Sherman A. Jackson is a professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, a visiting professor of law, and a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan , Ann Arbor . He has served as Executive Director for the Center of Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) in Cairo , Egypt , is a member of the U.S.-Muslim World Advisory Committee of the U.S. Institute of Peace , and a co-founder of the American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM). The “On Faith” panelist is also a former member of the Fiqh Council of North America , past president of the Sharî‘ah Scholars' Association of North America (SSANA) and a past trustee of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). In addition to numerous articles on Islamic law, theology and history, Jackson is the author of Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihâb al-Dîn al-Qarâfî , On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî's Faysal al-Tafriqa and, most recently, the controversial Islam and Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection . Jackson has lectured throughout the US and in numerous countries abroad. He has also taught at the University of Texas at Austin , Indiana University, Wayne State University and was recently offered a full-professorship at Stanford University , which he declined.

The Reverend William McD. Tully has been rector of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City since September 1994. The first professional calling of the “On Faith” panelist was to journalism, and he worked as a copy boy and local reporter at the Los Angeles Times. As a community worker for the Model Cities program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Tully discerned an "underlying call" that turned him toward ordained ministry and study at the General Theological Seminary. After ordination in 1974, he served as curate at the Church of the Epiphany, Manhattan; associate rector at St. Francis Church, Potomac, Maryland; and then as rector of St. Columba's Church, Washington, D.C. The people and mission of St. Columba's taught Tully about church growth, Christian hospitality and hope for the future of the church. Working with a dedicated group of leaders, an enlarged clergy and professional staff at St. Bart’s, Tully has led the church in its growth and renewal. He loves his ministry and is always eager to meet and work with others who have found a home and a ministry at St. Bart's.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the ninth president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. The “On Faith” panelist is a theologian and ordained minister and has served as pastor and staff minister of several Southern Baptist churches. He holds a Master of Divinity degree and the Doctor of Philosophy (in systematic and historical theology) from Southern Seminary. He did additional study at the St. Meinrad School of Theology and research at Oxford University. He became seminary president after serving as editor of The Christian Index, the oldest of the state papers serving the Southern Baptist Convention. Called "an articulate voice for conservative Christianity at large" by the Chicago Tribune, Mohler's mission is to address contemporary issues from a consistent and explicit Christian worldview. He hosts a daily radio program for the Salem Radio Network and blogs on moral, cultural and theological issues. He also has contributed chapters to several books including Hell Under Fire, Whatever Happened to Truth, Here We Stand: A Call From Confessing Evangelicals and The Coming Evangelical Crisis. He served as General Editor of The Gods of the Age or the God of the Ages: Essays by Carl F. H. Henry.

Martin E. Marty is Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he taught religious history, chiefly in the Divinity School, for 35 years, and where the Martin Marty Center has been founded to promote “public religion” endeavors. For a decade prior to entering academia, the “On Faith” panelist served parishes in the west and northwest suburbs of Chicago as an ordained Lutheran pastor. Marty is the author of more than 50 books including Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America (1970), for which he won the National Book Award. His additional honors include the National Humanities Medal, the Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the University of Chicago Alumni Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal of the Association of Theological Schools, and the Order of Lincoln Medallion (Illinois’ top honor). Marty has served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the American Society of Church History, and the American Catholic Historical Association. He also has served on two U.S. Presidential Commissions and was director of the Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago. He is Senior Regent of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

For more than 40 years, “On Faith” panelist Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has devoted himself to the monumental undertaking of translating and reinterpreting the Talmud, the vast collection of rabbinic writings that constitute Jewish civil and religious laws. Steinsaltz, who lives in Jerusalem, began this task in 1965, when he founded The Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications. The Steinsaltz Edition of the Talmud, of which 37 volumes have been published so far, has made the Talmud accessible to tens of thousands of Hebrew speakers. In 1989, he began producing an English edition of 22 volumes. Since 1994, 15 volumes have been published in French, and four have appeared in Russian. The Talmud project has been described as the most important Jewish publication endeavor of the 20 th Century. Steinsaltz has written some 60 books and hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including Hasidism and the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. One of his most popular books is The Thirteen Petalled Rose , which he describes as “a little book for the soul.” In 1989, Steinsaltz established a Russian branch of Mekor Chaim--the first Jewish institution to receive official recognition in the former Soviet Union . He also founded the Aleph Society, and the Mekor Chaim Educational Institutions. In 1988, Steinsaltz received the prestigious Israel Prize--his nation's highest honor. He has lectured at major universities and research institutions in the United States and Europe, including Princeton University , Yale University , Columbia University , the Woodrow Wilson Center , Oxford University and the Sorbonne.

