Wade Clark Roof is F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society and chairman of the religious studies department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is a columnist for Beliefnet and author of, among other books, Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton University Press, 2001). He is also editor in […]

Mark Oestreicher is president of Youth Specialties in El Cajon, Calif. He is a leader in the emerging movement. Youth Specialties markets training seminars, conventions and educational materials to Christian workers. Oestreicher has authored and contributed to more than 60 books and training materials that help youth workers present traditional Christian concepts to the modern youth sensibility.

A.K.M. “AKMA” Adam, an Episcopal priest and taught New Testament and early church history for nine years at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. He has written numerous books and articles, including Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World (Fortress, October 2006).

Debbie Blue is a pastor and author of creative urban church in St. Paul, Minn. and founder of House of Mercy.

Andrew Jones, a New Zealander and a pivotal emerging thinker, has been blogging tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com since 2001 – a long time as these things go. He is project director for the Boaz Project, based in the Czech Republic and developing “a support structure for church in the emerging culture.”

Tony Jones is an authority on the emerging church movement, postmodernism, youth ministry and church evolution. He is national coordinator of Emergent-US, a network of emerging churches and is theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. He’s also a volunteer police chaplain in Edina, Minn. He wrote Postmodern Youth Ministry (Zondervan, 2001) and The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of […]

Doug Pagitt is co-founder and executive director of Vote Common Good, a national political nonprofit that aims to mobilize people of faith to participate in civic life. He is the author of, among several books, Reimagining Spiritual Formation: A Week in the Life of an Experimental Church. Contact via BerlinRosen.

Brian D. McLaren, founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Burtonsville, Md., is a central figure in the movement. He is a lightning rod among emerging thinkers because of his interest in the intersection of faith and progressive politics. His many books on the subject include the popular A New Kind of Christian: A Tale […]

Melissa Deckman is professor of political science and public affairs at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. Her specialties include religion and politics and women and politics. She wrote School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics (Georgetown University Press, 2004) and “Christian Right School Board Candidates” for the Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics (Facts on File, 2003) and […]