Karen Pechilis is chair and a professor of comparative religions at Drew University in Madison, N.J. She edited The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in the United States, which covers the American movements behind Ammachi, Anandamayi Ma, Gauri Ma, Gurumayi, Jayashri Ma, Karunamayi Ma, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, Mother Meera, Shree Maa and Sita Devi.

Leslie C. Orr is a professor of religion at Concordia University in Montreal. One of her areas of specialty is Hinduism in the West. She is the author of the book Donors, Devotees and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu.

June McDaniel is a professor of religious studies at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. She focuses on Hindu women’s religious rituals and mysticism and contributed a chapter about Jayashri Ma to The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States.

Meena Rani Khandelwal is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She has received funding from the American Institute of Indian Studies to conduct a comparative study of Hindu ashrams in India and in the United States that investigates issues of social change.

Cynthia Ann Humes is an associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. She is the co-editor of Gurus in America, to which she contributed a chapter on Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Daniel Spencer is an associate professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Montana in Missoula. He has written widely about homosexuality and Christianity.

Melissa M. Wilcox is an associate professor of religion at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., and director of the Gender Studies Program. Her writing and research focus on the interplay of Christianity, homosexuality and identity. She is the author of Coming Out in Christianity: Religion, Identity & Community.

The Rev. William K. McElvaney is professor emeritus of preaching and worship at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and former president of St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. McElvaney has been a leading voice on issues of social […]

Dr. Mark Lowery is a professor of theology at the University of Dallas, an independent Catholic school in Irving, Texas. Lowery has written extensively on the traditional Christian view of sexuality.