Interfaith America is incredibly excited to announce our inaugural cohort of the Good Neighbors Fellowship, a program bringing together ten Christian scholar-practitioners to model how evangelicals can contribute to and learn from a religiously pluralist U.S. society.
Grounded in IA’s vision of pluralism and interfaith cooperation, this fellowship equips emerging scholars and leaders to:
- Demonstrate how evangelicals can serve as bridgebuilders in a religiously diverse society and ever polarizing political climate;
- Cultivate a community of thought leaders who are rooted in faith and committed to collective flourishing; and
- Develop insightful public scholarship and constructive resources that promote religious pluralism in and for Christian faith communities.
Along with their training, these fellows will produce resources and written materials essay that highlight the constructive intersections of evangelical faith and civic pluralism.
Learn more about the Good Neighbors Fellowship on our website and follow Interfaith America on social media platforms to stay updated with this cohort.
Brett McCarty
Durham, NC
Brett McCarty, Th.D., is assistant professor in population health sciences in Duke School of Medicine and assistant research professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School, where he also is associate director of the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative. Through a program in theological formation for those with vocations of health care and research on faith-based responses to substance use issues, Dr. McCarty’s work examines how people of faith navigate health care, both as practitioners and as patients.
David Katibah
New Haven, CT
David Katibah is a public educator, peacebuilder, poet, and seminarian currently based in Connecticut, where he is pursuing his Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School (YDS). Prior to YDS, he spent nearly a decade working with international nonprofits across East Asia and the Mediterranean, specializing in American evangelicalism, foreign policy and Palestine/Israel. He now serves on the board of Peace Catalyst International. Of Syrian Christian descent, David writes at the intersections of ancestry, liberation, spirituality, and embodiment.
Gavin Chase
Princeton, NJ
Gavin Chase is a theologian, farmworker, musician, and incoming PhD student at Villanova University. His work lives at the intersections of ecology, power, and end-of-life care with a current focus on how U.S. evangelical commitments to rapture and afterlife ideologies sidestep materiality, mortality, and the ecological world. His research turns to ecological process — death, dying, and decay — as a corrective to these escapisms.
Gavin’s writing has appeared in God Here & Now Magazine and Yale University’s Graduate Conference in Religion & Ecology, among other publications. He recently composed and performed Antiphonies for the Dying Fowl at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts. In addition, he works as Managing Editor for God Here & Now Magazine through the Center for Barth Studies.
When he’s not writing or making music, Gavin tends chickens and sheep at Princeton’s Farminary Project.
Jared Stacy
Tampa Bay, FL
Jared Stacy is a theologian, ethicist, and author of “Reality in Ruins”. He has his PhD from the University of Aberdeen, and his research focuses on the intersection of theology, political extremisms, and disinformation. Jared is the Secretary for the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics in the United Kingdom and also works as a hospice chaplain among his community in Tampa, Florida.
Joash P. Thomas
Toronto, ON (Canada)
Fr. Joash P. Thomas is a highly sought after international speaker, public theologian, and author. Drawing from his St. Thomas Christian roots and a decolonized, Jesus-centered & justice-oriented understanding of Scripture, Fr. Joash helps audiences reimagine a faith that unites rather than divides and that stands firmly with neighbors on the margins. Through speaking engagements, teaching, and advocacy, he calls Christians to a more contemplative yet courageous activism, motivated by the grace-filled, non-violent way of Jesus.
Born and raised in India, Fr. Joash served as a U.S. political consultant and lobbyist before pivoting to global human rights advocacy. Now based in the Toronto area, he holds a master’s degree in political management from The George Washington University and holds two master’s degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary in Christian Leadership and Theology. An ordained priest in the Diocese of St. Anthony, Fr. Joash is also the author of the widely read book, “The Justice of Jesus,” published by Brazos Press. He also serves as Instructor in Public Theology, Peace & Justice at St. Stephen’s University (Canada).
