Douglas G. Grace, M.Div., S.T.M.
Douglas Grace is the Coordinator of Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice. He brings nearly twenty years of experience in ecumenical and interfaith religious leadership with a focus in faith-based public witness. Douglas' professional experience, ongoing academic endeavor and personal prayer centers on the spiritual hope for a religious awakening to the wondrous glory of and covenantal care for all of God's beloved creation.
Douglas has given talks and written numerous theology and public policy articles on caring for creation and human needs issues, including the Stewardship of Public Life series and Church & Society magazine. He was the general editor of and contributor to the interfaith study guide, The Cry of Creation: A Call for Climate Justice. His published works include "Biblical Creation Versus Order of Empire: An Inner and Inter Testament Dialogue," "The Spirit that Binds the Heart and Mind on Immigration: A Theological Reflection," "The Pride In Christ's Cup of Cold Water," and "We Are the Ones…too!"
Douglas served as a presidential election observer in El Salvador, at the invitation of the Salvadoran Council of Churches, following the country's devastating civil war, and he has participated and lead eco-justice delegations in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, Mexico, the Mississippi Delta and in West Virginia coal country. Douglas was a presenter at the faith and science Climate Forum 2002 at Oxford University which produced the evangelical Oxford Declaration on Global Warming. He appeared as a religious commentator for the 2003 CBS Religious Unit production entitled, "A World to Share," which was syndicated throughout the U.S. In 2004, he served as Co-Director, with the Rev. Dr. James Reese, of the national Presbyterian Peace and Justice Conference entitled, "Hope for A Global Future," and he was a keynote dinner speaker at the 2009 Ecumenical Advocacy Days: "Enough for All" on climate change, immigration and migration in Washington, DC. He currently serves as an organizational consultant to the Presbyterian Network to End Homelessness.
Douglas received The Barbara West Scholarship to study at Union Theological Seminary in NYC, and he was awarded the Master of Divinity (2008) with a specialization in Biblical Studies, and the Master of Sacred Theology in Systematic Theology (2009). He received academic distinction in The Bible and Theology and Christian Dogmatics and American Politics. His research thesis attempts to uncover the ecumenical and socio-political theology of the Apostle Paul as a resistance to imperial dominion and oppression of creation. To complete this project, Douglas was selected to study in Rome at the Falcolta di Teologia, the Pontifical Gregorian University and The Vatican Museum, and he was received by Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity at The Vatican.
While studying at Union, Douglas served as a consultant to the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches where he developed a strategic plan and funding proposal, and directed operations for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Faith and Order Movement in the United States. This anniversary celebration event entitled, On Being Christian Together, was held at Oberlin College for leading North American and Vatican religious leaders, scholars and ecumenists.
Following Union, Douglas served as Interim Director of Outreach Ministry at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (MAPC) in NYC. Douglas managed MAPC's extensive outreach programs and public witness, along with weekly worship leadership and regular preaching and teaching and Christian education leadership. He oversaw program coordination and volunteer recruitment of MAPC's outreach ministry; administration of the congregations extensive outreach ministry partnership grants in New York City, the U.S. and in Zambia and Zimbabwe; and mission interpretation of MAPC's ministry: including a six-night overnight homeless shelter, a weekly shelter dinner for 150 guests, a reading enrichment program in East Harlem (LEAP), and a recently developed prison ministry and a new immigration ministry. Douglas was a religious leader on the working group for a city-wide homelessness symposium sponsored by NYC Council of Churches and the NY Board of Rabbis. He joined other NYC religious leaders in an ongoing Jewish-Presbyterian Middle East dialogue hosted by Auburn Seminary and the American Jewish Committee (NY Chapter). In addition, he also worked to implement the Session's policy decision to "go green" in congregational product purchasing and in energy conservation.
Douglas engaged MAPC in public policy advocacy to save NYC's historic congregational homeless shelter system from detrimental policy shifts that the NYC Department of Homeless Services had recently instituted. In a feature story on Christmas Day (2008) about NYC congregational advocacy on behalf of the homeless, The New York Times described Douglas as a "leader in organizing the congregations." In November 2008, he represented NYC congregations in testifying before the NYC Council's General Welfare Committee concerning the Department of Homeless Services' (DHS) progress in meeting Mayor Bloomberg's pledge to reduce homelessness by two-thirds by the end of his administration. In this public witness, Douglas worked in interfaith partnership to create and to serve on the steering committee of the Emergency Shelter Network representing over 100 Jewish and Christian congregations and clergy – which successfully advocated to the Bloomberg Administration to protect services for homeless New Yorkers and to keep congregational shelters open. This 16-month advocacy effort, which grew out of an initial meeting at MAPC, resulted in commitment letter from the DHS Commissioner in June 2009.
Before going to NYC, Douglas served as the director of the Washington Office of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment and its Interfaith Climate & Energy Campaign. He managed funding development and national campaign strategies and operations that included twenty state initiatives all to advocate on climate change policy before the U.S. House and Senate, and to grow public awareness and support for the shared religious principles concerning climate change and creation care. Douglas worked in partnership to further build consensus among Catholic, Evangelical and Mainline Christians and the Jewish community, and he represented the Partnership to the Green Group and the Environmental Grantmakers Association. He worked with the offices of Senators McCain and Lieberman to secure the first-ever testimony given by religious leaders on Climate Change before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and with the office of Senators Lieberman and Brownback to host the first-ever Faith and Environment Prayer Breakfast held for members and staff of the U.S. Senate.
Prior to serving The Partnership, Douglas served as domestic policy analyst and representative for the Washington Office of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Capital Hill, and as an environmental associate at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, also in Washington, D.C.
Douglas is a member of Rutgers Presbyterian Church (NYC) and a candidate for ordination to the Word and Sacrament in the Presbytery of New York City.