The Rev. Ashlee Wiest-Laird is pastor at First Baptist JP in Jamaica Plain, Mass. She traveled to Ferguson, Mo., to protest and spoke about the experience on Boston Public Radio.

Bret Lortie serves as senior minister for the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Ill. He has called for placing a Black Lives Matter banner at the church where he preaches.

Onleilove (pronounced “only love”) Alston is the executive director at Faith in New York, a coalition of 70 congregations in New York City. She is a social justice activist and an expert on black lives in the Bible. She recently participated in a panel sponsored by PICO National Network about the black church and the […]

Jalda Rebling is a founder of the Ohel Hachidusch in Berlin, Germany. Rebling is a teacher and counselor and gives workshops for Jewish congregations internationally.

Rabbi Yoel Kahn serves as the rabbi for Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, California. He is an author and has spoken at conferences and in other venues about Reform decision making, spirituality, and issues of sexuality, feminism, and theology.

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.