BOARD OF DIRECTORS

OF THE CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY FOUNDATION

Patricia Shield Ayres (Pat) has made lifelong commitments to serving others, seeing us all as members of one human family. Pat has been particularly concerned with the needs of children and has been active on both domestic and international levels. In 1971, she was appointed by Governor Dolph Briscoe to the board of the Texas Youth Commission, a state agency responsible for adjudicated youth. For many years, she served as a national board member and board president of Bread for the World, a citizens’ movement that advocates to alleviate hunger in the United States and around the world. In addition to this board, she also serves on the board of New Baptist Covenant.

 

Emeritus Director Tony Campolo is a professor of Sociology at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and is the founder and President of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, a collection of ministries that serve at-risk youth in urban America. The author of twenty-six books, his Ph.D. is from Temple University. He is also an ordained minister in the American Baptist Convention and serves as associate pastor of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church in West Philadelphia.

 

Scott Dickison serves as Senior Pastor of Northminster Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss. He came to that position after serving as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon, Ga., for almost 11 years. He has also served congregations in Texas, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. After graduating with his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University, Scott served for two years in the AmeriCorps, working for a small Habitat for Humanity affiliate in the Mississippi Delta. He earned his Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School in 2010, completing a unit of CPE at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He is currently in the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at Queen’s University in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a concentration in poetry. He has served in a variety of leadership capacities for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship on both the state and national levels, as well as steering committees and boards for a number of organizations, including the New Baptist Covenant, OneMacon 2.0, the Macon Action Plan, and the Clergy Council for Racial and Economic Justice through the office of the Macon-Bibb Mayor.

 

Aubrey H. Ducker Jr. is an attorney living in Winter Park, Florida. He grew up in Tennessee. After high school Aubrey joined the U.S. Navy and served as nuclear electrician on the USS George Bancroft, SSBN 643. After 6 years of active duty, he earned a B.A. from the University of Central Florida in journalism and legal studies and graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 1999. He practices primarily in Collaborative Divorce, Elder Law, Family Law and Guardianship services, as well as working in Collaborative Estate Planning and Probate. He is a member of My Collaborative Team and serves on the board of directors of Collaborative Family Law of Central Florida. Aubrey previously served 6 years on the Board of Directors of the Baptist Joint Committee in Washington D.C. and on the Board of Directors of The Mustard Seed of Central Florida. He currently serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mayflower at Winter Park, a Continuing Care Retirement Community.

 

Wendell L. Griffen, D.Div., is well-known as a lawyer, jurist, legal educator, religious leader, and public speaker. He serves as pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and also as Circuit Judge for the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas. Dr. Griffen is the founder and CEO of Griffen Strategic Consulting which specializes in diversity and inclusion, cultural competancy, strategic planning and development, public policy and government relations, legal affairs, and litigation management. He is a member of the Board of Directors for The Christian Ethics Today Foundation and serves as a trustee of the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference. Dr. Griffen is the author of two blogs: Wendell Griffen on Cultural Competancy and Justice is a Verb! Blogs.

 

Fisher Humphreys, is Professor of Divinity, Emeritus at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. Humphreys retired from Samford University after more than 28 years teaching Christian theology, following an even longer tenure on the faculty of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds a Th.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is an ordained Baptist minister. He is author of Thinking About God: An Introduction to Christian Theology and many other books and articles. He is a noted Baptist theologian whose teachings and writings have shaped several generations of pastors, missionaries and theological students. About his own life's work, Humphreys has said: "My theology is church theology. I do thinking about God in the fellowship of the church." In this way, his self-understanding of his vocation as a theologian of the church is commended, and the importance of thinking clearly and faithfully about God in the fellowship of the church is seen to be a vital component in the life of the faith.

 

George Mason, Chairman, is pastor emeritus at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, where he served as senior pastor from 1989 to 2022. He is a nationally recognized leader among Baptists, serving the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Duke Divinity School, along with other local and global ecumenical and interfaith endeavors. He is a frequent op-ed contributor to the Dallas Morning News on subjects of public interest that intersect religion, such as public education, race relations and predatory lending. He writes a monthly column on public theology for the Lakewood/East Dallas and Lake Highlands editions of the community news magazine The Advocate. At Wilshire, he birthed and directs the pastoral residency program that has become a model for other congregations nationwide. His book, Preparing the Pastors We Need: Reclaiming the Congregation’s Role in Training Clergy, came out of his passion to encourage those whom God has called into vocational ministry. George holds both the master of divinity and doctor of philosophy degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

 

Suzii Paynter March is Chief Executive Officer of Prosper Waco, an innovative approach to community work that consolidates and builds upon the efforts of existing nonprofits and community leaders. Prior to joining Propser Waco, Paynter March was executive coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, served as the director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and as director of the Advocacy Care Center. Over the past decade, Paynter March has gained a national reputation for her advocacy on important ethical issues such as religious liberty, hunger and poverty, human trafficking, immigration reform, the environment and education. She has been recognized by numerous national religious and secular organizations such as the Sierra Club, American Association of Retired Persons, Samaritan Counseling Centers and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Her work has also been highlighted on television programs such as Moyers in America, and in print publications such as the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. In addition to this board, Paynter March also is a member of the executive committee of the Baptist World Alliance and chairs its Human Rights Advocacy Committee and the New Baptist Covenant.

 

Cody J. Sanders, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, MN. Prior to joining the faculty of Luther, he was the pastor of Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Harvard Square (2015-2023), where he also served as the American Baptist Chaplain to Harvard University and Advisor for LGBTQ+ Affairs in the Office of Religious, Spiritual, & Ethical Life at MIT. Additionally. He is a faculty member at the Center for Chaplaincy Studies, affiliated faculty in Pastoral Theology and Chaplaincy Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary, a faculty advisor in the International Diploma Program in Social Construction and Professional Practice at the Taos Institute, and has taught on the adjunct faculty in pastoral care at a number of institutions of theological higher education.

He is the co-author of Corpse Care: Ethics for Tending the Dead (Fortress, 2023), author of Christianity, LGBTQ Suicide, and the Souls of Queer Folk (Lexington, 2020), A Brief Guide to Ministry with LGBTQIA Youth (Westminster John Knox, 2017), co-editor of Trouble the Water: A Christian Resource for the Work of Racial Justice (Nurturing Faith, 2017), co-author of Microaggressions in Ministry: Confronting the Hidden Violence of Everyday Church (Westminster John Knox, 2015), editor of the second edition of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Resource for Congregations on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (2013) published by the Alliance of Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists, and the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, and the author of Queer Lessons for Churches on the Straight and Narrow: What All Christians Can Learn from LGBTQ Lives (Faithlab, 2013), winner of the national Bronze Medal for Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans Non-Fiction in the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards, which has also been translated into both Japanese and Swahili.

 

David Sapp, a speaker, writer and minister at large, is former pastor of Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta and was a member of the previous Board. After completing his M. Div. and Ph. D. degrees at Southern Seminary, he became Director of Organization at the Christian Life Commission of the SBC from 1976-1981. From 1981-1999 he served the FBC of Chamblee, Georgia, and Derbyshire Baptist of Richmond, Virginia. He has also been an Adjunctive Professor at Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, McAfee School of Theology at Mercer, and Candler School of Theology at Emory.

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