ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Poverty and Social Justice Program at Elon University. As a feminist and Christian social ethicist, Rebecca Todd Peters’ scholarship focuses on questions of social ethics as they relate to economics, the environmental crisis, globalization, poverty and women’s access to reproductive health care. Peters addresses issues of conflict and social injustice in the world with the recognition that religion plays a significant role in shaping people’s worldviews and moral ideas. Her most recent work is developing a Christian ethic of reproductive justice as the framework for thinking about women’s whole reproductive lives, including everything from access to contraception to fertility treatments to unplanned pregnancies. Drawing from many sources, including history, social science, philosophy, and Christian tradition, this new project also focuses on helping people think in more sophisticated ways about how pregnancy challenges our existing moral categories of life. 

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Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), she has been active in her denomination and ecumenically for more than twenty-five years and currently represents the PC(USA) as a member of the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches. Peters is the 2018 recipient of the Walter Wink Scholar-Activist Award from Auburn Seminary. In addition to her eight books, Peters has published more than 25 articles and chapters and her blog, “To Do Justice” can be found on the Progressive Christianity page of ww.Patheos.com. She is currently a Public Fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and an Elon Senior Faculty Research Fellow for 2018-20.

She is a graduate of Rhodes College (B.A.), and Union Theological Seminary in New York (M.Div., Ph.D., Christian Social Ethics).