Carole Straw is a professor at Mount Holyoke College specializing in late antique and medieval history, church history, classical traditions and Christianity, martyrdom, and monasticism. She is also the author of two books.

Jonathan Romain is a British Reform rabbi and commentator on ethical issues. He is the minister at Maidenhead Synagogue in Berkshire, England. He contributes to The Times of London, The Independent, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and The Jewish Chronicle, among others.

Jonathan Montaldo is one of the foremost Thomas Merton scholars and interpreters of  his writings. Montaldo has served as associate director of the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living, director of a retreat center near Merton’s Abbey of Gethsemani and director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. Montaldo is also editor of the 10-volume Bridges to Contemplative […]

Jens Zimmermann is a professor of English and modern languages at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Interpretation, Religion and Culture. He will lecture on Thomas Merton’s humanism at Regent University’s Thomas Merton Symposium. Contact via Jennifer Watton, TWU’s media relations officer.

Daniel P. Horan is the author of The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton and a columnist for America magazine, where he recently wrote an essay about why Merton still matters, especially to millennials. He blogs at Dating God. He is a Franciscan monk based in Boston.

Ken Wilson serves as a co-pastor of Blue Ocean Faith Ann Arbor. He was also the founding pastor at the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor, Mich., an evangelical church. He is the author of A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People who are Gay, Lesbian and Transgender in the Company of Jesus. He […]

Anita C. Hill is an ELCA minister and regional coordinator for the Midwest for ReconcilingWorks: Lutheran for Full Inclusion. She works with Lutheran congregations and individuals in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota to be fully inclusive of LGBT people. She lives in the St. Paul, Minn., area.

Cameron Partridge is an Episcopal priest and the first openly transgender chaplain at Boston University.

Emily McGinley is a pastor at Urban Village Church, a multisite United Methodist Church in the Chicago area with an outreach ministry to transgender people.