NEW YORK, NY (June 9, 2011) – Two Evangelical Covenant Church authors will be among the featured speakers at Envision 2011, a symposium on environmental issues that will be held at New York Theological Seminary June 16-18.

Lisa Sharon Harper, member of Metro Hope Church, a Covenant congregation in New York City, and Covenant minister Mae Elise Cannon will address the gathering. The symposium will address such questions as, “How can evangelicals and liberals work together to care for the community of creation?” and, “Is the environmental justice movement Christianity’s most important contribution to the environmental movement?”

Harper co-founded and co-directed the Envision 2008: The Gospel, Politics, and the Future conference on the campus of Princeton University, and she is co-chair of this year’s event focusing on the theme “Caring for the Community of Creation: Environmental Justice, Climate Change, and Prophetic Witness.”

Her forthcoming book, Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics, was co-written with D.C. Innes, an evangelical Republican who is also a Tea-Partier. It is scheduled to be released in October. She previously authored Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican … or Democrat.

Harper serves on the board of directors of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good and is cofounder of the National Faith and Justice Network. She was celebrated on Rick Warren’s website Purposedriven.com as one of the site’s inaugural seven “Take Action Heroes.”

Cannon is the author of Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World, which was named Justice Resource of the Year by Outreach Magazine in 2010.

Most recently, she has served as a consultant on child advocacy in the Middle East for Compassion International. She was formerly the executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church located in Walnut Creek, California.