Eric Barreto is an associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary. Among works he has authored, Barreto has written on ethnicity and race and their intersection with the Bible. He also contributed a “preaching reflection” about the death of Michael Brown to Odyssey Networks.  

Anita C. Hill is an ELCA minister and regional coordinator for the Midwest for ReconcilingWorks: Lutheran for Full Inclusion. She works with Lutheran congregations and individuals in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota to be fully inclusive of LGBT people. She lives in the St. Paul, Minn., area.

Renee Garcia is a regional director for ReconcilingWorks: Lutheran for Full Inclusion and works with congregations and individuals in Texas to bring LGBT people to full inclusion in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He lives in Houston.

Kristen Capel is the lead pastor at Easter Lutheran Church in Eagan, Minn., one of the largest Lutheran congregations in the U.S. Read a Sept. 22, 2011, story from the Metro Lutheran about the importance of her appointment.

Ordain Women Now is an organization that advocates the ordination of women clergy in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the more conservative Lutheran denomination in the United States. Elizabeth Goodine is the group’s president. Contact via the website.

Paul Robert Sauer is associate editor of the journal Lutheran Forum in Delhi, N.Y., which covers both the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America denominations. In the summer 2009 issue, he called for closing one of the LCMS’ two seminaries because they had grown too similar to each other, and because of a decline in […]

Sally Peters is director of the Center for Lifelong Learning at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. In July 2011, she led a session on vocation in contemporary life at Princeton Theological Seminary’s conference “Perspectives on Vocation for the 21st Century.”

The website of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod has a “Newsroom” page providing news releases, resources, and headlines for journalists and members of the congregation. The Church is based in St. Louis.

ELCA News Service is the media arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is based in Chicago.