Paula Fredriksen is the Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University. The "On Faith" panelist previously held teaching positions at the University of Pittsburgh, University of California -- Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton. She has also taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University. Fredriksen earned her doctorate in the history of religions (ancient Christianity, Graeco-Roman religions) at Princeton, writing her dissertation on "Augustine's Early Interpretations of Paul." She has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity from the late Second Temple period to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Her books include From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Jesus (1988 and 2000), for which she won the 1988 Yale Press Governors' Award for Best Book, and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (1999), for which she won a National Jewish Book Award. Together with Adele Reinhartz, she edited and contributed to Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament After the Holocaust (2002). She also edited and contributed to On 'The Passion of the Christ' (2005), a collection of essays about Mel Gibson's controversial film. Her latest book, Augustine and the Jews, is set for publication in 2007.

"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.

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.

"“On Faith”" panelist John Shelby Spong served as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2000. His books, seeking to make contemporary theology accessible to lay readers, have sold over a million copies. His latest book, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Discover the God of Love (2005), examines the holy book of the Judeo-Christian tradition. A committed Christian who has spent a lifetime studying the Bible and whose life has been deeply shaped by it, Spong has been a visiting lecturer at universities, Including Harvard, and churches worldwide, delivering more than 200 public lectures each year to standing-room only crowds. His best-selling books include Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, A New Christianity for a New World, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, and Here I Stand.