Bishop Garland Hunt joins the Douglass Leadership Institute to discuss his life and lessons learned.
Garland R. Hunt is a proven strategic leader with a dynamic ministry background and extensive experience in criminal justice, religious liberty and race relations. He recently authored “Crisis in America: A Christian Response” (2021).
His executive leadership spans some 30 years, with the Fellowship of International Churches, Wellington Boone Ministries and New Generation Campus Ministries, which prepared him for an appointment as President of Prison Fellowship in July of 2011 until September of 2013, an organization that partners with some 7,700 churches and 14,000 volunteers.
He has extensive work as an advocate for religious liberty and criminal justice reform. He is co-Founder of the OneRace Racial Healing Movement. He also serves as a consultant with Alliance Defending Freedom and co-founder of the coalition of religious liberty in Georgia. Hunt serves on the board of directors of Crossroads Prison Ministries and has served as Vice President of the Association of Paroling Authorities International.
In 2004, he was appointed to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, by Governor Sonny Perdue as a member of an executive board authorized to grant paroles, pardons, reprieves, remissions, commutations and the restoration of civil and political rights for Georgia’s inmates, Hunt eventually became chairman of the board in 2006.
In 2010, he was commissioner of the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, overseeing a staff of 4,500 employees, and managed the care of 52,000 youth who were under the supervision and detention of the juvenile justice department. In 1993, he founded the Raleigh International Church; an influential ministry with the mission of racial reconciliation. In March 2015, he was installed as Senior Pastor of the Father’s House in Norcross GA. Each week, Bishop Hunt demonstrates his pastors heart through his passionate preaching and vibrant leadership.
After completing a B.A., from Howard University in 1980 and JD from Howard University School of Law in 1983, he served as a judicial law clerk and staff attorney with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Garland and his lovely wife Eileen have been married for 36 years. They have three grown children, Garland Jr., Christa, Jeremy, daughter in laws Melissa and Ky, son in law Brian and five grandchildren.
