Anthony Burke Smith, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, is author of The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popular Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War. He has written about the cultural and political role of Catholics in movies, television and photojournalism in debates about American identity.

Roy Anker, a longtime professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., is the author of Beautiful Light: Religious Meaning in Film. He has also written about religion and the films of M. Night Shyamalan and the use of artificial intelligence in the films of Steven Spielberg.

The Rev. Richard C. Stern, homiletics professor at St. Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Ind., is co-author of the book Savior on the Silver Screen (Paulist Press, 1999).

Ted Trost, University of Alabama American religions professor, has taught a course about religious themes and rituals in popular film.

John R. May, professor of English and religious studies at Louisiana State University, has written about Hollywood and religion, contemporary theories on the interpretation of religious film and religious visions in American classics. He is editor of the books New Image of Religious Film and Image & Likeness: Religious Visions in American Film Classics.  

Richard Walsh, professor of religion at Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C., writes about portrayals of Jesus in film. He says there have always been implicitly Christian movies because the Christian narrative and vision of life is so deeply ingrained. Walsh is author of Reading the Gospels in the Dark: Portrayals of Jesus in Film (Trinity Press International, […]

Conrad Ostwalt is Department Chair  of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. He co-edited a book with Joel Martin, Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth and Ideology in Popular American Film (Westview Press, 1995). He has written extensively about religion in the movies, with an emphasis on depictions of the Apocalypse, and is the author […]

Robert D. Benne is professor emeritus and research associate in the Department of Religion/Philosophy at Roanoke College in Salem, Va. He has written about visions of life through film.

Erin Runions is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Pomona College in California. She is a specialist in the Hebrew Bible, which she reads from the perspective of cultural studies and gender and sexuality studies. She has written about the connections between scripture and film.