Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller is pastor of St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, TX. He is the author of Take They Our Life: Martin Luther’s Theology of Martyrdom (2019), A Martyr’s Faith for a Faithless World (CPH, 2019), Has American Christianity Failed? (CPH, 2016) and Final Victory: Contemplating the Death and Funeral of a Christian (CPH, 2010). He is host of What-Not, The Podcast, posts videos on YouTube at wolfmueller1, and has a number of other theological projects that all end up on his blog, www.wolfmueller.co. Bryan is a member of the Doxology Collegium. He and his wife Keri live with their four children in Round Rock, TX.
Donna Harrison, M.D. dip ABOG, received BS and BA in Chemistry and Biochemistry from Michigan State University, MD and residency from Univ. of Michigan. with additional studies in International Medicine at University of Arizona -Tuscon. She served as Associate Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Michigan, then entered private practice with a multispecialty group involved in international medicine. While in private practice she served on community health projects both locally and in Haiti and India. Dr. Harrison then retired from clinical practice to serve in Women’s Health Policy positions, most recently as President of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She has testified before the local, state and federal government, as well as the UN, and has lectured in medical schools, universities, and CME conferences as well as published on the long term effects after abortion, mifepristone, ulipristal and maternal mortality and MDG 5. djhobgyn@wildblue.net
Chief of sinners. Child of God. Pastor Harrison Goodman preaches Christ crucified as a light that shines in darkness and a hope for the hopeless at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, San Antonio Texas. As content executive for Higher Things, he helps to make these same gifts known online by employing the many voices and talents of our brothers and sisters in Christ. He believes that while the internet cannot replace word and sacrament ministry, it doesn’t need to try. He shapes Higher Things content to point youth and young adults toward the gifts given in your sanctuary.
Fort Dodge, Iowa. Rev. B. Keith Haney, Assistant to the President for Missions, Human Care, and Stewardship, An ordained pastor for 28 years. Serving multi-ethnic urban congregations Berea, Detroit, MI, Director of Outreach and Evangelism, St. Louis for four congregations in the L.U.T.H.E.R. Plan, Senior Pastor at Gospel Lutheran in Milwaukee and Mission Facilitator, Northern Illinois District LCMS until September of 2019. He is also written a Bible Study on healing racial divides in America, “One Nation Under God-Healing Racial Divides.”
In January 2016, he started to write a blog to encourage believers in their faith journey and non-believers to explore difficult faith issues. The blog has over 6,00 faithful followers, over 1,500 of those are Millennials. The blog address is http://alightbreaksthrough.org
You can subscribe to his new podcast Becoming Bridge Builders on iTunes
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/becoming-bridge- builders/id1527559732
Or Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/show/32doV0vgcnZiT9l6EFnC1R?si=c6289211d3de4c07
Pastor Haney’s role in Iowa District West is to assist congregations with strategic planning, visioning, outreach to the community, cultivate a culture of generosity, and foster a climate of human care that connects faith to crisis situations. He is married to Miriam (Bickel) Haney, and they have six children, Mitchell, Todd married to Zipporah, Sharon, Jonathan, SaraGrace and Zane. They have two grandchildren, Matheo and Nalah Rose. He is currently working on a doctorate in education with an emphasis on organizational change at Concordia University in Irvine, CA.
Rev. Dien Ashley Taylor, Ph.D.
Baptized into the death and resurrection of this Christ Jesus, Dien Ashley Taylor is a child of God. He is the Bishop and President of the LCMS Atlantic District. He also serves as the Pastor of Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church in The Bronx, New York. In addition to this, Dr. Taylor serves as the LCMS President Matthew C. Harrison’s Voting Representative to the Board for National Mission of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. A church musician, pastor, and teacher, Dr. Taylor is devoted to revitalization in Christ’s Holy Church with interests in religion, theology, spirituality, and education, in addition to art and science.
Gregory P. Schulz is Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon. He is a husband, father, grandfather and a confessional Lutheran pastor in the LC-MS with over 40 years in the ministry, both in the parish and in higher education. A graduate of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (M.Div.) in Mequon, Wisconsin, ordained in 1982, he has earned doctorates in both theology (D.Min. from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana) and in philosophy (Ph.D. from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin). He has been recognized as a Top Ten Professor and also as an "Upper Tier Professor for the Integration of Faith and Learning" by CUW, where he teaches various courses, including courses in ethics, bioethics, philosophy of language, Christ and Culture, medieval philosophy and much more. He is a founding professor of the university's innovative Great Texts Pathway curriculum. Currently, he is suspended and under threat of termination for writing and publishing against the Wokeism at his Lutheran university as a Marxist and anti-biblical ideology.
