Speakers Bureau

Looking for a way to animate and further engage your community in the work of dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery? Book one of our Coalition leaders for a sermon, workshop, presentation, or other speaking engagement by videoconference or in person!

Sarah Augustine

Sarah Augustine, who is a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is founder and cochair of the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition and Executive Director of a dispute resolution center in central Washington State. She is also the co-founder of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund (SIHF), where she has advocated for vulnerable Indigenous Peoples since 2004. She has represented the interests of Indigenous community partners to their own governments, the Inter-American development bank, the United Nations, the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the World Health Organization, and a host of other international actors including corporate interests.

She is a columnist for Anabaptist World, and co-hosts the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast with Sheri Hostetler. In Washington State, where she lives, she serves in a leadership role on multiple boards and commissions to enable vulnerable peoples to speak for themselves in advocating for structural change. She and her husband, Dan Peplow, and their child live in the Yakima Valley of Washington. She is author of the book The Land Is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (Herald Press 2021) and co-author of So We & Our Children Might Live: Following Jesus in Confronting the Climate Crisis (Herald Press 2023). See this link for Sarah’s extended bio and CV.

Doe Hoyer is the Organizing Director and a song leader with the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, coordinating cultural and structural change campaigns with the Repair Network. Doe is a white, Christian-lineage settler living on Dakota homelands and engaged in organizing for Dakota land rematriation. They graduated with a Master of Arts in Leadership in Social Transformation from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

Themes for Presentations

  • How to join the Repair Network (15 min. PowerPoint with 15 min. Q&A): For ecumenical communities ready to join

  • Stories of Repair: Hopeful stories of non-Indigenous communities engaged in the work of repair alongside Indigenous communities

  • Faith-based organizing for structural change: Learn about the American Indian Recovery Act in Minnesota

Joe Hubbard

Joe Hubbard is an Episcopal priest in North Dakota. He serves as the Convener of the Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable, a network of Episcopal communities, congregations, and diocese committed to joining Indigenous land and water protectors in the struggle for liberation and justice.  Joe was ordained to the priesthood on Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, and he spent the first two years of his ministry learning alongside the Diné of Navajoland.  Joe served as the Vicar of St. Christopher’s Mission and the Ministry Developer and Priest-in-Charge of the Utah Region of the Episcopal Church on Navajoland.  Joe is originally from Montgomery, AL, where he founded a regional Civil Rights and Litigation law firm and served in the Alabama House of Representatives. Joe is compelled by a vision for uniting members of diverse communities together in mutual listening and learning as they work to weave their stories together in a shared narrative rooted in the reconciling love of Jesus.
 

Themes for Presentations

  • Truth-telling and Repair
  • Institutional Repentance
  • Confronting the Sin of White Chosenness

Sheri Hostetler

Sheri Hostetler has been the pastor of First Mennonite Church of San Francisco for 21 years. She is also a poet, writer, activist, mother of a teen son and a backyard permaculturist. Along with Sarah Augustine and Anita Amstutz, Sheri founded the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Coalition. She and Sarah currently host the Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery Podcast. Sheri grew up in the Amish-Mennonite community of Holmes County, Ohio, where her ancestors were the first white settlers to arrive in the 1810s.

Themes for presentations: 

  • Slide presentation on “How the Past Has Shaped Our Present: The Doctrine of Discovery is Happening Now”
  • Reflections from a white settler, Mennonite Christian – connecting my faith to my family’s past
  • Intersections between climate change and Indigenous justice

Dr. Luke Gascho

Dr. Luke Gascho served as executive director of Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College, Wolf Lake, IN for twenty-two years until his retirement in 2019. During his tenure, he led the implementation of field-based undergraduate and graduate programs in sustainability and environmental education. Luke’s graduate degrees are in educational leadership and administration. Luke has provided leadership for the establishment of several creation care and social justice organizations. He is involved locally and nationally with organizations addressing injustices toward Indigenous people.

Themes for presentations: 

  • Learning local Indigenous history — with examples from Luke’s learning from and about Potawatomi people in the Great Lakes region
  • Engaging with the land and regenerative practices
  • Teaching about the Doctrine of Discovery and the many injustices that resulting from it
  • Identifying impacts and injustices by settlers toward Indigenous people and the landscape
  • Finding life-giving reparative actions and implementing them
 

John Stoesz

John Stoesz spent 30+ years working in leadership roles for faith-based justice and peace organizations. These include the Dallas Peace Center, Greater Dallas Community of Churches, Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia, and Mennonite Central Committee Central States. He now devotes his time to two passions: riding his recumbent tricycle and Indigenous justice. In 2012 his family sold his grandparents’ farm in southwestern Minnesota. Since this is Dakota homeland, he donated half the sale amount from his portion to Native organizations working for land justice — most to Makoce Ikikcupi (Land Recovery in the Dakota language). In 2013 he pedaled his trike 2,000 miles through 40 Minnesota counties to raise awareness. He continues to spend significant time on awareness raising, fundraising and organizing among white people, mostly in Minnesota and Kansas, for Native land return.

Themes for presentations: 

  • The Family Farm and Native Land Return: a personal story
  • The Doctrine of Discovery and the History of “Legalized” Land Theft
  • Undoing the Doctrine of Discovery: Demystifying a Mysterious Concept

 

View: A Story of Land Return