Freethought Day commemorates an Oct. 12, 1692, evidentiary decision by William Phipps, governor of the Colony of Massachusetts, that ended the Salem witch trials. An outdoor observance marking the anniversary is held each year in Sacramento, Calif.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., in 2007 became the first member of Congress in memory to publicly self-identify as an atheist.

Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University works to provide a home to the “broad range of activities illuminating the Nobel Peace laureate’s life and the movements he inspired.” This organization includes the King Papers Project, in which Stanford historian Clayborne Carson edited and published The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Kirk O. Hanson is Santa Clara University’s John Courtney Murray S.J. University Professor of Social Ethics. He is one of the pioneers of the business ethics field and taught business ethics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for 23 years.

Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer leads the Community Shul of Montecito and Santa Barbara, Calif. He has spoken out about the problem of rabbinical burnout.

Edmund Gibbs is professor emeritus of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, Calif. He is an expert on the emerging church and has called for seminaries and theological schools to rethink the way they train pastors for the 21st century. His books include LeadershipNext: Changing Leaders in a Changing Culture.

Patricia M.Y. Chang is a lecturer in the sociology department at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. She has studied clergy career characteristics and the supply of ordained leadership in some Protestant denominations, and she co-authored Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling.

Charlyn M. Singleton is president of God’s Woman Conferences, based in Rialto, Calif. She is a motivational and revival speaker, working with youth, women and men at conferences, marriage events, retreats, workshops and worship services.

Cecil Williams has been the pastor of the 7,000-member Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, in San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin district since 1963. He is a spiritual, political and social force in the Bay Area, and the church is a leading voice in promoting diversity of all sorts, social activism and community programs.