John Duignan is co-author of The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology (2008). He says he is a former high-ranking member of the church. Amazon’s United Kingdom branch stopped selling Duignan’s book after receiving a claim that it libeled a church member; the publisher, Merlin Publishing, has denied that.

Michelle Thew is chief executive of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and has worked on a number of campaigns regarding the use of animals for research and testing, including successful work on a European Union-wide cosmetics testing ban.

Andrew Linzey is a lecturer in theology at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England . He has written widely on animals and Christianity, including a series of liturgies for animals.

Todd Klutz is a graduate of Wheaton College, a senior lecturer in New Testament studies at the University of Manchester in England and editor of Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon.

Pamela Cushing is a cultural anthropologist who teaches sociology at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario. She has studied the L’Arche community, which provides homes for people with intellectual disabilities. She has also written about caregiving, researched social inclusion of people with disabilities and studied the growth of disabilities studies programs in the English-speaking […]

John Swinton is a nurse, ordained minister and theologian who teaches at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He has written extensively on the theology of disability; his publications include Theology, Disability and the New Genetics: Why Science Needs the Church (as co-editor) and the article “The Body of Christ Has Down’s Syndrome: Theological Reflections on Disability, Vulnerability […]

Leila R. Milani is senior international policy advocate at Futures Without Violence. She was co-chairwoman of the Working Group on Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and NGO liaison for women’s issues for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is in the U.S.

Sarah Coakley researches the evolution of altruistic behavior, forgiveness and unselfish love at Harvard University. She is a professor of divinity at the University of Cambridge. She is the co-editor of “Evolution, Games and God: The Principle of Cooperation” (2013), which examines the evolution of cultural structures like religion.

Read a June 14, 2012 Guardian article about South African transgendered runner, Caster Semenya, who won the women’s 800m run in the 2009 word championship which caused much debate in the media.