“On Faith” panelist Zaid Shakir is a scholar-in-residence and lecturer at Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, Calif. A graduate of Syria's prestigious Abu Noor University, Shakir is a co-founder of Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. California-born Shakir accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the U.S. Air Force. He is a graduate of American University in Washington and earned his master’s degree in political science at Rutgers University, where he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda. As an American Muslim who came of age during the civil rights struggles, he has brought sensitivity about race and poverty, as well as scholarly discipline to his faith-based work. While Imam of Masjid al-Islam (1988-1994) he spearheaded a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. For the next seven years he studied Arabic, Islamic law, Quranic studies, and Islamic spirituality in Syria, and briefly in Morocco, with top Muslim scholars. In 2001, Shakir’s translation from Arabic into English of The Heirs of the Prophet was published. In 2003, he joined Zaytuna Institute where he teaches Arabic, Islamic law, history and Islamic spirituality. In 2005, Zaytuna published “Scattered Pictures,” an anthology of Shakir’s essays.

Baroness Julia Neuberger is an ordained rabbi and member of Britian's House of Lords. The "On Faith" panelist also is a trustee of the British Council, Jewish Care, and the Booker Prize Foundation, as well as founding trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust. She has served as Chairman of Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust and Chief Executive of the King's Fund—a major independent health charity. Currently she chairs the Commission on the Future of Volunteering in England . In the House of Lords, she is a Liberal Democrat member and in early 2006 she was Bloomberg Professor at Harvard University Divinity School . Neuberger writes, speaks, makes trouble, and has published several books, of which the latest is The Moral State We're In (2006). She is working on a book about old age, and thinking about a new book on death and dying, as well as one as a counterblast to Richard Dawkins on why religion is so important in the rather godless United Kingdom.

Rabbi David Saperstein is the Washington representative of Judaism's Reform Movement as Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, a position he has held for 30 years. The "On Faith" panelist also co-chairs the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, and serves on the boards of numerous national organizations including the NAACP and People For the American Way. In 1999, Saperstein was elected first chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom created by Congress. The Religious Action Center advocates for a broad range of social justice issues and provides extensive legislative and program materials for synagogues, federations and Jewish community relations councils nationwide. It also coordinates social action education programs that train nearly 3,000 Jewish adults, youth, rabbinic and lay leaders each year. Also an attorney, Saperstein teaches seminars in First Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law School. He co-authored Jewish Dimensions of Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time (1998).

“On Faith” panelist Michael Otterson has served as director of media relations for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1997. As senior spokesman for the church, Otterson has worked with most major publications, TV and radio networks, and other news media in the United States and overseas on issues ranging from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to the Church’s burgeoning international growth and diversity. A convert to the Mormon faith, he worked as a journalist for 11 years before being appointed director of the Church’s public affairs office in London in 1976 – the first such office outside the United States. After opening and managing a new Pacific Area public affairs office in Australia, Otterson moved to the United States in 1991 to help oversee the church’s international public affairs from its Salt Lake City headquarters. In a church that operates worldwide with a lay clergy, Otterson has served twice as a stake president (leader of a group of church congregations), in both England and Australia. He is now a US citizen.

Irish-born John Dominic Crossan is a professor emeritus in the religious studies department at DePaul University in Chicago. Between 1950 and 1969, he was a member of a 13th-century Roman Catholic religious order, the Servites, and remained an ordained priest from 1957 to 1969. He has delivered lectures to secular and lay audiences from Scandinavia to Australia to Japan to South Africa. The On Faith panelist has authored 23 books and his writings have been translated into 11 languages. His work focuses on the historical Jesus, earliest Christianity and the historical Paul. Core titles include “The Historical Jesus,” “The Birth of Christianity” and “In Search of Paul,” co-written with archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed. Dr. Crossan’s next book, “God & Empire: Jesus Against Rome Then and Now,” is scheduled for publication in February. The professor earned a doctor of divinity degree at St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Ireland and a humanities doctorate at Stetson University in Florida. The American Academy of Religion and DePaul and Stetson universities have recognized him with awards for scholarly excellence. His Web site is www.johndominiccrossan.com.

