Gregory M. Herek is a psychologist at the University of California, Davis. He is a well-known scholar in the areas of prejudice against lesbians and gay men, hate crimes and anti-gay violence, and AIDS-related stigma.

Neil Clark Warren, a psychologist and former dean at Fuller Theological Seminary, co-founded and chairs the eHarmony online dating service. He has written several books about relationships, including Date … or Soul Mate?: How to Know if Someone Is Worth Pursuing in Two Dates or Less.

Anna Broadway wrote Sexless in the City: A Memoir of Reluctant Chastity, published in April 2008, about being a single Christian looking for love in contemporary society. She is based in the San Francisco area.

F. Stanley Jones is a professor of religious studies at California State University, Long Beach. He is the editor of a collection titled Which Mary?: The Marys of Early Christian Tradition.

Charlene Spretnak is one of the founders of the women’s spirituality movement in the U.S. She is the editor of The Politics of Women’s Spirituality and author of Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church.  She is a professor emerita at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She lives in Ojai, […]

Gene Sager is professor of philosophy at Palomar College in San Marcos, Calif. He wrote a Dec. 7, 2007, essay in Commonweal magazine titled “A Gringo’s Devotion” about his journey from a childhood as an “Anglo Protestant” to his devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and eventual conversion to Catholicism.

Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University in California. She is also a yoga teacher and has written about yoga and gratitude.

Jan St. John is producer and host of Radio Gratitude, a San Francisco based-program that spotlights gratitude and altruism.

Sonja Lyubomirsky is a professor of psychology at University of California, Riverside. She studies human happiness. She has researched the effects of “counting one’s blessings” as a way of enhancing happiness.