John Walker
Princeton, NJ
John Walker is a PhD student at Princeton University in the Religion, Ethics, and Politics program. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he graduated from George Fox University with a degree in philosophy and received a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. His research focuses broadly on Christian moral and political thought, with a special interest in Augustine and the Protestant tradition. He is currently writing a dissertation on the virtue of mercy. Since 2022, he has been a co-organizer of the Oxford-Princeton Seminar in Christian Ethics. He served for a year with the Center of Theological Inquiry as a graduate fellow and currently is a member of the Templeton Pluralism Fellowship.
Kimberly Phinney
Land O’ Lakes, FL
Kimberly Phinney is an award-winning professor, writer, and counselor. She is the founder, editor-in-chief, and publisher of TheWayBack2Ourselves.com and The Way Back Books, an international community for faithful creatives and leaders. Kimberly holds her M.Ed. in English and is a doctoral candidate in Community Care and Counseling. Her dissertation is on the exiled Christian artist. Her work has been published in Christianity Today, Ekstasis, Fathom, Solum, Ruminate, and more. Her poetry collections, “Of Wings and Dirt” (2024) and “Exalted Ground” (2025), were bestsellers in Christian poetry. Her forthcoming book on art, faith, and belonging will debut with Baker Books in 2027. She is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and the Audience Choice Award winner for the Bright Wings Poetry Contest with Ekstasis and Makers and Mystics (2024), as well as runner-up with Fathom’s Poetry Contest (2023). She was featured on Good Morning America and ABC News for her national teaching award with the Nobel Family and National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS).
She lives in Florida with her husband, daughter, and old dog, Harper Lee (yes, after the novelist). When she’s not writing and serving, you’ll find her in the Blue Ridge Mountains or enjoying an old jazz record with a bold roast coffee. You can find her @thewayback2ourselves and @kimberlyphinneywriter on Instagram and at her popular Substack publication, The Way Back 2 Ourselves.
Sabina Pappu
Atlanta, GA
Sabina Pappu cares deeply about people, especially Christian leaders who often carry so much in this world. She is passionate about creating spaces where individuals can slow down, be fully known, and engage their stories with honesty and compassion. Her heart for this work began at 16, when she first felt a burden for leaders navigating the quiet challenges of leadership. In 2020, as she watched more leaders step away from their roles, Sabina felt drawn to understand better the intersection of emotional health, faith, and leadership.
She earned a B.A. in Counseling from Moody Bible Institute and later graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary, where her love for the human story and spiritual formation deepened. She believes that many leaders struggle not because they are incapable, but because they lack safe spaces to process their experiences and be supported.
Sabina is the founder of Se.cure, an initiative that offers those very spaces, where emerging leaders can ask honest questions, find healing, and grow in community. She hopes to see leaders who feel seen, known, and supported, and who lead from a place of authenticity, freedom, and deep care for others.
Read more: Announcing the Interfaith Innovation Fellowship 2023 Cohort
Samuel Hagos
Chicago, IL
Samuel Hagos serves on the pastoral staff at Progressive Baptist Church of Chicago, where he helps people take meaningful next steps in their life with Jesus and in the life of the church. He is a pastor, preacher, writer and an emerging voice at the intersection of faith, history, and public life.
He holds a Master of Divinity from Beeson Divinity School, where he was awarded the 2022 James Earl Massey Student Preaching Award, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies from Criswell College.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Samuel has been preaching since 2016 and sensed a call to ministry from a young age. Tethered to this calling, he seeks to serve the church and the broader world as a student of history, examining the past to better understand the present, and help shape a faithful collective future.
He writes on Substack at samuelhagos.substack.com, where he reflects on faith, history and the life God has entrusted to him.
Yanan Rahim N. Melo
Franklin Park, NJ
Yanan Rahim N. Melo is a writer, theologian, and musician from the Philippines. He serves as Editorial Director at the Center for Barth Studies, a research center at Princeton Theological Seminary, and opinion columnist for Sojourners. He holds a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he worked at the intersection of Christian doctrine, settler colonialism, and liberation theology.
Read more: Navigating American Evangelicalism as a Filipino Immigrant
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