Kenneth L. Swetland is senior professor of ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass., where he also leads the Oasis counseling program for seminary alumni facing a crisis or transition. He wrote The Hidden World of the Pastor: Case Studies on Personal Issues of Real Pastors.

Julius Lester is emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has had appointments in both Afro-American and Judaic studies. An African-American who was raised as a Christian, he converted to Judaism and found that he also has Jewish ancestry. His books include Lovesong: Becoming A Jew (Bullfinch Press,1988).

Dr. Michael Grodin is professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at Boston University School of Public Health and a clinical medical ethicist for Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Jerome Groopman is the Dina and Raphael Recanati Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and one of the world’s leading researchers in cancer and AIDS. Contact Dr. Groopman through his website.

William Julius Wilson is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University. A MacArthur Prize Fellow from 1987 to 1992 and former president of the American Sociological Association, Wilson has said that he looks, in addition to government, to religious organizations to reduce social problems in neighborhoods and to rebuild inner cities. […]

Jonathan Gruber is an economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. He advised the Obama campaign in 2008 about health care, and The Washington Post has called him the Democratic Party’s most influential health care expert. He has testified before the Senate Finance Committee about financing health care reform.

David Cutler is an economics professor at Harvard University. He wrote the book Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America’s Healthcare System, which looks at issues involving access to health care.

Stuart Altman is the Sol C. Chaikin Professor of National Health Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. He is an economist whose research interests are primarily in federal and state health policy.

Eugene F. Rivers is pastor of Pentecostal Azusa Christian Community (affiliated with the Church of God in Christ) in south Boston and president of Ella J. Baker House community organization in the Dorchester Four Corners neighborhood of Boston. Rivers co-founded the clergy-led National Ten Point Leadership Foundation, which is credited with helping to diminish gang violence in Boston and […]