Marlena received her M.Div. from Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York and her Ph.D. in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH where she is researching the influence of American culture has on Evangelicals’ view of immigration, race, and poverty. Are Evangelical views and behavior really ensconced in biblical teaching or are Evangelicals, white Evangelicals, in particular, more influenced by cultural forces of which they are unaware?

Marlena has been on the pastoral staff at several churches, worked at non-profits, been on the residence life staff at a university, and worked for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) – for and with migrant farmworkers in the Midwest and South and the minority community in Toledo, OH. She continues to labor alongside others for justice, for human rights. Since 2015, she has been an adjunct professor at Winebrenner Seminary in the areas of discipleship and spiritual formation. She has written for a wide variety of venues like Christianity Today’s Hermeneutics Blog (now CT Women), Womenleaders.com, and Our Daily Bread where she was a bylined regularly contributing writer. And also for places like, Think Christian, Faith Street, Relevant, and publications by (in) courage and the Zondervan Women’s Study Bible. Marlena is a former member and board member of the Redbud Writers Guild.