Frank Schaeffer In Conversation with Bekah McNeel & Rev. Dr. Leah Schade, PhD, exploring the themes of their work.
Bekah Stolhandske McNeel is a native of San Antonio, Texas, where she works as a journalist. Her work has appeared in Texas Monthly, Sojourners, The Guardian, The Trace, The Texas Tribune, The 74 Million, Christianity Today, Texas Public Radio, Relevant, Andscape, The Hechinger Report, and the Christian Science Monitor, among others. She published her first book, Bringing Up Kids When Church Lets You Down: A Guide for Parents Questioning their Faith with Eerdmans in 2022.
Known for her ability to communicate the high stakes of politics and policy and bring clarity to complex systems, Bekah keeps the human beings most affected at the front of her coverage.
Bekah is a graduate of the London School of Economics, where she earned a MSc in Media Studies. She is married to Lewis McNeel, an architect with Lake | Flato. They have two young children who, while they do not yet have careers, are very busy.
The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade is the Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky. An ordained Lutheran minister (ELCA) for more than twenty years, Leah earned both her MDiv and PhD degrees from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (now United Lutheran Seminary). She has pastored congregations in suburban, urban, and rural contexts and has been a community organizer and activist for environmental issues for nearly a decade. In December 2021, Leah was elected 2nd Vice President of the Academy of Homiletics, a three-year position that will culminate with serving as President of the Academy in 2024. Leah has authored five books, including Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide, and Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit. She is conducting a longitudinal research study about ministry, preaching, and social issues that has surveyed nearly 3,000 clergy and 1,000 laity since 2017. She is the EcoPreacher blogger for Patheos writing about religion, culture, politics, environmental justice and other social issues. She is also co-founder of the Clergy Emergency League, a network of more than 2,600 pastors throughout the U.S. who provide support, accountability, resources, and networking for clergy to prophetically minister in their congregations and the public square in this time of political upheaval, social unrest, and partisan division.
