For additional info and Sponsorship Details, click here or Email Pastor Ed Treat or Louise Olson
CONFERENCE SPEAKERS:
Rev. Timothy McMahan King
Dr. Jennifer Carlier
Rev. Ed Treat
Rev. Timothy McMahan King is a deacon in the Episcopal church, writer, senior fellow for clergy for a New Drug Policy, and the owner of Vagabond Strategies. He is the former chief strategy officer for Sojourners and has served as a consultant for national nonprofits, advocacy campaigns, and political candidates. He is the author of What Are Drugs For? An Exploration of Stolen Fire (Fortress, 2026) and Addiction Nation: What the Opioid Crisis Reveals About Us (Herald Press, 2019). He has written widely for national publications, including The Wall Street Journal and CNN and is an active advocate for those in recovery and drug policy reform.
From Tim: “I’m the Rev. Timothy McMahan King. I serve as a deacon in the Episcopal church and am an author, speaker, and Senior Fellow at Clergy for a New Drug Policy.
As my day job, I founded Vagabond Strategies, and work as a consultant for clients on digital and communication strategies. One of my specialties is helping organizations apply the best research in addiction studies for understanding how and why people change.
I worked at Sojourners, a faith-based advocacy organization in D.C., for seven years and finished up my time there as the organization’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Before that, I worked as a community organizer in Chicago. That was also where I attended North Park University and studied biblical and theological studies and philosophy.
I live in North Carolina with my wife Hannah, our two daughters, and our dog, Hank.”
BREAKOUTS INCLUDE:
Jenn Carlier is a Louisville Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow at Candler School of Theology, where she teaches ethics and theology. Jenn’s work focuses on the encounter between lived experience and theology and seeks to retrieve theologies and practices that are liberative for underrepresented communities, especially those struggling with addiction and mental health issues. Her research interests include feminist and queer theologies, the intersection of theology and mental health, and metaphorical theology. She is an active member of Kirkwood United Church of Christ, where she is a youth mentor and an advocate for reducing the stigma around mental health and addiction.
Carlier is the author of Finding God in the Basement, which reimagines the Christian theology of sin and salvation through the lens of addiction, offering a liberative vision of human dignity, hope for recovery, and communal transformation.
In Finding God in the Basement, Jennifer Carlier offers a theologically incisive critique of how Christian doctrines of sin and salvation fail to engage the lived realities of addiction and recovery. Drawing from her own experiences and from memoirs that recount others’ journeys through addiction and recovery, Carlier blends storytelling with theological scholarship and insights from addiction studies to offer a liberative theological framework for talking about addiction in a way that reimagines it, accounting for not only the profound suffering of addiction but also the hope of recovery.
Rev. Dr. Ed Treat is founder of the Center of Addiction & Faith and director of the Fellowship of Recovering Clergy. He’s been in long-term recovery for 40 years. After earning his M.Div. and D.Min. at Luther Seminary, he served congregations from 1995–2020, including a mission start. He wrote The Pastor (2017), Faith Communities and Addiction Recovery: A Practical Guide for Faith and Community Leaders (2026) and his latest, The Lie That Kills Us: We All Have Elephants (2026) a memoir-theology on addiction, denial and grace.
In The Lie That Kills Us, Treat offers a deeply personal and unflinchingly honest exploration of addiction, denial, trauma, faith, and the human patterns that keep us stuck.
Johann Hari said this about The Lie That Kills Us: “A deeply moving book about denial and recovery. It will help so many people.” Addiction is not just about substances.
It is about how we cope with pain we don’t know how to face.
Blending story, theology, recovery wisdom, and psychological insight, this book uncovers the “elephants in the room” that shape our lives—individually, in families, in churches, and across our culture.
Pastor Ed’s wife, Karen, is also a Lutheran pastor and they live in Woodbury, MN. where they enjoy their four grown children and two grandchildren.
Dr. Lindsey Elmore, Pharmacist, podcast host, and addict more than a year sober, will join us to discuss the risks and benefits of faith-based recovery programs.
Rev. Megan Hollaway of Ligare, a Christian Psychedelic Society, joins us for a discussion of Medicine, Mystery, and Caution: Psychedelics and the Question of Recovery.
Rev. Barry Lehman will share with us practical ways for creating communities where recovery can flourish,
Rev. Karen Treat will discuss Spiritual Practice and Recovery: Deepening Our Connection with God.