Melissa Rogers director the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University School of Divinity and serves as a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, will be our guest this year. She also teaches courses on church-state relations and Christianity and public policy within the divinity school. Rogers previously served as the executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Prior to her leadership at the Pew Forum, Rogers was general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Rogers has co-authored a case book on religion and law for Baylor University Press, Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court.

In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed her chair of the first Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She has testified before the Constitution Subcommittees of the Judiciary Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. In 2004, National Journal recognized Rogers as one of the church-state experts “politicians will call on when they get serious about addressing an important public policy issue.”

Rogers earned her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a member of the National Moot Court Team and a Legal Writing Instructor. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Baylor University.

Ambassador Randolph Bell a graduate of The College of William and Mary and Cambridge University, will also join us, as we learn more about our First Freedom it's use and abuse. Ambassador Bell possesses a long and distinguished record of diplomatic and public service. Most notably, he has worked for such organizations as the United States Department of State, the Bureau of European Affairs and various United States embassies.

Ambassador Bell is currently on the board of the Virginia Holocaust Museum and a member of the International Council of Austrian Service Abroad. In 2004, he received the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria from the Austrian Order of the Silver Star.

From 2003-2009, Ambassador Bell was also the president of the World Affairs Council of Greater Richmond and is currently the president of The First Freedom Center.

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