Joerg Rieger is a professor of Wesleyan studies and theology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, as well as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. His areas of study include social justice, liberation theory, the relationship between theology and public life, and the misuse of power in religion, politics and economics.

Graham Reside is the executive director of the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership for the Professions at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. He researches ethical leadership, religion and globalization and race, religion and poverty. He is also an expert on prison reform.

Phillis Sheppard is an associate professor of religion, psychology and culture at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. She is an expert on the role religion plays in self-understanding, womanist theology and psycholanalysis.

Paul Froese is a professor of sociology at Baylor University and research fellow for the school’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author of several books, including On Purpose: How We Create the Meaning of Life.

Joseph Reiff is a professor of religion at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Va., and the author of Born of Conviction: White Methodists and Mississippi’s Closed Society, which examines how 28 white Methodist ministers in Mississippi battled school segregation and racial intolerance at the height of the white South’s resistance to the civil rights […]

The Rev. Phumzile Mabizela is executive director at the International Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV and AIDS (INERELA+), a Johannesburg-based organization that works towards achieving a society free of HIV-related stigma and discrimination with empowered, resilient religious leaders. INERELA+ has 16 active country networks in Africa and partners in Asia, the […]

Parity is is a faith-based LGBTQ-focused organization based in New York, N.Y. that advocates for and supports queer-positive religious persons. With its roots in the Presbyterian tradition, Parity is now an interfaith organization. Rev. Marian Edwards-Allen is the executive director.

The Rev. Warner H. Brown Jr. is a United Methodist Church bishop and head of its California-Nevada Council. He has also served as president of the UMC’s council of bishops. He is based in Sacramento, Calif.