Guest Preachers for Spring 2026

Photo above (left to right): Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor, and Rev. Dr. Lauren Winner.

Duke Chapel has a long and living tradition of faithful preaching, which includes prominent guest preachers. All of the preachers listed below will deliver their sermons in Spring 2026 during the Chapel's weekly Sunday service at 11:00 a.m.

See the Chapel's calendar for a full schedule of worship services, including dates when Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery and other Chapel staff will preach. A recent archive of services is available on the Chapel website and a podcast of sermons is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For sermons before 2003, see the Duke Chapel Recordings collection on the Duke Libraries website.

January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday) — Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis, D’80

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A theologian, author, educator, and entrepreneur, the Rev. Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, Rev. Dr. Chavis began his career in 1963 as a North Carolina youth coordinator for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. From 1993 to 1994, he served as the executive director and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and remains an active supporter of the NAACP. In 1995, he was the national director and organizer of the Million Man March. The 2010 movie Blood Done Sign My Name depicts a true story from Chavis’s early days in the Civil Rights Movement. He has authored books and other publications, including Psalms from Prison and An African American Political Prisoner: Appeals for Human Rights.

Chavis earned a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School while he was serving a prison sentence as a member of “the Wilmington 10,” whom Amnesty International declared political prisoners. During that time, he received permission to deliver a sermon at Duke Chapel for a 1979 service memorializing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

• Listen to Rev. Dr. Chavis reflect on excerpts from his 1979 sermon in Duke Chapel, which he preached while still a prisoner.

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February 8 — Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor

The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor is a best-selling author, teacher, and Episcopal priest. Her first memoir, Leaving Church, won an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association in 2006. Her next three books earned places on the New York Times bestseller list. Her latest book, Always a Guest, was released in October 2020 by Westminster John Knox Press. Rev. Taylor has served on the faculties of Piedmont College, Emory University, Mercer University, Columbia Seminary, Oblate School of Theology, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia. She was named to the TIME 100 list of Most Influential People in 2014 and has also been awarded Georgia Woman of the Year and the Emory Medal from Emory University, among many other distinctions and honorary degrees.

March 15 — Rev. Dr. Lauren Winner

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The Rev. Dr. Lauren F. Winner is an associate professor of Christian Spirituality at Duke Divinity School. She writes and lectures widely on Christian practice, the history of Christianity in America, and Jewish-Christian relations. Her books include Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, A Cheerful and Comfortable Faith, and Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. More recently, she is the author of Wearing God, a book on overlooked biblical tropes for God, and The Dangers of Christian Practice: On Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin. Rev. Dr. Winner, an Episcopal priest, is vicar of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Durham, North Carolina.