March 21, 2010
3:00 pm Lecture
Ralston Deffenbaugh: “From Windhoek to Wartburg: The Vital Role of the Lutheran Church in Namibia’s Struggle for Independence”
4:30 pm Worship
5:00 pm Dinner, Banquet Cost is $10, please RSVP to 563-589-0200
More details about registration coming soon!
Ralie Deffenbaugh has worked for three decades with Lutheran organizations concerned with international affairs. A human rights lawyer, he headed Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) from 1991-2009, the longest-serving chief executive in LIRS’ 70-year history.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is the cooperative agency of the U.S. Lutheran churches that resettles refugees, protects unaccompanied children, advocates for asylum seekers, seeks alternatives to immigration detention, and promotes migrant family unity. During his tenure, LIRS resettled more than 100,000 refugees and the agency’s program and budget expanded threefold. In 1999 Deffenbaugh moved the national headquarters of LIRS from New York to The Lutheran Center—a new six-story building in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Under Deffenbaugh’s leadership, LIRS enhanced its reputation for integrity in advocacy and was called “the moral compass” in the immigration debate.
Deffenbaugh served for two years, 2000-01, as the founding chair of the Refugee Council USA, the coalition of American voluntary organizations working in the field of refugee protection and service. He was a public member of the 1995, 1998 and 2000 U.S. delegations to the annual U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) Executive Committee meetings and of the U.S. delegation to the special meeting in 2001 that marked the 50th anniversary of the U.N. Refugee Convention. He has also been an observer of political trials for Amnesty International, the Lutheran World Federation and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law. He has written extensively on the legal, moral and political aspects of refugee and immigration work. His most recent publication is They Are Us: Lutherans and Immigration (Augsburg Fortress, 2009), co-authored with Stephen Bouman.
After graduating from the University of Colorado (summa cum laude in Economics) and the Harvard Law School, Deffenbaugh worked for a Denver law firm for three years before joining the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Geneva in 1981. As assistant to the general secretary for legal and international affairs, he worked mainly on human rights advocacy and in-house legal matters. He was the primary staff person for committees dealing with southern Africa and the LWF constitution.
In 1985 Deffenbaugh became the Director of the Lutheran Office for World Community in New York, the office that represents the LWF to the United Nations and conducts international affairs advocacy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Major issues of concern included human rights, Africa, Central America, and international development and economics.
Deffenbaugh has twice lived in Namibia. In 1975-76, during the South African occupation of Namibia, he took a year off from law school to serve with the Lutheran World Federation in Namibia, observing political trials and helping in the Lutheran churches’ legal defense efforts. In 1989-90, the year of transition to Namibian independence, again on behalf of LWF, he acted as legal advisor to the Namibian Lutheran Bishops, advising the bishops and the Council of Churches in Namibia on the elections process, on relations between the United Nations and the South Africans, and on how the independence plan was being implemented. He also served as an informal consultant to members of the committee drafting Namibia’s constitution.
Deffenbaugh’s awards include the 40th Gamaliel Chair in Peace and Justice, by the
Metropolitan Milwaukee Lutheran Campus Ministry in 2005; Sylvester C. Michelfelder Award for Christian Service, by Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio in 1995; the Henry and Helen Graven Award for Faith in Action, Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa in 1994: and the Arnold E. Carlson Award, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, in 1991. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Deffenbaugh and his wife, the former Miriam Boraas, have two adult children.
