Aaron is the Associate Presbyter of Congregational Vitality at Heartland Presbytery. Recently, he wrapped up five years at The Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where he most recently served as the Associate Director and Adjunct Associate Professor of Ethics and Society.

As a Christian social ethicist, Aaron’s work is inherently interdisciplinary, engaging topics such as social gospel social ethics, interfaith and congregational broad-based community organizing, leadership, radical democracy, racial capitalism, liberation theology, and feminist theory.

His first book Listening to the Spirit offers a powerful theological framework for building solidarity across difference—anchored in sacred values, not just issues.

Drawing on more than a decade of interfaith, ecumenical and broad-based community organizing, Aaron Stauffer, argues that the practices of the “listening campaign” and the “relational meeting” are not just tactical tools—but religious practices in their own right.

“Aaron Stauffer, a scholar of social ethics, has written the most important book of 2024 on broad-based community organizing connected to religious congregations and other institutions” – Richard Wood, University of New Mexico

An ordained Teaching Elder in the PC(USA), Aaron most recently was the Executive Director and then Special Advisor of Religions for Peace USA, where he helped launch a national anti-Islamophobia program based in the southeast, along with organizing national senior religious leaders on issues of common concern such as mass incarceration, immigration and climate change.  Before his doctoral work, Aaron was an organizer with the Industrial Areas Foundation in San Antonio, Tx.  Aaron is active in his denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and has been active participant in international ecumenical and interfaith organizations, such as the World Council of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches.