General Synod 35 keynote speaker is a minister at the intersection of faith and civic engagement 

The keynote speaker for this summer’s General Synod 35 is a faith-based activist and author with a long history of working to build public attention for issues of faith and justice.  

The Rev. Jennifer Butler is perhaps best known for her role in founding and leading the organization Faith in Public Life – a coalition of influential and diverse faith leaders that work toward a just, inclusive, and equitable country – from 2005 to 2022. 

More recently, she was tapped to head faith outreach for the Harris-Walz campaign in the months leading up to the 2024 election.  

Butler describes herself as “an advocate for human dignity and justice” and has spoken and written extensively on issues including healthcare and abortion access, calling people into the work for racial justice, and condemning Christian nationalism as a hijacking of Christianity.  

She will bring her wealth of experience to the Kansas City General Synod stage in July.  

‘Scripture as a handbook for resisting tyranny’ 

Butler, a minister ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA), has shared that she grew up as a white Southerner in the Bible Belt, and she was “surprised to discover that Scripture is actually a handbook for resisting tyranny and authoritarianism.”  

This became the premise of her most recent book, Who Stole My Bible? Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny. In it, she weaves lessons from scripture with stories of religious communities opposing authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism in America today.  

“I discovered spiritual practices in Scripture to ground my resistance to heresies such as Christian nationalism by rejecting idolatry, remembering the truth about who we are, and recognizing the innate dignity of every person made in the image of God. As I work to defend and expand a multifaith, multiracial democracy, I continue to find hope in Jesus’ mission statement in Luke 4:18-19 to ‘proclaim good news … [and] set the oppressed free,’” Butler said in 2022, when she was named one of Center for American Progress’ Faith Leaders to Watch. 

With these commitments, General Synod planners are confident that Butler has a compelling message for the United Church of Christ in the present moment.  

“Throughout her ministry, Rev. Jennifer Butler has been deeply involved at the intersection of faith and civic engagement. Grounded in her faith commitments, her work has included mobilizing diverse coalitions to find common ground on issues of justice,” said the Rev. Josh Baird, UCC chief of staff and General Synod administrator. “Her voice is important in this time, when public civility is in decline, differences are exploited to divide us, and Christianity is under threat of infection from nationalist fever. Rev. Butler will speak to the strength of our diversities and challenge us to deepen our engagement for the sake of the most vulnerable among us.” 

‘Prophetic duty’

In her work with Faith in Public Life, Butler helped to mobilize multi-state faith leaders to play a role in the passage and protection of the Affordable Care Act. During 2017 protests to protect people’s access to healthcare, she was arrested alongside Moral Movement leader the Rev. William Barber II and the Rev. Traci Blackmon, UCC pastor and former national officer. 

“People of faith have to be willing to lay their bodies on the line,” she reflected following the arrest. “We know that civil disobedience is not just an organizing tactic from a bygone era. It is our prophetic duty.” 

Prior to Faith in Public Life, Butler began as PC(USA)’s representative to the United Nations office in 1996, where she spent ten years organizing globally to address issues including gender equality, the AIDS pandemic, children’s rights, and peace in the Middle East. From this experience, she grew passionate about the need to counter religious extremism with a religious argument for human rights and, in 2006, published the book Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized.  

Butler also served as chair of the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2015-2016 under then-President Barack Obama.  

Having served in positions under Obama and Harris, Butler has voiced a commitment to remaining beholden to God and her moral values and not a political party.  

‘Love our neighbor, welcome the stranger’ 

Butler currently serves as founder and executive director of Faith in Democracy, a new organization founded to organize a global response to autocracy and religious nationalism.  

She marked this year’s fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by moderating an organizing call on how faith communities can take action to save democracy.  

“We recognize that this election has meant so many different things to so many of us, and it’s been a very painful and discouraging time. It can be tempting to think that there’s nothing we can do and to feel powerless, but we have to be careful not to obey an autocrat in advance,” she said. 

Butler’s new writings can be found on her Reclaiming Faith Substack. She has published a wide range of editorials in Religion News Service, Sojourners, and Red Letter Christians, and was a panelist alongside former General Minister and President Rev. John Dorhauer in a 2022 webinar on countering Christian nationalism. 

As times change, Butler’s message has remained grounded in calling people together across difference for the sake of moral vision and action. 

“Scripture and the real Christian vision is bigger than the interests of our class, religious, national or ethnic group,” she wrote. “Our liberating God calls us to build a society based on shared power around a moral vision of loving our neighbor and welcoming the stranger.” 

Registration for General Synod, to take place July 11-15 in Kansas City, Missouri, is open now. 

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