"On Faith" panelist and rock musician Salman Ahmad founded the popular South Asian band Junoon. The group has sold over 25 million albums and in 2001 became the first rock band invited to perform at the U.N. General Assembly. Ahmad also was appointed U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS. He personalized the "I Care, Do You?" U.N. poster campaign in Pakistan by taking the well-known verse of the Koran about reverence for human life and paraphrasing it to say: "Saving one life (from AIDS) is like saving the whole of humanity." Born in Pakistan , Ahmad grew up in New York . He obtained his medical degree from Pakistan 's King Edward Medical college in Lahore . He helped form Pakistan 's first pop band, Vital Signs , whose debut album sold a million copies. Ahmad decided to give up his stethoscope and pick up his guitar, and after leaving Vital Signs in 1990 he founded Junoon. Recently Ahmad appeared in two documentary films: It's My Country Too , about Muslim-Americans, and Rockstar and the Mullahs . Both were broadcast worldwide on PBS and the BBC. A passionate activist in promoting peace between India and Pakistan , Ahmad made a song/video Ghoom Tana . It is on his latest solo album INFINITI.

Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is president of Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She has been a professor of theology at the seminary for 20 years and director of its graduate degree center for five years. Her area of expertise is contextual theologies of liberation, specializing in issues of violence and violation. An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ since 1974, the “On Faith” panelist is the author or editor of thirteen books and has been a translator for two translations of the Bible. Her works include Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States (1996) and The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Translation (1995). Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Thistlethwaite has been working diligently to promote peace, including a presentation at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which appears in one of their special reports. Most recently she edited and contributed to Adam, Eve and the Genome: Theology in Dialogue with the Human Genome Project (2003).

Syndicated political columnist and “On Faith” panelist Cal Thomas has a twice-weekly column that appears in over 500 newspapers around the world. A graduate of American University, Thomas is a veteran of broadcast and print journalism. He has worked for NBC, CNBC, PBS television, and the Fox News Channel where he currently appears on the weekly media critique show, “Fox News Watch.” Thomas has authored ten books, including Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?, A Freedom Dream, Public Persons and Private Lives, Book Burning, Liberals for Lunch, Occupied Territory, The Death of Ethics in America, Uncommon Sense and Things That Matter Most. His latest was The Wit and Wisdom of Cal Thomas. In 1995, Thomas was honored with a Cable Ace Award nomination for Best Interview Program. Other awards include a George Foster Peabody team reporting award, and awards from both the Associated Press and United Press International. Common Ground, which Thomas writes for USA Today, offers insightful discussion of contentious social issues with his friend and political counterpart, Bob Beckel. The two are working together on a book to be published in 2007.

Susan Jacoby is the author of The Age of American Unreason. She began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post, and has been a contributor to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers for more than 25 years on topics including law, religion, medicine, aging, women's rights, political dissent in the Soviet Union and Russian literature. Jacoby has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Jacoby’s other books include Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (2004); Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past. She is working on a book about the relationship between American anti-intellectualism and political polarization, to be published by Pantheon in 2008. Her photo is by Chris Ramir.

Timothy Matovina is associate professor of theology at Notre Dame and Director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the university. His area of expertise is theology and culture, with a specialization in U.S. Catholic and U.S. Latino theology and religion. His publications include numerous essays and a dozen books, most recently Guadalupe and Her Faithful: Latino Catholics in San Antonio, from Colonial Origins to the Present, (2005) and the co-edited volume The Treasure of Guadalupe (2006). Previous publications of the “On Faith” panelist include Presente! U.S. Latino Catholics from Colonial Origins to the Present (2000) and Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Traditions in U.S. Catholicism ( 2002). Matovina has been involved in Latino faith communities for 25 years and speaks widely on U.S. Catholicism and Latino religion. Audiences at his presentations include activists, media experts, students, teachers, civic and business leaders, and Latino Catholics, including nearly every major Latino Catholic organization in the country.

The Reverend William J. Byron, S.J., a former president of Catholic University, is on leave this year from his position as research professor at the Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola College in Maryland to serve as president of St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia. The “On Faith” panelist served as interim president of Loyola University , New Orleans in 2003-04 and for three years prior to that, was pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington , D.C. From 1992 to 2000, he taught "Social Responsibilities of Business" at Georgetown University , where he was Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Ethics and served as rector of the Georgetown Jesuit Community. He was president of Catholic University for a decade (1982-92). Byron writes a syndicated bi-weekly column, Looking Around , for Catholic News Service, and is the author of a dozen books, including A Book of Quiet Prayer (2006); The Power of Principles: Ethics in the New Corporate Culture (2006) and Answers from Within: Spiritual Guidelines for Managing Setbacks in Work and Life (1998) . A founding director and past chairman of Bread for the World , Byron was also named the 1999 recipient of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities' Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for his contributions to the advancement of Catholic higher education. In that same year, he received the Council of Independent Colleges' Academic Leadership Award. Byron, who holds a doctorate in economics as well as theology degrees, served in the U.S. Army's 508 th Parachute Infantry Regiment before entering the Jesuit order in 1950. He was ordained a priest in 1961.

