Robert B. Talisse is a professor of philosophy and political science at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is co-author of Reasonable Atheism (2011) and the author of Democracy and Moral Conflict (2009).

Scott Aikin is senior lecturer in the philosophy department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is co-author of the book Reasonable Atheism and wrote an essay titled “The Problem of Worship” for the summer 2010 issue of Think.

The Kelly Miller Smith Institute on Black Church Studies at Vanderbilt University works to bring together the African American church community and educational institutions to study important issues concerning the practice of faith and ministry.

Barney Self is a licensed marriage and family therapist . He has counseled ministers and their families for eight years through a program run by the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Christian Resources. He is now pastoral counseling minister at Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville.

Michael Lane Morris is associate professor of management at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has studied the effects of stress on clergy and their families.

Victor Anderson is Oberlin Theological School Professor of Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He is also professor and director of the Program in African American and Diaspora Studies and Religious Studies in Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Sciences. Anderson was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church. His areas of expertise include African-American political theology, 20th-century ethics, […]

Larry Churchill is a professor of medical ethics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a professor at the graduate department of religion at the Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tenn. An expert on the justice and allocation of health care resources, he wrote Self-Interest and Universal Health Care: Why Well-Insured Americans Should Support Coverage for Everyone.

The Rev. Renita J. Weems was the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in Old Testament studies. She taught at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Spielman College. She is one of the founding pastors and chief servants at the Ray of Hope Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Contact through website.

Craig Strickland is senior pastor of Hope Presbyterian Church in Cordova, Tenn., which bills itself as a “church for the unchurched” and relies on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to provide a sense of community.