Karen Torjesen, professor of Women’s Studies in Religion and early Christianity, is dean at the school of religion at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, Calif.

Mary Rose D’Angelo teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. She has written extensively about early Christianity and women in Scripture and specifically about Mary Magdalene’s identity.

Pamela Thimmes is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton and past chair of the Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible section within the Society of Biblical Literature. She has written about trends in research on Mary Magdalene.

Melissa Deckman is professor of political science and public affairs at Washington College in Chestertown, Md. Her specialties include religion and politics and women and politics. She wrote School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics (Georgetown University Press, 2004) and “Christian Right School Board Candidates” for the Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics (Facts on File, 2003) and […]

Shari Rendall is director of legislation and public policy for Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that aims to bring biblical principles to all levels of public policy.

John S. Grabowski is an associate professor of religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He also has an expertise in women’s issues. He and his wife were appointed to the Pontifical Council for the Family by Pope Benedict XVI in the fall of 2009.

Stephanie Mitchem is a professor of womanist theology and African-American spirituality at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C. She is the author of Name It and Claim It? Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church (Pilgrim Press, 2006).

Susan J. White is the Alberta H. and Harold L. Lunger Professor of Spiritual Resources and Disciplines at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. She is also author of A History of Women in Christian Worship (Pilgrim Press, 2003).

Anne McGuire teaches religion at Haverford College. She specializes in research on the Nag Hammadi ancient Christian texts and has taught courses on gnosticism, women in early Christianity and Mary Magdalene.