"On Faith" panelist Starhawk is a prominent voice in modern Wiccan spirituality and cofounder of Reclaiming (www.reclaiming.org), an activist branch of modern Pagan religion. She is the author or coauthor of ten books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979) --considered an essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement--and the novel The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) . Her works have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Japanese, and Burmese. Many of Starhawk's political essays were collected into her book Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising . Her newest book is The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature . Starhawk has also recorded several tapes and CDs; most recently Wicca for Beginners (2002), Wiccan Rituals and Blessings (2003), and a four-CD set Earth Magic (2006), all produced by Sounds True. She consulted on and contributed to three films known as the Women's Spirituality series, directed by Donna Read for the National Film Board of Canada: Goddess Remembered, The Burning Times, and Full Circle . Committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism, Starhawk travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, and the skills of activism.

Daniel C. Dennett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, at Tufts University. His most recent book was Breaking the Spell (2006). The “On Faith” panelist also is Co-founder of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston. Dennett has written over 300 scholarly articles on various aspects of the mind in scientific journals. His first book, Content and Consciousness, appeared in 1969. It was followed by Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (1998). He co-edited The Mind's I with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. Dennett completed his D.Phil degree work under Gilbert Ryle at Oxford in 1965, and has lectured at Harvard University, Pittsburgh and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. In 1987 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He spends most of his summers on his farm in Maine, where he harvests blueberries, hay and timber, and makes Normandy cider wine, when he is not sailing. He is also a sculptor.

"On Faith" panelist Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and Director of its Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. Sarna served two terms as chair of Brandeis' Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies. He now chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and is chief historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia . Before returning to his alma mater to teach in 1990, Sarna was on the faculty of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati from 1979-1990. There, he was Professor of American Jewish history and Director of the Center for the Study of the American Jewish Experience. He has also taught at Yale University , where he earned his doctorate in 1979, at the University of Cincinnati , and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem . The Forward newspaper named Sarna one of America 's 50 most influential American Jews. He has written, edited, or co-edited more than 20 books, including the acclaimed American Judaism: A History, which won the Jewish Book Council's “Jewish Book of the Year Award” in 2004.

The Reverend Gardner Calvin Taylor is senior pastor emeritus of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn, N.Y. The “On Faith” panelist led the congregation from 1948 to 1990, as church membership grew by 9,000 and through a 1952 fire that necessitated a $1.7 million rebuilding effort. His role as pastor included oversight of the Concord Baptist Church Elementary School, Concord Nursing Home, Concord Clothing exchange, Concord Federal Credit Union, Concord Seniors Residence and Concord Baptist Christfund. Beyond Brooklyn, Taylor has taken the pulpit from London’s Westminster Hall to China to Copenhagen to Zambia. His publications include How Shall They Preach, The Scarlet Thread, Chariots Aflame and Wisdom. Among his awards and honorary degrees are doctorates from Oberlin College, Leland College, Wake Forest University and Howard University; a Star of Africa, conferred by Liberian President William Tubman; and the rank of Knight Commander, Order of African Redemption, conferred by President William Tolbert of Liberia. President Clinton awarded Taylor the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. Born in Baton Rouge, La., he now resides in North Carolina.

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane is the eighth Episcopal Bishop of Washington, a diocese that encompasses 93 congregations and about 45,000 church members in the District of Columbia, and the Maryland counties of Prince George's, Montgomery, Charles and Saint Mary's. Before coming to Washington, the “On Faith” panelist was dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral in San Diego from 1996-2002. In Washington, he also serves as president of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, which governs Saint Alban’s School for Boys, the National Cathedral School for Girls, Beauvoir Primary School, the Cathedral College and the National Cathedral. Throughout his ministry, Chane has been active in projects addressing low-income housing needs, public education reform, poverty and health care reform issues. He also has worked with Episcopalian and charitable organizations around the world as a community organizer, board member and adviser. In San Diego, he was part of an initiative to strengthen ties with Hispanic church members. As part of that effort, he served on the Diocesan Hispanic Task Force and coordinated the “Church Without Borders” program linking the Diocese of San Diego with the Diocese of Western Mexico and the Anglican Church of Mexico. Chane, who earned his divinity degree at Yale Divinity School, enjoys playing drums in reunions with his old blues band, "The Chane Gang."