SENIOR FELLOWS BIOGRAPHIES
Rev. Dr. Jim Denison
Senior Fellow
Jim Denison, PhD, is an author, speaker, and the CEO of Denison Ministries, which is transforming 6.8 million lives through meaningful digital content.
Dallas-based Denison Ministries includes DenisonForum.org, First15.org, ChristianParenting.org, and FoundationsWithJanet.org. Dr. Denison speaks biblically into significant cultural issues at DenisonForum.org and DrJimDenison.com, as well as on radio, TV, podcasts, and social media. Dr. Denison speaks approximately 25 times per year at events, seminars, and churches and is a frequent guest on radio and television programs.
He is the author of over 30 books, including:
- The Coming Tsunami: Why Christians Are Labeled Intolerant, Irrelevant, Oppressive, and Dangerous—and How We Can Turn the Tide
- Respectfully, I Disagree: How to Be a Civil Person in an Uncivil Time
- Biblical Insight to Tough Questions series, a ten-volume set
He has taught the philosophy of religion and apologetics at several seminaries. Dr. Denison serves as Resident Scholar for Ethics with Baylor Scott & White Health, where he addresses issues such as genetic medicine and reproductive science.
He holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Dallas Baptist University. Dr. Denison is the Theologian in Residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Prior to launching Denison Forum in 2009, he pastored churches in Texas and Georgia.
Jim and his wife, Janet, live in Dallas, Texas. They have two married sons and four grandchildren.
Rev. Anthony (Tony) Peck
Senior Fellow
Tony Peck is a British minister and Baptist leader who until early 2022 served as General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), a position he held since 2004.
In his work for the EBF, Tony has had practical experience of defending religious freedom for Baptists and others where it is under threat or violated. He has participated in several human rights visits to various countries, especially in the Caucasus and Central Asia. He developed the idea of a specialist team at the EBF to give greater leverage on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) issues, which resulted in the appointment of a part-time EBF Researcher in FoRB in 2018. The EBF is connected into key FoRB ecumenical networks as well as the human rights office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Tony developed a practical and academic interest in religious freedom at the time of his first sabbatical leave in 1992 and became inspired by the costly witness of the early Baptists, such as Thomas Helwys, to religious freedom for all. His main academic research interest is in the concept of religious freedom, especially as pioneered by the English Baptists during the 17th century, as well as its contemporary role in the modern concept of human rights. He has written extensively on this Baptist ‘core value’, as well as on aspects of Baptist identity and contemporary missiology, what is now set in the wider context of human rights across Europe as a whole.
He has represented Baptists in ecumenical and intergovernmental bodies and conferences on FoRB and spoken widely on religious freedom. Tony lives in Bristol, UK with his wife Alison, and they have three grown children.
André Simão
Senior Fellow
André Simão is a tax attorney by profession and a religious freedom advocate by passion.
Holding an LL.B and a Master in Law, he provides advisory services in Brazil for national and international companies, mainly in the oil & gas, naval construction, and automotive industry. At the same time, throughout his career, André has assisted pro bono several local churches, missionary organizations, and Baptist Conventions entities, and served at the Rio de Janeiro Evangelical Hospital board of directors for many years.
His passion for missions and human rights, enhanced by previous experiences as a local correspondent to Open Doors Brazil, led him to a sense of calling to stand with vulnerable brothers and sisters harassed for their faith in numerous countries. Getting involved in successful advocacy efforts, taken in 2013, together with the BWA, to release a pastor imprisoned overseas on religious grounds also emboldened such commitment.
André is engaged with the BWA Commission on Religious Freedom since 2012 and serves as its current vice-chair (2020-2025). André has conducted research on subjects related to religious freedom concerns in Latin America and Brazil and has participated as a consultant in the Latin American Regional Consultation Process of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20).
André is a member of the Itacuruçá Baptist Church, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he lives with his wife Daniela and their two little daughters, Sofia and Luísa.
Hon. Frank R. Wolf
Distinguished Senior Fellow (Emeritus) & Former Member of the United States Congress
Congressman Frank Wolf worked tirelessly for decades in the United States Congress to promote international religious freedom, later helping found and provide strategic direction at 21Wilberforce, where he served as Distinguished Senior Fellow. Known as the House’s “champion of human rights” and the “conscience of Congress,” Congressman Wolf served Virginia’s 10th District for 17 terms from 1981 until January 2015.
While in Congress, he was the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan organization that works to raise awareness about international human rights issues.
Congressman Wolf has traveled the globe extensively to better understand the plight of the poor and oppressed, including much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. In Sudan, he led the first congressional delegation to Darfur to bring attention to the genocide there. He has also worked to call attention to the human rights abuses and religious persecution in the People’s Republic of China, Tibet, Romania, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Nigeria, and the Middle East.
Congressman Wolf championed and co-authored the International Religious Freedom Act, which infused religious freedom into U.S. foreign policy by creating the International Religious Freedom Office at the State Department headed by an Ambassador-at-Large. It also established the bipartisan, independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as both a watchdog of repressive regimes and a truth- teller to the State Department.