Deborah M. Gill is professor of New Testament exposition at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Mo. She served as commissioner of discipleship and national director of Christian education for the Assemblies of God and was senior pastor of Living Hope Church in North Oaks, Minn. She has written articles about women clergy in the […]

Sandy Dwayne Martin is a religion professor at the University of Georgia in Athens. He has written about women’s roles in African-American denominations.

Teresa Fry Brown is an associate professor at Emory University in Atlanta. She is author of Weary Throats and New Songs: Black Women Proclaiming God’s Word and God Don’t Like Ugly: African American Women Handing on Spiritual Values.

Maureen Trudelle Schwarz is associate professor of anthropology at Syracuse University in New York and author of Blood and Voice: Navajo Women Ceremonial Practitioners.

Cynthia Lynn Lyerly is associate professor of history at Boston College in Massachusetts. She has written about women in Southern churches.

Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale is associate professor of theology at Boston College in Massachusetts. She is author of Women Shaping Theology.

Dina Najman is rosh kehillah, or “head of the community,” at Kehilat Orach Eliezer Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan, N.Y. She was given the position even though she is not an ordained rabbi; Orthodox Judaism does not ordain female rabbis. Read an Aug. 21, 2006, New York Times story about her.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and a professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.

The Rev. Sharon Watkins is general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination.