Roland D. Martinson is a professor of children, youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. He has written books on parenting and youth ministry and has been involved with the Faith Factors project, a longitudinal study of the factors that lead young people who are Lutheran and Baptist to remain involved […]

Carol Lytch is President of Lancaster Theological Seminary, a graduate school located in Lancaster, Pa. affiliated with the United Church of Christ. She is author of Choosing Church: What Makes a Difference for Teens (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).

Daniel Bell, professor of theology and ethics at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., has written about Latin American theology in the wake of capitalism’s triumph and on Latin American liberationists’ defense of revolutionary violence. He says that Latin American liberation theology has moved from advocating a socialist revolution in the 1970s to more […]

Mark Hulsether, Religious Studies Professor and Director of the American Studies Program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has written extensively on religion and popular culture. He wrote the 2007 book Religion, Culture and Politics in the Twentieth-Century United States (Edinburgh University Press). He has also written about North American liberation theologies and the transformation of the Protestant […]

Laura Olson is a professor of political science at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C., and is also an expert on women and gender in religion. Her books include, as author, Filled With Spirit and Power: Protestant Clergy in Politics and, as co-author, Women With a Mission: Religion, Gender and the Politics of Women Clergy. She is also co-author […]

Corwin E. Smidt is a research fellow at the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics and a professor of political science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He is author, editor or co-author of books on religion and public life, including In God We Trust? Religion and American Political […]

John G. West Jr. is a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. He co-edited the book The Theology of Welfare (University Press of America, 2000).

Clare J. Chapman is interim general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which is made up of 35 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member denominations. The group has opposed tax cuts at the expense of programs that help the poor.

Beverly Roberts Gaventa is Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary. She wrote Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1999) and co-edited Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).