The Baptist Peace Fellowship Announces New Board Officers and Members for 2012-2013
May 16, 2012 – Charlotte, N.C. – The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America announces its 2012-2013 board officers and welcomes four new board members. Cheryl Dudley and Bill Brammer will return as president and vice president. Judson Day will join the officers as treasurer and Katy Friggle-Norton as secretary.
The new members (listed below) will begin their board responsibilities in October, 2012.
Virginia (Gini) Lohmann Bauman
An Ohio native, Gini earned a M.Div. in 2006 from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, and has since done further study in mediation and conflict transformation, as well as Cross-Cultural Immersion Training with Borderlinks on US-Mexico border and immigration issues in 2006.
While in seminary, she co-founded Ministers for Social Justice, an organization designed to foster an innovative, progressive, and ecumenical ministry network within Ohio in order to bring about social change. As a result, she was approached by Sojourners to serve as their first State Field Director. She worked with Sojourners for two and a half years, facilitating the formation of diverse faith-based coalitions in Ohio around common justice initiatives such as poverty and peace work. In February 2010, Gini joined Church World Service as their Ohio Director for Immigration Reform. Gini is currently the Senior Pastor of St. John’s Evangelical Protestant Church in Columbus, OH, a historical, urban and welcoming and affirming church affiliated with the United Church of Christ.
Gini and her family regularly attend BPFNA’s Summer Conference, and she has given workshops there on immigration reform and prophetic advocacy.
Peter Carman
Peter is a graduate of Haverford College and Yale Divinity School and is currently senior pastor at Binkley Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, NC, a BPFNA partner congregation and a member church of both the American Baptist Churches and the Alliance of Baptists. His ministry has included service on the local Commission on Christian Muslim Relations; urban neighborhood organizing; and the welcome of Burma refugees into the church.
Peter has been a committed pacifist since his youth and has been involved ever since with peace and justice work. Earlier in his life, he was a social action coordinator working with student, community and labor groups at Yale University. He lived at a Catholic Worker House in Connecticut and has contributed to direct actions in the anti-nuclear movement. He has also been involved in initiatives to curb government corruption, oppose the first Gulf War, and challenged the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003. Peter has served on the BPFNA Board in the past, and he and his family are regular attendees at Peace Camp, where he has provided occasional workshop leadership.
Juan Gutierrez
Juan lives in San Juan, PR and is a member of Primera Iglesia Bautista de Río Piedras. He works at the Comisión Estatl de Elecciones (Puerto Rico Election Commission) and is currently a doctoral student in education and counseling. He has an MTh and an MDiv, is ordained, and has done graduate studies in sociology and theology. He was an ABC missionary in Bolivia, Chile and Nicaragua, where he worked in theological education with issues of peace and justice, conflict transformation, mediation and theology. He has also worked for Amnesty International in Puerto Rico.
Juan has been a member of BPFNA for many years and was a member of the Board in the 1990s. He has been a speaker and workshop leader at Summer Conference and has represented the BPFNA in human rights commissions in Colombia and México.
Juan currently teaches courses in Peace Theology and Pastoral Ministry and Conflict Transformation in Church Settings at the Evangelical Seminary in Puerto Rico. He was part of the leadership of the Mesa de Diálogo Martin Luther King, hijo and is part of the observer and mediation group of the Puerto Rican Bar Association.
Ben Sanders III
A resident of Aurora, CO, Ben and his wife are members of New Hope Baptist Church in Denver. Ben is a full-time student in the joint Ph.D. program at the University of Denver & the Iliff School of Theology, focusing on Christian Social Ethics. Since moving to Denver, he has served as Academic Adviser to the National Association of Pan-African Seminarians (NAPAS), an organization on Iliff’s campus, and has participated on various panels regarding justice issues (including a panel on Michelle Alexander’s recent book The New Jim Crow).
Ben holds a M.Div from Union Theological Seminary (NYC), which has a deep, long, and rich legacy of applying the Christian faith to the work of social justice. While at Union, Ben worked with an organization called the Poverty Initiative on issues of race and poverty and also taught at the Children’s Storefront School, an independent school, in Harlem, NY.
Ben learned of the BPFNA through one of his mentors, Dr. Vincent G. Harding (Professor Emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation). He sees the work of BPFNA coinciding with the core of his current studies, which explore the intersection of Christian ethics, race, and notions of what is socially and politically good and possible.
“We are thrilled to welcome these new members to the BPFNA board,” said BPFNA Board President, Cheryl Dudley. “The level of diversity present – in background, expertise and ministry – will bring new voices and perspectives to the table. We look forward to October.”
In September, the BPFNA will say goodbye to long-time board members Valoria Cheek, Doug Donley, Christopher Jackson-Jordan, Steve Jones, Sarah Kelley, Cassandra McKenna, Barbara Taft and Robert Tiller.