Jennifer is the founding Executive Director of Faith in Public Life and the former chair of the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships. Before leading FPL Jennifer spent ten years working in the field of international human rights representing the Presbyterian Church (USA) at the United Nations and is an ordained minister. While mobilizing religious communities to address the AIDS pandemic and advocate for women’s rights she grew passionate about the need to counter religious extremism with a strong religious argument for human rights. Out of that experience she wrote Born Again: The Christian Right Globalized, which was published by University of Michigan Press. Her book calls for a progressive religious response to Religious Right efforts to take the culture wars global.
Jennifer served in the Peace Corps from 1989 to 1991 in a Mayan village in Belize, Central America where she discovered she was at heart a community organizer.
Jennifer and her husband Glenn together run Iona Conversations, a Christian spiritual community in downtown Washington DC. When not dreaming up ways to amplify a social justice faith voice, Jennifer loves camping, hiking and biking with her husband and son.
Learn more: www.faithinpubliclife.org/staff-board
Recent media highlights:
Huffington Post, #NeverthelessShePersisted: Rev. Jennifer Butler And The Power Of …
New York Times, What a Leader of the Religious Left Admires About the Religious Right
Religion News Service, Clergy arrested outside McConnell’s office while protesting health
