About Our Ministers

The Rev. Robert M. Hardies, Senior Minister

Rev. Hardies is senior minister of All Souls Church, Unitarian in Washington, DC, an historic, diverse congregation in the heart of the nation’s capital. In Washington, Rev. Hardies is also a leader in the Washington Interfaith Network, a coalition of 40 congregations building power to create social change in the city. He is a board member of Clinica del Pueblo, a non-profit health clinic serving DC’s Latino community, and, from 2001 to 2003, he served on DC Mayor Anthony Williams’ Interfaith Advisory Board.

Nationally, Rev. Hardies is a member of the advisory board of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, founded by Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cornell West to counter the power of the religious right. In 2006, All Souls Church hosted the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ national conference. Rev. Hardies’ public affairs commentaries have appeared on the nationally-syndicated public radio program Interfaith Voices, and he has appeared on CNN and CBS to voice his opposition to the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment.

Among his scholarly pursuits, Rev. Hardies edited Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now (Skinner House, 2006), a collection of essays by the feminist theologian, Rebecca Parker. He is an adjunct faculty member at Wesley Theological Seminary.

Before coming to All Souls, Rev. Hardies served Unitarian Universalist congregations in Oregon and California. He is a graduate of Cornell University and Starr King School for the Ministry, the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, California.

The Rev. Louise Green, Minister of Pastoral Care and Lay Leadership

The Rev. Louise Green is currently Minister of Pastoral Care and Lay Leadership. Louise moved from New York City in 2004 to be Minister of Social Justice at All Souls, and began her new portfolio in September, 2010. She was ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC) in 1992 and is affiliated with the Chesapeake UU Ministers Association (CUUMA) since 2008. In June, 2010, she completed an M.A. in Applied Healing Arts from Tai Sophia Institute, a national wellness school in Laurel, Maryland. In 2011, Louise will be Lecturer at American University for a course on Values and Action in World Religions.

Louise grew up in El Paso, Texas, and graduated from the University of Oregon Honors College In Eugene (B.A. 1983). She began dancing at age 6, and danced professionally with the El Paso Contemporary Dancers, the Eugene Ballet, Eugene Contemporary Dance Theatre, Wendy Rogers Dance Company in Berkeley, California, and Jan Erkert and Dancers in Chicago, Illinois. Her work included performance, teaching modern, ballet, and jazz, and choreography for concerts and musicals.

She was drawn to ministry in 1987 by a progressive UCC congregation involved in urban ministry in Chicago, and reconnected with her Presbyterian heritage and family history of ministry. She attended Harvard Divinity School (M.Div. 1991), and did field education as a prison chaplain in an immigration prison, as a campus chaplain at Tufts, and as a case manager at City Mission Society. For six years while in Massachusetts, she was a member and co-founder of the Just Peace Players, a social justice arts performance group and a project of the Metro Boston Association of the UCC. Louise began studying yoga at Kripalu in Lenox, MA in 1988 and has been a practitioner and then teacher for over twenty years.

Her first call to ministry was at Memorial Congregational Church in Sudbury, MA, where she was ordained as Associate Minister for Social Justice and Religious Education. She also served as a volunteer chaplain and teacher at MCI-Framingham prison for women for three years. Her second call was to Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, where Louise served as Associate Minister, working on worship, adult education, and arts programming in Greenwich Village. She was the Board Chair of Bailey House, an HIV-AIDS housing organization in Manhattan, on the National Council for the UCC Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, and co-chair for the National Bisexual Network of the UCC.

In 1994, Louise began training in multi-issue broad-based community organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), and worked in three New York City affiliates of the IAF. She was Associate Organizer for Brooklyn Interfaith Action, and then Upper Manhattan Together. Before moving to Washington, D.C. she was Lead Organizer for East Brooklyn Congregations, working with 40 congregations, three EBC charter schools, and over a thousand EBC Nehemiah homeowners. She also taught community organizing in Sing Sing Prison with the New York Theological Seminary.

Louise lives with her partner, Regina Tosca, in the Petworth neighborhood of D.C., along with a menagerie of animals. She is the happy aunt of 8 children, and enjoys the arts, travel, dance, yoga, and retreats.

The Rev. Dr. Susan Newman, Interim Associate Minister of Congregational Life and Social Justice

Dr. Newman has had a 34-year career as pastor, community advocate, teacher, chaplain, and author. A native Washingtonian, Dr. Newman is the president of Sincerely Susan Ministries and is affiliated with Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ and Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ. She has served as the director of public policy at the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and senior advisor for religious affairs to the District’s mayor. Hailed by Ebony Magazine as one of the Top Black Women Preachers in America, she has been called “down-to-earth,” “powerful,” “life-changing,” and “a reality check for the church.”

An HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy prevention educator and trainer, Dr. Newman has worked with several community and faith-based groups, including the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Planned Parenthood, and AIDS Action Foundation. She has served in various advisory roles in the DC LGBT community, consulting with Us Helping Us-People Into Living and the Human Rights Campaign. She actively advocates a national coordinated AIDS strategy to reduce racial disparities, lower the incidence of infection, increase access to care, and involve all stakeholders.

In Atlanta, Dr. Newman was senior pastor of First Congregational Church, UCC; she chaired the mayor’s Commission on Community Relations and the governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Welfare Reform. She also served as the executive director of Georgians for Children, a child advocacy organization that monitors and recommends changes in state policies. She is an inductee into the Board of Preachers of the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel at Morehouse College, which honors clergy for their lifetime work in social justice.

Dr. Newman has been the resident chaplain at the Washington Hospital Center; adjunct professor at the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio; religious coordinator for the Children’s Defense Fund; and chaplain and director of community service at Hood College in Frederick, MD. She has sat on both the UCC’s Central Atlantic Conference and its Ministers for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice.

Her several publications include With Heart and Hand: the Black Church Working to Save Black Children; Oh God! A Black Woman’s Guide to Sex and Spirituality; and Your Inner Eve: Discovering God’s Woman Within. Dr. Newman received a BA in journalism from George Washington University, a Master of Divinity from Howard University School of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry from the United Theological Seminary.