Illuminate Conference

Russ Ramsey, MDiv, has a passion for uniting art and faith. A pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, he is also the author of six books, including "Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart" (Zondervan 2024) and "Rembrandt Is in the Wind (Zondervan 2022).

Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, PhD, is associate professor of art and art history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. She enjoys writing for general audiences on the intersection of art history, politics, and pop culture. In 2023, Baker Academic published Weichbrodt’s book “Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art.”

Douglas McKelvey moved to Nashville in 1991 to participate in the early work of Art House Foundation, an organization dedicated to a shared exploration of faith and the arts. In the decades since, he has worked as an author, song lyricist, scriptwriter, and video director. “Every Moment Holy,” McKelvey’s collection of liturgies, has sold nearly 500,000 copies across three volumes and seven editions.

Rebecca K. Reynolds, MA, is associate publisher for Oasis Family Media and worked on the text for its prose rendering of Edmund Spenser’s epic 16th century poem, “The Faerie Queene” (Sky Turtle Press 2024). She also authored “Courage, Dear Heart” (NavPress 2018), a series of letters written to weary readers in a broken world.

Harvard professor Mia Chung, DMA, is a concert pianist, educator, writer, and spokesperson for music. Over the past several decades she has performed and spoken extensively on stage, on air, and online to engage listeners from around the world. Her hope is to draw people’s imaginations to music’s transformative power and to bring it back to the center of public life.

John Hendrix, MFA, is well known for both his freelance illustration work—appearing in Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, to name a few—and his playful sermon sketchbooks. He also writes and illustrates children's books and graphic novels, including “Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien” (Abrams 2024).

Mary McCampbell, PhD, is an author, professor, and speaker. In 2022, Fortress Press published her book “Imagining Our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy.” You can find McCampbell’s writing in publications such as Image Journal, The Other Journal, Relevant Magazine, Christ and Pop Culture, and The Curator.

Ned Bustard is a graphic designer, children’s book illustrator, author, and printmaker. A sample of the books he has worked on includes “Every Moment Holy,” “The Light Princess,” and “The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad.” Bustard is creative director of Square Halo Books, curator of the Square Halo Gallery in Lancaster, PA, and serves on the board of the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Ismael Sandoval is assistant conductor of the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, the conductor of the CSO Youth Symphony, and music director at First Christian Church of Chattanooga. As someone whole loves bridge-building, he frequently brings music to life in unorthodox performance venues such as homeless shelters, assisted living facilities, hospitals, parks, and anywhere else music might be needed.

Marybeth Baggett, PhD, is professor of English and Cultural Apologetics at Houston Christian University, where her research focuses on American culture and contemporary science fiction. Her latest co-edited book is "Ted Lasso and Philosophy: No Question Is Into Touch" (Wiley-Blackwell 2024).

Winn Collier, PhD, focused on religion and literature—exploring the sacramental vision of Wendell Berry’s fiction—during his doctoral studies. A pastor for more than 25 years, he’s also authored five books, including “A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson” (Waterbrook 2021), and has written for Christianity Today, The Washington Post, and other outlets.

Abigail Santamaria, MFA, is a recipient of an NEH Public Scholar grant whose essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall St. Journal, and Vanity Fair, among other publications. She also authored “Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C.S. Lewis” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2015) and is working on “I Am Meg: The Life of Madeleine L’Engle,” forthcoming from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.