As a woman in the church, Ak­i­lah Hold­er has con­sis­tent­ly spo­ken out on so­cial is­sues where many Chris­t­ian lead­ers—pre­dom­i­nant­ly male—have re­mained silent. Over the years, she has found her­self, of­ten un­ex­pect­ed­ly, at the fore­front of con­ver­sa­tions that many with­in the church have hes­i­tat­ed to con­front.

Hold­er has ad­dressed top­ics that have his­tor­i­cal­ly lacked clar­i­ty and at­ten­tion in faith com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the lo­cal con­text. These in­clude do­mes­tic vi­o­lence with­in the church, gay rights, colourism in the Black com­mu­ni­ty, and the chal­lenges of mod­ern wom­an­hood.

Her courage stems not from am­bi­tion, but from a deep sense of obe­di­ence to what she be­lieves God has placed on her heart—much like Deb­o­rah in the book of Judges, who stepped for­ward when lead­er­ship and truth-telling were need­ed.

A Chris­t­ian au­thor, speak­er, and so­cial com­men­ta­tor, Hold­er has be­come one of the most coura­geous and con­sis­tent voic­es ad­dress­ing sen­si­tive is­sues in both church and so­ci­ety. Her own ex­pe­ri­ence as a sur­vivor of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­forms her ad­vo­ca­cy, giv­ing her in­sight and au­thor­i­ty on an is­sue of­ten ig­nored by faith lead­ers. She was al­so among the ear­li­est Chris­t­ian voic­es to ad­dress gay rights with­in the church con­text, speak­ing un­daunt­ed­ly on a sub­ject many lead­ers avoid­ed.

Her work com­bines spir­i­tu­al con­vic­tion with so­cial in­sight, of­fer­ing per­spec­tives deeply root­ed in Scrip­ture while en­gag­ing hon­est­ly with the re­al­i­ties peo­ple face. In a re­li­gious land­scape his­tor­i­cal­ly dom­i­nat­ed by male cler­gy, Hold­er has opened doors to con­ver­sa­tions long over­due, help­ing in­di­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties con­front is­sues that shape moral and cul­tur­al life.

Hold­er is the au­thor of two books, in­clud­ing her newest re­lease, Heav­en’s View­point: God’s Per­spec­tive on Var­i­ous Life Is­sues, which ex­plores how di­vine wis­dom can guide be­liev­ers through com­plex moral ques­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she has writ­ten more than 30 ar­ti­cles lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly, con­tribut­ing to pub­lic di­a­logue on press­ing so­cial mat­ters.

Her ap­proach re­flects a com­mit­ment to truth, com­pas­sion, and bib­li­cal clar­i­ty. Like Deb­o­rah, she steps for­ward when lead­er­ship is need­ed, speaks bold­ly when nec­es­sary, and seeks to bring God’s heart in­to pub­lic dis­course.

Hold­er’s aca­d­e­m­ic back­ground un­der­scores her an­a­lyt­i­cal ap­proach to faith and so­ci­ety. She holds a B.A. in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence and Span­ish with a mi­nor in French from Brook­lyn Col­lege of the City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York, and an M.A. in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence from the same in­sti­tu­tion.

Through her writ­ing, speak­ing, and ad­vo­ca­cy, Ak­i­lah Hold­er con­tin­ues to chal­lenge the church to con­front dif­fi­cult truths, guid­ing com­mu­ni­ties to­ward jus­tice, eq­ui­ty, and moral clar­i­ty. Her voice is one that re­fus­es to be si­lenced—and her work is help­ing shape a more thought­ful and com­pas­sion­ate faith land­scape.