William B. Lawrence is a professor of American church history and dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and has expressed concern that the debates over homosexuality could lead to lasting schisms.

Charles Eric Mount Jr. is a professor emeritus of religion at Centre College in Danville, Ky., and an ordained Presbyterian minister. His expertise is in community ethics and theology.

Lesley Armstrong Northup is an associate professor of religious studies at Florida International University in Miami. She wrote “Homosexuality in the Evolution of American Christianity,” a chapter in the volume Religion & Sexuality: Passionate Debates, edited by C.K. Robertson.

Corinne G. Dempsey is an associate professor of religious studies at Nazareth College and the author of The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York: Breaking Convention and Making Home at a North American Hindu Temple, a profile of a South Indian community in Rush, N.Y.

Sushil Mittal is professor of religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. He is an expert on Gandhian thought and a specialist in Indian studies. He is the author of several books on Hinduism.

Lester R. Kurtz is a professor of sociology and anthropology at George Mason University. He is an expert in Gandhian thought and  editor of the Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace & Conflict and lectures around the world on violence, politics and peacemaking.

Peter Gottschalk is a professor of religion at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. He studies the dynamic of the cultural interplay between Hinduism, Islam, and the West.

Whitney Sanford is an assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She is an expert on Hindu narratives of agriculture and religion and nature in South Asia.

Eliza Kent is an assistant professor of religion at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. She specializes in Hinduism and the environment in South India.