Matthew Alper, New York-based author of The “God” Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God (Rogue Press, 2001), proposes a biological basis for human perception and the spiritual realm. He believes that evolutionary adaptations account for the existence of regions in the brain that generate spiritual consciousness. These regions, he […]

Fred Glennon is professor of religious studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. He wrote the essay “Renewing the Welfare Covenant: Covenant and Responsible Poverty Policy” for the book Living Responsibly in Community (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997).

Rabbi Rick Jacobs is president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the central body of Reform Judaism in North America.

Clare J. Chapman is interim general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which is made up of 35 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member denominations. The group has opposed tax cuts at the expense of programs that help the poor.

M. Gail Hamner, Syracuse University religion professor, specializes in religion and culture, with teaching interests in religion and film, Christianity and American culture, religion and literature, and feminist theory and the study of religion.

S. Brent Plate is a professor of religious studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. He has written about religion, art and visual culture. Religions, he notes, discuss the creation of the world, and films work on re-creating the world. He’s interested in how film has “come down” off the screen and infiltrated rituals. His […]

Ellen Lippmann is founder and rabbi of the Kolot Chayeinu congregation in Brooklyn. The congregation identifies itself as comprising individuals of varying sexual orientations, races, family arrangements, Jewish identities and backgrounds sharing the search for meaningful expression of Judaism.

Historian and Middle East expert Mark Rosenblum directs the Michael Harrington Center at City University of New York’s Queens College. He teaches “The Middle East and America: Clash of Civilizations or Meeting of the Minds,” in which Jewish and Muslim students learn the opposing group’s history in the Middle East conflict and must support the […]

In September 2004, the Episcopal Church began studying whether to divest from companies helping to cause destruction in Palestine. Other religious groups speaking in favor of divestments are the Roman Catholic Sisters of Loretto and Jewish Voice for Peace, a small Jewish peace group.