Timothy P. Carney is an author, researcher and political commentator. His most recent book, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, is about societal change and loneliness. Carney has argued that people turn to socialism in the absence of other sources of community, like religion.

Heath W. Carter is an associate professor of American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago.

Vaneesa Cook is a history lecturer at the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left.

Janine Giordano Drake is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University. She is currently working on a book about Christian socialism.

Martin Hägglund is a professor of comparative literature and humanities at Yale University. In his most recent book, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, he challenges modern commitment to organized religion and capitalism and makes a case for a form of democratic socialism.

The Rev. Art Lindsley is vice president of theological initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics. He researches religious teachings on economic systems, including Bible passages used to justify socialism, and was co-editor of Counting the Cost: Christian Perspectives on Capitalism and For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty.

Russ McCullough is professor of economics at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas. He co-hosts the “Faith & Economics” podcast, which explores Christian teachings on economic issues.

Sarah Ngu is the host of the “Religious Socialism” podcast, a project of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Religion and Socialism working group. She’s also co-founder of Church Clarity, which aims to reduce confusion tied to churches’ teachings on women and members of the LGBTQ community.

Maria Svart is national director of Democratic Socialists of America, a national political organization. DSA members who cite spirituality as a source of their political views have the opportunity to join a religion and socialism working group.