MPR’s Kerri Miller to moderate panel at Saint John’s on religion and politics

Minnesota Public Radio host Kerri Miller will be the moderator for the panel program "Religion and Politics in Today's America: An Interfaith Conversation" at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater at Saint John's University.

Pastor Leith Anderson, Imam Makram Nu'Man El-Amin, the Rev. Bill Vos and Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman will be the panelists.

The program, jointly sponsored by the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Public Policy and Civic Engagement at Saint John's University and the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, is free and open to the public.

"Religious ideas and convictions have had an historic and important role in shaping political discourse, elections and public policy," said Matt Lindstrom, director of the McCarthy Center. "This year's political campaigns at the national and state levels are no different as religious leaders and faith communities play myriad roles." 

According to John Merkle, director of the Jay Phillips Center, "the panelists will discuss how their religious faith influences their political ideas and commitments, the impact this election season is having on their faith communities and how they deal with apparent and real contradictions or tensions in their religion's sacred texts and traditions concerning issues found in contemporary politics."

	Kerri Miller is host of MPR's weekday news program "The Daily Circuit." She has been a radio and television news reporter since 1981 and joined MPR in 2004.
	Leith Anderson is president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He served as senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., from 1977 until 2011.
	Makram El-Amin is resident imam of Masjid An-Nur Minneapolis. He is co-founder of the Muslim American Society of Young Adults.
	Bill Vos, a priest of the Diocese of St. Cloud, is director of Catholic Relief Services for central Minnesota and chair of the board of directors of Maryknoll Lay Missioners.
	Marcia Zimmerman has been the senior rabbi of Temple Israel in Minneapolis since 2001, where she holds the Alvin and June Perlman Senior Rabbinic Chair.