Intisar A. Rabb is a professor of law at Harvard Law School, professor of political science at Harvard University and the director of the law school’s Islamic Legal Studies Program. Her areas of expertise includes comparative and foreign law with an emphasis on Islamic legal studies.

The Rev. Ashlee Wiest-Laird is pastor at First Baptist JP in Jamaica Plain, Mass. She traveled to Ferguson, Mo., to protest and spoke about the experience on Boston Public Radio.

Yavilah McCoy is a teacher, writer, diversity consultant and performer. She has linked the Jewish holiday of Purim to the fight for justice for the African-American community and the Black Lives Matter movement. She founded Dimensions Educational Consulting in Newton, Mass.

Susan Benesch is director of the Dangerous Speech Project and a faculty associate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She also teaches human rights at American University’s School of International Service.

Carole Straw is a professor at Mount Holyoke College specializing in late antique and medieval history, church history, classical traditions and Christianity, martyrdom, and monasticism. She is also the author of two books.

Daniel P. Horan is the author of The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton and a columnist for America magazine, where he recently wrote an essay about why Merton still matters, especially to millennials. He blogs at Dating God. He is a Franciscan monk based in Boston.

Cameron Partridge is an Episcopal priest and the first openly transgender chaplain at Boston University.

Patrick S. Cheng is an associate professor of historical and systematic theology at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and an ordained minister. He is the author of several books on queer theology, including Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology.

David E. Weekley is a United Methodist Church pastor who described his life as a transgender man in In From the Wilderness: Sherman: She-r-man. He blogs about his life in the church at Sherman’s Wilderness. He is the pastor of St. Nicholas United Methodist Church in Hull, Mass.