José David Rodríguez holds the Augustana Heritage Chair of Global Mission and World Christianity at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where he also teaches systematic theology and directs advanced programs of study. His interests include Hispanic Christian theologies, Latino ministry, ethics, world Christianity and missions.

María Pilar Aquino Vargas is a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. Her specialties include Latina feminism, both in the United States and in Latin America. She wrote Our Cry for Life: Feminist Theology From Latin America (English translation Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2002).

Benjamin Valentin teaches theology and culture at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass., where he directs Latino/a studies. He co-chairs the AAR Latina/o Religion, Culture and Society Group. His expertise includes the intersection between Latinos and African-Americans, liberation theology and Hispanic theology. Valentin authored Mapping Public Theology: Beyond Culture, Identity and Difference (Trinity Press International, 2002); […]

Ralph W. Hood Jr. is a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He writes and teaches on the psychology of religious fundamentalism.

Lee C. Camp is a professor of theology at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., and author of Who is My Enemy?: Questions American Christians Must Face About Islam — and Themselves. Camp wrote an Aug. 25, 2011, column for the website Patheos titled “Is Christian Just War Just Like Jihad?,” which argues that Christian and Islamic views […]

William T. Cavanaugh is a professor of Catholic studies at DePaul University in Chicago, Ill., who has written and researched extensively on the relationship between religion and violence. He is the author of The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (2009).

Right-wing extremist violence — against Muslims, Jews, abortion clinics and providers, and the government, for example — is sometimes perpetrated by suspects using Christianity as a justification or motivation. Suspect groups and individuals have drawn scrutiny from the FBI, but the extent and risk of the threat remains a matter of debate, as a July […]

One challenge in writing about the Eastern Orthodox is the debate over numbers. A figure often cited is 3 million adherents in the U.S., with about 2 million in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 1 million in the Orthodox Church in America, and some tens of thousands in the other 20 major Eastern Orthodox churches. In a […]

Becky Garrison, a Manhattan-based freelance writer and senior contributing editor for the religious satire magazine The Wittenburg Door, is the author of Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar ( Jossey-Bass, 2006).