a Hope for Peace & Justice
Peace Practitioner™ Training Program
February 29 - March 2, 2008

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Program Speakers
Dr. Lucille Hare (Sis) Levin is the founder of an international educational institute focused on violence prevention, and has served at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as an associate scientist at the Injury Control Research Center and School of Public Health, and also as Adjunct Professor in the UAB and Samford Schools of Education. Dr. Levin was Visiting Professor of Peace Studies at Chapman University, and she also taught workshops on “The Role of Forgiveness in Conflict Management and Reconciliation” at Pepperdine Law School, UCLA, Stanford and elsewhere. Dr. Levin is perhaps best known for her role in negotiating the release of her husband, Jerry, a CNN Bureau Chief who was held hostage by Hezbollah in Lebanon, as relayed in her best selling book Beirut Diary, She consulted on the NBC-TV rendition,“Held Hostage,” starring Marlo Thomas as “Sis.”

Rev. Michael S. Piazza is a spiritual visionary, author and social justice advocate who currently serves as Dean of the Cathedral of Hope, known as the world’s largest liberal Christian church with a predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender outreach, as well as President of Hope for Peace & Justice, a non-profit ministry of Cathedral of Hope whose mission is equipping progressive people of faith to be champions for peace and justice. He holds bachelor degrees in history and psychology from Valdosta State College in Georgia and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology, Emory University in Atlanta.
The Advocate magazine named Rev. Piazza one of the most influential people in the gay and lesbian movement. He has six published books including Gay by God: How to be lesbian or gay and Christian, Queeries: Questions Lesbians and Gays have for God, and The Real antiChrist: How America Sold its Soul. He is currently at work on Prophetic Renewal, a book designed to help restore vitality to liberal congregations.

John Carmody, the Director of the Center for Christian Nonviolence, is a former Marine Corps Captain and a Vietnam veteran who was awarded a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He left the Marine Corps in 1970 to teach and pursue a career in neurobiology and cardiovascular medicine. Today, John is engaged in a different kind of battle, one that has abandoned the rational ethics of war and embraced the Christian ethic of nonviolent love. From his background in neurobiology, and also from his study of the theology and spirituality of Christian nonviolence, John has fashioned a program that reviews the scientific evidence showing the human brain has, as part of its inheritance, an innate capacity for care and compassion.These capacities reside in the most highly developed areas of the brain, and thus can regulate lower brain areas that give rise to violence, fear and aggression. John focuses attention on a critical finding: whether or not the capacity for caring and altruistic behaviors is expressed or inhibited is dependent on how an individual is nurtured.

Rev. Kevin Higgs is the pastor of the Church of the Reconciler, the unique interfaith mission church focused on peace-building in Birmingham, Alabama, serving the poor homeless (mostly black) community. The church makes no distinction of race, sexual orientation, creed or belief, and has attained the highest recognition and respect in the Southland, which, historically is known for tragic prejudice of all kinds.

Program Schedule

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