Chris Rice, Director, Center for Reconciliation, Duke Divinity School
Chris Rice’s life changed dramatically when he left college to volunteer for six months in Jackson, Mississippi with Voice of Calvary Ministries, a nationally-acclaimed interracial urban ministry. Six months turned into 17 years, living, working and worshiping with Voice of Calvary and the Antioch interracial community he co-founded with Spencer Perkins. Life at Antioch is the subject of his new book, Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South (Jossey-Bass, September 2002).
Chris teamed up with Spencer to do national racial reconciliation work. They traveled the country together speaking and teaching; launched Urban Family magazine and founded Reconcilers Fellowship. Their ministry included Reconcilers magazine, Race & Reconciliation Online and national conferences and seminars. Their book More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel won a Critic’s Choice Award from Christianity Today and has sold more than 40,000 copies.
Chris was a columnist for Sojourners Magazine (winning an Award of Merit from the Associated Church Press), and has written for Christianity Today, New Man, The Christian Reader, Re:Generation Quarterly and Discipleship Journal. He has served as research associate at Boston University’s Institute on Racial and Social Division.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1960, Chris grew up in Seoul, South Korea, where his parents were Presbyterian missionaries. He attended Middlebury College in Vermont until transferring to Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi.
Chris is married to Donna Wheeler, a fellow Voice of Calvary volunteer and Antioch member. They have three children, Benjamin, 11, Talia, 8, and Christopher, 7. The family now lives in Durham, North Carolina, where Chris is studying for a Masters of Divinity degree at Duke University Divinity School.