The Rev. Rebecca Voelkel is a United Church of Christ minister and serves on the religion council of the Religion & Faith Program of the Human Rights Campaign. She is also program director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Institute for Welcoming Resources.

Leanne McCall Tigert is a United Church of Christ minister and pastoral psychotherapist. She is co-editor of Coming Out Young and Faithful and lives in Concord, N.H.

The Rev. Liana Rowe is a United Church of Christ minister and an organizer with Interfaith Worker Justice in Phoenix, Ariz. She is a longtime immigrant rights activist and coordinates a New Sanctuary Movement network across the state.

Read a July 17, 2008 Pew Forum research report on the different religious views on stem cell research.

Kat Liu is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, growing up with a mixture of Christian, Buddhist and Taoist/Confucian influences.  She has been a Unitarian Universalist for about seven years and is assistant director of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Washington Office for Advocacy.

Eleazar S. Fernandez, who is ordained in the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, is professor of constructive theology at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, New Brighton, Minn. He co-edited Realizing the America of Our Hearts: Theological Voices of Asian Americans.

The Mental Health Chaplaincy is a Seattle program based at Prospect Congregational United Church of Christ that has trained chaplains walking the city streets looking for vulnerable, mentally ill people who may need assistance. Contact Kae Eaton.

Peter Laarman of Los Angeles is executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting and an ordained United Church of Christ minister. He is editor of the just-published Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel (Beacon Press, 2006) and knows a lot of other groups active on this subject.

Harvey Newman is a professor of public administration and urban studies in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. A United Church of Christ minister, he has an extensive background in faith-based nonprofits.