After 27 years at the Baptist Joint Committee, Brent Walker is retiring at the end of 2016. The longest-serving staff member in the 80-year history of the BJC, Walker’s work and life touched many of you reading this magazine, but there may be parts to his story you may not know.
In the mid-1980s, Walker was thriving as a partner at the law firm of Carlton Fields in Tampa, Florida. Active in Bayshore Baptist Church, he began to feel a call by God to do something else. Eventually, he and his wife, Nancy, packed up their two young children and moved to Louisville, Kentucky, so Walker could attend Southern Seminary.
After attending a conference in Washington, D.C., and meeting BJC Executive Director James Dunn and General Counsel Buzz Thomas, Walker knew God was calling him to use his legal and seminary training together. Upon seminary graduation in 1989, Walker and his family moved to the nation’s capital so he could join the staff as associate general counsel. It didn’t take long for Walker to make an impact, as he helped build the diverse coalition that led to the passage of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
When Thomas left in 1993, Walker became general counsel. He worked diligently to stop efforts to amend the First Amendment in the late 1990s and fought to support the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which became law in 2000. When Dunn retired in 1999, Walker was named the agency’s fifth executive director.
Walker’s work in the 2000s included opposing government-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments and speaking out against the targeting of individuals based on religion during heightened Islamophobia. As executive director, he created an emphasis on education, oversaw the change in the agency’s name from “Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs” to “Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty” in 2005, and opened the Center for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill in 2012.
Walker has maintained a passion for educating the next generation. In addition to mentoring countless BJC interns, he has overseen the creation of the annual Shurden Lectures, Religious Liberty Essay Scholarship Contest and BJC Fellows Program.
Walker’s legacy at the Baptist Joint Committee reaches far and wide. In the November/December 2016 edition of Report from the Capital, friends and colleagues share what he means to them and how he made a lasting difference in the fight for religious liberty for all. Click below to read their tributes:
Tyrone Pitts: A friend, confidant and adviser
Chet Edwards: A man of faith on Capitol Hill
Richard Foltin: A partner for all seasons
Amanda Tyler: A steady and strong leader
Holly Hollman: A teacher and pastor who prepared us
From the November/December 2016 edition of Report from the Capital. You can also read the digital version of the magazine or view it as a PDF.
