor to the Stone-Campbell Journal, and has been teaching as an adjunct and affiliate instructor for Asbury Theological Seminary since 2004.

    Her areas of interest are in the role of women in the early church, the gospel of Mark, and the contextual relationship between intertexts of the Old Testament in the New Testament.

    Dr. Carey is married to Warren Carey and they have three sons and a daughter. She likes to read, swim, hike, play basketball, run, is a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo, and loves lima beans and the Florida Gators.

  • Anne specializes in the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew, and the comparison of the respective Christological dimensions of both sacred texts. Her expertise includes examining the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Synoptics in the context of the use of sources in Graeco-Roman antiquity.


    Anne’s current research interests include exploring how contextual biblical hermeneutics and biblical spiritualities can create “bridges” that connect biblical exegesis with Christian praxis today.

    As a Presentation Sister, Anne’s research interests include the area of Marian/Presentation spirituality that arises from the study of the Protogospel of James and its impact through the ages; and the role of Mary/Miriam in the Roman Catholic tradition, the Eastern Orthodox tradition and in Islam.
    As part of her Graduate studies, Anne trained as a Spiritual Director and a facilitator of Ignatian communal discernment with Fr Thomas H. Green, SJ. Anne has presented papers and/or facilitated workshops, Chapters/assemblies and retreats in over twenty countries.

  • Dr. Renata Furst teaches Scripture and Spirituality at the Oblate School of Theology. She is particularly interested in the way reading Scripture impacts spiritual growth. Her fields of specialization are Prophetic Literature in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Biblical Hermeneutics, Wisdom Literature, the Pentateuch and Hispanic/Latino(a) Biblical Interpretation. In spirituality, her areas of interest are Ignatian Spirituality, Spiritual Direction and the Biblical Foundations of Christian Spirituality.

    Ezekiel 11:19
    Hebrews 10:16
    2 Corinthians 3:3

  • Dr. Rodolfo Felices Luna is Associate Professor of Sacred Scripture at Oblate School of Theology, where he teaches New Testament courses in English and Spanish. Born and raised in Peru, he immigrated to eastern Canada, where he studied in French and received his Ph.D. in Theology – Biblical Studies from the University of Montreal. He directed the Pastoral Institute of the Archdiocese of Sherbrooke and taught and the University of Sherbrooke. He served as president of the French-Canadian Biblical Association from 2017 to 2021. In 2017 he joined the faculty at Oblate School of Theology in sunny San Antonio, Texas, where he helped launch a bilingual Maestría de artes en ministerio pastoral, online. He has authored two books in French on the Fourth Gospel and the First Letter of Saint John. He is an active member of a number of learned societies in Scripture, like the Society of Biblical Literature. His research interests comprise rhetorical analysis of persuasive religious discourse in the New Testament letters and ecological hermeneutics of the Bible.

  • Andrew Boakye is Lecturer in Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester, UK, Head of Validation for the Nazarene Theological College and Cliff College and co-chair of the Paul seminar of the British New Testament Society. He is author of Death and Life: Resurrection, Restoration and Rectification in Paul's Letter to the Galatians (Wipf & Stock, 2017) and co-author of Rethinking Galatians: Paul's Vision of Oneness in the Living Christ (with Professor Peter Oakes) (T&T Clark, 2021). He is currently working on the New Word Biblical Themes volume on Ephesians (Zondervan Academic). His research interests include the origins of Christianity, the Pauline letters, resurrection theology, masculinity studies and intertextuality. Some of his most recent work has involved advising Protestant ministers on issues of racial harmony and curating resources for combatting domestic abuse in religious spaces.

  • Amy Peeler is the Kenneth T. Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College and a priest in the Episcopal Church (USA). Author most recently of Hebrews (Commentaries for Christian Formation, Eerdmans, 2024) and Women and the Gender of God (Eerdmans, 2022), she continues to study and teach on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Mary, the mother of Jesus specifically and many other topics related to her passion for the Scriptures.

  • Jeff Childers currently serves as the Carmichael-Walling Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University. After getting degrees at ACU, he earned the M.St.and D.Phil at the University of Oxford, following in the footsteps of two of his heroes, John Wycliffe and J.R.R. Tolkien at Merton College.

    Jeff’s research interests include special research interests include early Eastern Christianity, Patristics, New Testament textual criticism, early Christian spirituality, and the history of Bible interpretation. His academic publications include a number of journal articles and contributions to encyclopedias and collections of eastern Christian texts. His books include: Divining Gospel: Oracles of Biblical Interpretation (2020), The Syriac-English New Testament (2020), and The Syriac Version of John Chrysostom’s Commentary on John (2013).

    Jeff preached at a small church for several years. Childers speaks and writes on such topics as: preparing children for baptism, adapting historic practices of prayer for contemporary spiritual life, bringing the sacraments into focus in Churches of Christ, and Tolkien and faith. Publications include co-authored books in the Heart of the Restoration series: The Crux of the Matter: Crisis, Tradition, and the Future of Churches of Christ (2000) and Unveiling Glory: Visions of Christ’s Transforming Presence (2003); and articles for church leaders on children and baptism (Bruner/Kennamar, Along the Way. Conversations about Children and Faith, 2015) and managing diverse styles of spirituality in congregational life.

    Jeff and his wife Linda worship and serve at the University Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas.