The Rev. Robert Wister is a leading expert on the history of the papacy. He is a professor of church history at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He earned a doctorate in church history at the Gregorian University in Rome.

The Rev. Michael A. Fahey is professor emeritus of theological studies at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He is an expert on the history and office of the papacy, and papal elections.

George Weigel is an orthodox-minded Catholic theologian and distinguished senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He is the author of God’s Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church (2005) and Witness to Hope (1999), which is essentially the authorized biography of Pope John Paul’s papacy. Weigel also wrote The End […]

Anthony Gill, professor of political science at the University of Washington in Seattle, researches church-state relations from a microeconomic perspective. He teaches a course on religion, politics and economics. His books include Rendering Unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America. Gill conducts research on community efforts to restrict the property rights of […]

Andrew Yuengert, professor of economics at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., has conducted research in the empirical study of religion. He is a former president of the Association of Christian Economists. His books include The Boundaries of Technique: Ordering Positive and Normative Concerns in Economic Research (Lexington Books, 2004) and Inhabiting the Land: The Case for the Right to […]

Eli Berman, a professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego, specializes in the economics of religion. He is also research director for International Security Studies at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He wrote an essay in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2000 titled “Sect, Subsidy and Sacrifice: An Economist’s View […]

Carmel Chiswick was a professor emerita of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago until her retirement. She focuses on the economics of religion, especially involving the American Jewish family, Jewish religious observance and American Jewish communal institutions.

Barry Chiswick is chair of the department of economics at Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University in Washington D.C.  He specializes in the economics of religion. During his former post at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he published widely on the topic of economic issues involving Jewish people.

Fenggang Yang directs the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University. He is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including Religion in China: Survival and Revival Under Communist Rule. He is also an expert in Asian immigration and Eastern religions.