One Sermon: Four Voices

Speaker Biographies

The Rev. Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins, III, an ordained American Baptist Churches USA minister has served as a pastor, professor, activist, denominational executive and public servant for 45 years. He is the Mayor of Collegeville PA, the Acting Executive Director of the New Baptist Covenant, and the Executive Director Emeritus of the American Baptist home Mission Societies.

Elected on November 7, 2017, he became the Mayor of Collegeville, PA; the first African American, and the first Democrat to be elected to this office. Frustrated with the vitriol witnessed with the 2016 national elections, he was determined to act locally to help overcome divisions of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation and political ideology in his community. As Mayor, he has launched initiatives to connect people across boundaries toward greater understanding.

Concurrently, Aidsand Wright-Riggins serves as the Acting Executive Director of the New Baptist Covenant (NBC), a national multi-denominational Baptist movement founded by President Jimmy Carter devoted to racial justice and bridging theological and geographical divides.

Wright-Riggins served the American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS) and Judson Press from 1991 to 2015 as Chief Executive Officer. In this capacity, Dr. Wright-Riggins provided oversight and leadership for 5,800 churches, 1.5 million people, 16 colleges, 9 seminaries, a host of neighborhood action centers, retirement homes and skilled nursing facilities. Upon his retirement, he was designated Executive Director Emeritus of ABHMS, the first time this designation has been bestowed in its nearly 200-year history. Aidsand fueled a daily devotional called “Word and Witness,” and he is the originator of the ABHMS “Passionaries movement” which encourages people to begin their day with three simple questions: How and where shall I follow Christ today? How can I demonstrate Jesus' love and justice today? How can I play my part in practicing the presence of Christ, right here, right now?

Rev. Dr. Aidsand Wright-Riggins served as a pastor in California for nearly 20 years. Known as “Rev. Ace,” Dr. Wright-Riggins served as pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church, one of the oldest and largest churches in South Central Los Angeles. Concurrent to his pastoral ministry, Wright-Riggins served as the Director of Peace with Justice with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which bridged civil and human rights concerns between African American and Euro-American communities.

Wright-Riggins serves on the Board of Directors of Morehouse School of Religion in Atlanta, GA; Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in New York, and the Kaleidoscope Institute in Los Angeles. He is active in the Collegeville Rotary Club, and his local church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Springhouse, PA. He loves historical novels, blues and gospel music and dabbles in acrylic painting.

Wright- Riggins earned his D.Min. in Family Systems Theory and Organizational Development from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. He holds a Master of Divinity from the Berkeley School of Theology and a diploma from the Ecumenical Center for Black Church Studies. He earned his B.A. in the Sociology of Comparative Religions from the California State University at Fullerton. Aidsand Wright-Riggins was further awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters from Benedict College and Doctor of Divinity degrees from Alderson-Broaddus College, Ursinus College and the American Baptist Seminary of the West.

The Reverend Doctor Mayor Wright-Riggins is married to the Rev. Betty Wright-Riggins, also an American Baptist minister, who serves as a spiritual director and an adjunct professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Aidsand and Betty have three adult children and are parenting one grandchild.

Rev. Dr. Marie Onwubuariri has been serving as Regional Executive Minister of ABC Wisconsin since 2014, where she has nurtured a commitment to living into their diversity across race/ethnicity, theology, socioeconomic status, and urban/suburban/rural cultures by seeking to embody an approach that integrates cultural self-knowing, interpersonal and organizational practices that affirm the value of and ensure equity for all people, and a deep trust in the work of the Triune God.

Dr. Marie will be become Associate General Secretary of Mission Resource Development with ABCUSA (King of Prussia, PA) in January 2021, where she will have oversight of fund development, communications, marketing, and public relations.

