Beth Wenger is an associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America. She wrote the chapter titled “The Politics of Women’s Ordination: Jewish Law, Institutional Power and the Debate Over Women in the Rabbinate” in Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

ReconcilingWorks, formerly known as Lutherans Concerned/North America, works to reconcile members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to full inclusivity of LGBT people. Aubrey Thonvold is the interim executive director. The organization is based in St. Paul, Minn.

Stuart Rockoff is the current executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council and former director of the history department at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss. He is an expert on this history of Southern Jews.

Michael Horan is a theologian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who can relate Catholic beliefs to Catholic practice, particularly in the political realm. Horan believes hard-line tactics by bishops to deny communion to abortion rights politicians can backfire.

Rebecca Kobrin is an assistant professor of history at Columbia University in New York City. She specializes in the history of American Judaism and is at work on a book about Jewish migration to North America.

Gregg Ivers is a professor in the school of public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He is an expert on constitutional law and is the author of To Build a Wall: American Jews and the Separation of Church and State.

Ari Goldman is a journalism professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. He is a former religion reporter for The New York Times and is the author of several books on Jews and Judaism, including Being Jewish: The Spiritual and Cultural Practice of Judaism Today and Living a Year of Kaddish. He can discuss major issues […]

WordAlone is a Minnesota-based organization that encourages congregations to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America due to its decisions regarding homosexuality.

Steven M. Cohen is a research professor of Jewish social policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a senior consultant to Synagogue 3000. He is one of the authors of the 2007 National Spiritual Communities Study and can discuss its findings on independent minyanim and havurot.