Paula Fredriksen is William Goodwin Aurelio Chair Emerita of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University. She specializes in the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, from the Late Second Temple period to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. She has written and commented widely on modern biblical controversies.

Elizabeth A. Clark is a professor of Christian history at the religion department at Duke University in Durham, N.C. She is an expert on ancient Christianity and is past president of the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History.

The Rev. Bruce Chilton is an Episcopal priest and executive director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. Chilton is the author of Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography, Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography and other books aimed at popularizing the latest historical research on the Bible. Chilton is also rector of the Episcopal Church […]

John A. Saliba teaches world religions and other liberal arts topics at the University of Detroit-Mercy and is an authority on the relationship between Christianity and New Age religions. He participated in a lengthy Vatican study of New Religious Movements, and he wrote the scholarly book Understanding New Religious Movements and Christian Responses to the New Age Movement: A […]

Jerry Park is an assistant professor of the sociology of religion at Baylor University in Waco. His specialty is in racial, ethnic and religious identity. Ask about his research into religious consumption – he delivered a paper, “What Would Jesus Buy: American Religious Consumption in the 21st Century,” to the 2006 conference on the Scientific […]

Della Reese Lett (aka the singer/actress Della Reese) is the minister of the Understanding Principles of Better Living Church in West Hollywood, Calif. The church, which calls its message one of practical Christianity, offers to teach worshippers not what to think but how to think. It is part of the Universal Foundation for Better Living association of […]

Susanna Morrill is an assistant professor of religious studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. She wrote entries on Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science for the Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics (Facts on File, 2003).

Rennie B. Schoepflin is a history professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He is interested in the historical interplay among science, health and religion. He has studied religious healers, including Christian Science healers, and can talk about the Christian Science view of the power of thought.

Colleen McDannell is a professor of religious studies and history at the University of Utah. She is the author of Sister Saints: Mormon Women Since the End of Polygamy and Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America.