Dr. Marie has served as Director of Admissions at the Berkeley School of Theology (BST; formerly American Baptist Seminary of the West), Pastor/staff at three America Baptist churches in the San Francisco Bay area, ecumenical cross-cultural competency trainer, volunteer roles throughout the America Baptist denomination, and an executive in the retail industry in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Her educational training includes a BS in Business Management at Binghamton University (NY), and a Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry at BST (Berkeley, CA). She is co-editor of Trouble the Water: A Christian Resource for the Work of Racial Justice (Nurturing Faith, 2017) and continues to develop her doctoral work focused on holistic intercultural transformational leaders through a character-forming spiritual practice of cultural self-knowing and negotiation.

Dr. Marie is excited to join her “home region-ABCMNY” for this event, having grown up in Elmhurst Baptist Church in Queens, NY.

Rev. Trevor A. Hyde, Jr. is the Pastor of the historic Berean Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY, where Dr. Arlee Griffin, Jr. is the Senior Pastor. Rev. Hyde is a strategic administrator, gifted teacher, an incisive preacher and an effective business manager. As the senior administrator for Berean Baptist Church, Rev. Hyde’s role is to strategically plan and execute a path to successful ministry in the 21st Century. He oversees the church operations including supervision of staff, management of all ministry servant leaders, planning all special worship services and programs, oversight of the church’s operational budget, management of IT services and community engagement.

Committed to community development, Pastor Hyde serves on the board of directors of the Berean Housing Development Fund Corporation (Vice Chair), Berea Credit Union, the Berean Community & Family Life Center and Young Harlem, Inc. (a youth development organization). Pastor Hyde was recently appointed to the advisory board of Gold Coast Bank. Additionally, Rev. Hyde serves as a program consultant to Life Support Inc., a therapeutic initiative geared toward the reduction of gun-violence in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, NY.

Rev. Hyde received his B.A. in Business Administration from Metropolitan College of New York and his Masters of Divinity from New York Theological Seminary and is married to Aleshia Hyde and has Three beautiful children, Mykah and Amaya, and Samara.

Abner E. Cotto Bonilla is the Pastor of Misión Bautista Hispana de Westchester in White Plains, New York; from the 2016. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1984. Over the years, Abner held positions as Treasurer, Vice-President and President of Youth, Bible school teacher, coordinator and educator of the Institute of Theological Training and as Pastoral Assistant in the Baptist Church of Mamey in Gurabo, Puerto Rico.

Pastor Abner has been an educator at the Biblical Institute of the Theological University of the Caribbean in the Caguas region, Chaplaincy Assistant and Christian Values ​​Teacher at CeDin (School Laboratory of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR) and Teacher of Christian Education at the Baptist Academy of Puerto Nuevo, Puerto Rico.

In his collaboration with the Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico, he was also Promoter and President of the Union of Young Baptists of P.R and member of the Executive Board. He was a member of the Intergenerational Think-Tank of the National Council of Churches USA. He is the current President of the National Hispanic Caucus of ABCUSA.

Pastor Abner received her Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Pastoral Studies from the Theological University of the Caribbean in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. In the discernment to continue his studies at the Masters level to the United States, he arrived at Andover Newton Theological School (Newton, MA) in 2015 and then transferred to Yale Divinity School (New Haven, CT), where he finished the Master of Divinity in 2018 and a Master of Sacred Theology at Yale in 2019. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School.  

Reverend Kadia Edwards, a native of St. Catherine, Jamaica, answered her call to ministry in 2002 while serving as a Chapel Assistant at Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Kadia is licensed and ordained to public ministry in the American Baptist Churches denomination. She is a graduate of Duke University where she received her Master of Divinity. Prior to her enrollment at Duke, in May of 2005, Kadia graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism. Kadia is expected to graduate with a Doctor of Ministry degree in December 2020 from Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. Her DMin concentration in Theology, Ethics, and Narratives informs her multivalent methodological approach to racial healing. Currently, Kadia serves as the National Coordinator for Volunteer Mobilization and Disaster Response Ministry with the American Baptist Home Mission Societies.