Brook Wilensky-Lanford is a religion writer, editor, and teacher. She is the author of A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America, forthcoming in June 2026 and Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden. Media inquiries should be directed to Deb Seager, Director of Publicity, Grove Atlantic.

Philip P. Arnold is president of the Indigenous Values Initiative of the leadership of the Onondaga Nation, the Central Fire (or Capital) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (made up of the Seneca, Tuscarora, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk nations). He also leads the The Doctrine of Discovery educational resource, is lovingly maintained by Indigenous Values Initiative […]

Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of specialization are Iran, U.S. foreign policy and the modern Middle East. Prior to joining CFR, he served as senior advisor on Iran at the State Department and was a fellow at Yale University, […]

Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy specializing in Shiʿa politics and Iran’s religious establishment. 

Benedikt Roemer is a Walter Benjamin Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Oxford. His research interests include religious diversity in the Middle East, religion and nationalism, diaspora studies, the history and contemporary story of the Iranian Christian community and ethnographic research on religion in Arabic, Persian and […]

In this guide, we offer background, resources, relevant stories and expert sources to help you better cover the religion angle on the current conflict and what it might mean in the wake of the latest war in the Middle East.

This guide offers reporters the tools to navigate the topic of religious persecution at home and abroad, offering background, resources, tips, suggestions and expert sources for your next story.

Lindsay Rodriguez is Director of Development & Advocacy at Coptic Solidarity.

Wai Wai Nu, is a human rights advocate and former political prisoner from Myanmar who founded the Women’s Peace Network.