Dr. Schulz is active in academic, church and community service, including DOXOLOGY: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel, where he is Senior Faculty Lecturer, since 2008. An outspoken advocate of philosophy for seminary students and pastors, Pastor Schulz teaches Mission Communication at Fort Wayne, where he has taught in the seminary’s Ph.D. program since 2008. He is also Contributing Editor to LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology.
He retired in 2018 after twenty-two years of service as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force’s Civil Air Patrol, where he flew as aircrew for search and rescue, taught aerospace education and USAF core values and moral leadership, served as the innovative, award-winning Wisconsin Wing Director of Professional Development (2010-2013) and was the decorated Director of the highly successful Great Lakes Region Staff College at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio (2014-2018).
Professor Schulz has lectured and presented academic papers at major universities stateside and in Canada; also at Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K.; in Hong Kong and in mainland China; and at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He has published articles and reviews on various theological and philosophical topics in professional and academic journals such as CTQ, Dialog, De Philosophia, Lutheran Quarterly, Global Journal of Classic Theology and LOGIA and is the author of Wednesday’s Child: From Heidegger to Affective Neuroscience, A Field Theory of Angst and a second, expanded edition of The Problem of Suffering (also translated into Latvian by the Lutheran Church in Latvia). He is the editor of the CD The Problem of Suffering: Companion and Resource featuring a substantial 6-week Bible study on suffering, with student questions and a leader’s annotated guide, as well as articles, sermons, an annotated bibliography and commentaries on suffering, grieving and lamenting. On sabbatical in 2015, he taught and lectured at Cambridge University and at The Lutheran Seminary in Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa.
His current projects include a free mOOC titled “Philosophy KATA CHRISTON: A Pastor’s Introduction to Philosophy,” at http://onlineinfo.cuw.edu/go/philosophy-mooc, a popular blog column, “Ten Master Metaphors for Philosophy” at www.whatdoesthismean.org, extended online interviews with Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller, a book on Christ and bioethics, The Fellowship of His Sufferings: Four Briefings on the Insurgency of Death on Demand and the Counterinsurgency of Pastoral Care (forthcoming), a modest number of book chapters; and curricula for pastors who are graduates of the DOXOLOGY program, "Pastoral Care in our After-Word World" (2020) and "The Fellowship of His Sufferings" (2021). He teaches a biennial course in Medieval Philosophy at Westfield House in Cambridge (currently on hold because of pandemic policies).
Dr Schulz and his wife Paula, a Lutheran teacher and published and award-winning poet, live several miles inland from Concordia University Wisconsin.
Chaplain Craig Muehler, retired U.S. Navy Captain, serves as the director of The Lutheran Church---Missouri Synod Ministry to the Armed Forces. He has held that position since August 2014, after retiring as deputy chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps. He was commissioned in 1986 as a Chaplain Candidate and moved on to serve as a Navy Chaplain from 1988 to 2014. Muehler received his MDiv from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1988, and his Master of Theology from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill., in 2001.
Keeya Vawar is a survivor of sex trafficking in the early 90’s. A powerful voice of hope in a growing ecosystem of despair, Keeya’s motivation and passion for empowering youth and women of all ages is inextricably linked to her own story of hardship and survival against insurmountable odds.
As an author, speaker, and advocate, she connects viscerally with audiences large and small and is known for her uncanny ability to help others make real emotional connections with otherwise obscure realities. Keeya’s current work is centered on advocacy and collaboration with organizations that rescue women and children from the sex trafficking industry.
She works directly with women who have exited “the life”, speaks at schools and organizations locally, nationally. Her advocacy work is international. She recently published her first book on Amazon One Thousand Elsewhere: A True Survival Story which details her struggles as a teenage runaway being trafficked by a famous record producer in Atlanta, Georgia. Keeya has been a wife and mother for 20 years and resides in Texas with her family.
Rev. Michael W. Salemink began serving as executive director-elect of Lutherans For Life in August 2015 and became executive director on January 1, 2016. He received a BA in theology from Concordia University Chicago, River Forest, Illinois, in 1999 and a Master of Divinity from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 2003. He has served as pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Webster, Minnesota, (2003-2005) and as associate pastor of St. James Lutheran Church and School in Lafayette, Indiana (2005-2015). Pastor Salemink and his wife, Heather, have been married since 2000 and reside in St. Louis, Missouri, where they attend Immanuel Lutheran Church, Olivette, with their three sons: Christian, Nathan, and Luke.
