Gustav Niebuhr is an associate professor of religion and the media, an interdisciplinary position in the College of Arts & Sciences and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Since June 2004, the “On Faith” panelist has directed the Religion & Society Program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate major. Niebuhr served as a visiting fellow/scholar in residence at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University from December 2001 to 2003. Supported by a Ford Foundation Grant, he conducted research on religious diversity and interfaith collaboration. Prior to his academic tenure, Niebuhr was a national correspondent for The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, writing feature and analytical articles, and reporting on news about religion. He won several awards, including the 1993 Templeton Religion Writer of the Year Award from the Religion Newswriters Association. His articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, the Carnegie Reporter, the Christian Century, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and Beliefnet.com. An experienced public lecturer,Niebuhr most recently spoke at Auburn Theological Seminary in May 2006 on “Is ‘Tolerance’ a Social Good?” and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May 2005, he lectured on “Religion as News.”

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.

The Right Rev. Mark Sean Sisk has been Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, one of the Episcopal Church’s largest dioceses with over 200 congregations since 2001. Before returning to New York as Bishop Coadjutor in 1998, the "On Faith" panelist served for 14 years as President and Dean of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. The bishop also worked as a parish priest for 10 years before his predecessor Bishop Paul Moore asked him to join his staff as Archdeacon of Westchester, Putnam and Rockland Counties in New York. Mission, worship and nurture are the three main focus areas of Sisk’s episcopacy. At the root of each is the promise of keeping our Lord and our faith centered in our lives while we work together to help the most vulnerable in our society. He believes that his and other moderate, socially conscious Christian viewpoints need to be heard. It is his hope to function as a bridge-builder in dealing with the important social issues confronting us as a nation. Sisk earned a degree in economics from the University of Maryland and a Masters of Divinity at General Theological Seminary in New York. He was ordained in 1967.

"On Faith" panelist Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo is Professor Emeritus of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College and Distinguished Scholar of the City University of New York. He has written more than 40 scholarly articles and authored nine books, including the four-volume PARAL series on religion among Latinos. His book Prophets Denied Honor (1980) is considered a landmark in Catholic literature. With his spouse, Ana María Díaz-Stevens, he authored Recognizing the Latino Religious Resurgence , which was named an Outstanding Academic Book for 1998 by Choice magazine. A spokesperson for civil and human rights, he has testified before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations and was named by President Jimmy Carter to the Advisory Board of the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights for two terms. Presently, he directs the Research Center for Religion In Society and Culture (RISC).

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.

Charles W. "Chuck" Colson is founder of Prison Fellowship, a Christian outreach ministry to the prison population of this country, as well as to ex-prisoners and crime victims. The "On Faith" panelist's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, is aired daily on over a 1,000 radio outlets nationwide. Colson also is a syndicated columnist, lawyer, and author of 25 books, most recently The Faith (2008). He served as special counsel to the late President Richard M. Nixon (1969-73). After pleading guilty to a Watergate-related charge of obstruction of justice in 1974, Colson served seven months of a one to three-year federal prison sentence. His 1973 Christian conversion was documented in the internationally best-selling book and film, Born Again. He founded Prison Fellowship in 1976. In 1993, Colson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion and donated the $1 million prize to Prison Fellowship. In the last 28 years, Colson has visited more than 600 prisons in 40 countries and, with the help of nearly 50,000 volunteers, has built Prison Fellowship into the world's largest prison outreach, serving the spiritual and practical needs of prisoners in 93 countries including the U.S.

“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.

"On Faith" panelist Pamela K. Taylor is co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values and director of the Islamic Writers Alliance. She is a member of the national board of advisors to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and served as co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union for two years. Taylor is a strong supporter of the woman imam movement, which seeks the full participation of Muslim women in every aspect of life, including the pulpit. In July 2005, she became the first woman in centuries to officiate Friday prayers in a mosque when the United Muslim Association of Toronto and the Muslim Canadian Congress invited her to serve as guest imam. (This event followed a number of services, sermons and prayer sessions led by women held in private venues because no mosque agreed to host them.) In February 2006, when the former Grand Mufti of Marseilles visited Toronto, he requested that Taylor lead him in congregational prayer as an unequivocal demonstration of his support for female imams. Taylor has also been active in interfaith dialogue for 20 years, both in local initiatives and speaking at numerous conferences, universities, and churches. She received her MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and writes regularly on spiritual matters and the Islamic faith. She has essays in Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions (2006) and the forthcoming The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (2007). She has written hundreds of articles and opinion pieces for newspapers, magazines, and journals, and is an award winning poet.

