Martin Spriggs is a former pastor and chief technology officer for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, with 1,400 churches the third-largest Lutheran body in the U.S. His work includes helping synod churchesset up and use electronic media. Only about 45 of the churches offer podcasts or streaming audio and video right now, but many others are coming online […]

Kenneth Taylor is a philosophy professor at Stanford University and co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Philosophy Talk, which has tackled a number of issues involving religion and belief/nonbelief. His essay “Without the Net of Providence: Atheism and the Human Adventure” is included in Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life (2007).

Shane Hipps, a former advertising professional, thinks about the influence of new media on faith as the electronically sophisticated lead pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Glendale, Ariz. He wrote The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel and Church (Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2006) and “The Gospel According to Electronic Culture: What if the medium really […]

Bruce Phillips is a professor of Jewish communal service at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, a leading seminary of the Reform movement. He was on the team that completed the National Jewish Population Survey 2000 and says the Jewish institutional landscape will be reshaped by children of intermarriage who do not belong […]

The Religion, Politics and Globalization Program, based at the University of California, Berkeley, looks to create an intellectual space where scholars from the humanities and social sciences can come together to share and deepen their understanding of the role of religion in world affairs. Lynne Gerber is the associate director and postdoctoral fellow at the […]

William Lobdell is a former Los Angeles Times reporter and the author of Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace (2009). He is now editor of iBusiness Reporting and is a visiting faculty member at the University of California, Irvine.

Melanie Hardison works with the Enough for Everyone Project and serves at the national level for the Presbyterian Church.

The Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., is a community of scholars and researchers engaged in the analysis of public policy issues related to Catholic social thought.  The work of the institute serves and speaks to the university, the Church, the country, and the disciplines […]

Mynga Futrell is co-founder and executive director of The Brights’ Network, an international Internet community aspiring to enhance civic understanding of a naturalistic worldview (“free of supernatural and mystical elements”) and to promote acceptance of those who hold such an outlook. A longtime educator, she also coordinates a religion-neutral Web resource called Teaching About Religion. She lives […]