Warner University is pleased to announce that Todd Nettleton, Vice President of Message at The
Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), will be the University’s spring 2026 commencement speaker.
VOM has been providing support and encouragement to persecuted Christians across the world
for almost 60 years, and Nettleton has served the organization for almost 28 of those years.
As Vice President of Message, Nettleton serves as host of The Voice of the Martyrs Radio,
which was named as Radio Program of the Year by the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)
in 2016 and 2026. The program airs weekly on more than 1,100 radio stations, and the podcast
version of the show has reached #1 on the iTunes Religion and Spirituality chart.
Nettleton’s most recent book, When Faith Is Forbidden: 40 Days on the Frontlines with
Persecuted Christians (Moody Publishers), won the 2022 Christian Book Award in the
Biography and Memoir category. He has served on the writing team for four additional VOM
books. In fall 2024, Nettleton spoke to students in Warner University’s Honors Program and
provided a copy of When Faith is Forbidden to each student.
During his time at VOM, Nettleton has traveled the world to support, encourage, and hear the
stories of hundreds of Christians who have suffered persecution in over 40 countries. He has
been interviewed more than 500 times by media outlets including CNN, the Associated Press, the
Los Angeles Times, the BBC, Moody Broadcast Network, Christian Broadcasting Network,
Newsweek, The Voice of America, Mission Network News, and Trinity Broadcasting Network.
In 2024, Nettleton received the William Ward Ayer Award, which is given to “an individual
NRB member with excellence and integrity for outstanding and significant contributions to the
field of Christian communications.” He graduated from Bartlesville Wesleyan College (now
Oklahoma Wesleyan University), and he has completed post-graduate work at the University of
Oklahoma. He was raised in Papua New Guinea and southern California as the son of missionary
parents.
Gentry Sutton, President of Warner University, says, “I am thrilled that Todd agreed to serve as
our commencement speaker. He has given much of his life to serve persecuted Christians, and by
putting his own life in danger to help them around the globe, he has embodied the ‘biblically
faithful’ and ‘culturally courageous’ aspects of Warner’s motto. Our graduates will be privileged
to learn from him on May 2.”
