Leonard Sweet is E. Stanley Jones professor of evangelism at Drew University in Madison, N.J., and has been dean of the theological school there. Sweet is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. He and his wife, Karen Elizabeth Rennie, are the primary contributors to the web-based preaching resource preachingplus.com. A popular speaker, he has written numerous books, […]

Christopher Bellitto is chair of the history department at Kean University in New Jersey, where he has taught a course on the papacy. He has also written many articles on Catholicism and is a regular television commentator on Vatican stories.

Katherine L. Jansen teaches history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. A specialist in Mary Magdalene, her publications include The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Late Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2001).

James H. Charlesworth is a professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Theological Seminary. He has written extensively about early Christian texts. Charlesworth is also the editor of an important volume of essays by a range of biblical scholars called Jesus and Archaeology.

David Demola is the pastor and founder of Faith Fellowship Ministries World Outreach Center in Sayreville, N.J. Financial prosperity is listed among the church’s fundamental beliefs.

Elaine Pagels is the author of the best-selling Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Random House, 2003) and a professor of religion at Princeton University. She has written a number of well-received books on gnosticism, an early Christian movement considered heretical, and early Christianity. Additionally, she is the author of  The Origin of Satan (1996).

Rabbi Steven Kushner has chaired the kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) task force for the Central Conference of American Rabbis. He is the rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, N.J.

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the Princeton University Center for Human Values. Singer was the founding president of the International Association of Bioethics, and with Helga Kuhse, he founded the journal Bioethics. His Animal Liberation (Ecco Press, republished in 2001) launched the animal rights movement in 1976. He is also a noted […]

A 2006 Gallup Poll showed Pentecostals top the list of people who attend church on a weekly basis.