Marcus J. Borg holds the Hundere Chair in Religion and Culture in the Philosophy Department at Oregon State University. A fellow of the Jesus Seminar, he has served as national chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and co-chair of its International New Testament Program Committee, and is past president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. The “On Faith” panelist is the author of 14 books, including Jesus: A New Vision, The God We Never Knew, God at 2000, The Heart of Christianity and the best-selling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg also is a regular columnist for www.beliefnet.com. His work has been translated into nine languages. His latest book, Jesus: The Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, was published in November, 2006.

Wendy Doniger (O’Flaherty) is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School. The “On Faith” panelist also teaches in the University’s Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. She also serves on the University’s Committee on Social Thought. Doniger’s research and teaching center on Hinduism and mythology, with courses in the latter focusing on cross-cultural themes. Her courses in Hinduism cover a broad spectrum, including mythology, literature, law, gender, and ecology. After training as a dancer under George Balanchine and Martha Graham, Doniger earned two doctorates in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard and Oxford Universities. Before moving to the University of Chicago in 1978, she taught at Harvard, Oxford, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and the University of California at Berkeley. She has served as president of the American Academy of Religion and of the Association of Asian Studies. She holds four honorary degrees and serves on the International Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia Britannica and on the board of Daedalus. In 2000, she was recognized by PEN Oakland for excellence in multi-cultural non-fiction for Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India (1998). That same year she received the British Academy’s Rose Mary Crawshay prize for her work on myths about sex: The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade (2000). Doniger has authored more than 20 other books, including translations of Sanskrit texts, among which are The Rig Veda: An Anthology (1981); Laws of Manu(1991) [with Brian K. Smith], and Kamasutra(2002) [with Sudhir Kakar]. She also wrote The Woman Who Pretended To Be Who She Was (2005) and Off with Her Head! The Denial of Women's Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture [with Howard Eilberg Schwartz].

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.

As editor of the Catholic weekly magazine "America" (americamagazine.org), Rev. Thomas J. Reese promoted discussion on current issues facing the Catholic Church and the world. The "On Faith" panelist is author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. Father Reese is frequently quoted as an expert on Catholic issues. He is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, where he is working on religion and politics. Besides his theological training as a Jesuit priest, he has a doctorate in political science from the University of California Berkeley. He once worked as a lobbyist for tax reform.

The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, is the 11th President of Chicago Theological Seminary. 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).

Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason," to be published in February by Pantheon. 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.

Christopher Dickey is Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek magazine . An award-winning author, the "On Faith" panelist previously was a foreign correspondent in Cairo and Central America for the Washington Post. In his 30 years as a reporter and correspondent, Dickey has written frequently about issues of faith in the midst of conflict, from liberation theology in Latin America to radical Islam in Europe and the Middle East . His Shadowland column , about counter-terrorism, espionage and the Iraq war, appears weekly on Newsweek Online . His books include With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (1986); Expats: Travels in Arabia from Tripoli to Tehran (1990); Innocent Blood: A Novel (1997), and Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son (1998). His most recent novel, The Sleeper (2004), was called it "a first-rate thriller" by the New York Times. Dickey was the 1983-84 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York .

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Richard J. Mouw has served as president of Fuller Theological Seminary since 1993, after four years as provost and senior vice president. A philosopher, scholar, and author, the “On Faith” panelist has been recognized as an important voice among reform-oriented evangelicals. Mouw, who earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago, has a broad record of publication with 16 books, including Consulting the Faithful, and Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport and his articles have appeared in more than 50 journals and magazines. Currently he serves on the editorial board of Books and Culture as is a regular columnist on “Beliefnet.” Mouw has served on many councils and boards, including the Commission on Accreditation for the Association of Theological Schools (as chair) and the Council on Civil Society. He currently serves on advisory boards for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, the International Justice Mission, and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy.

Nicholas Thomas Wright is Anglican Bishop of Durham, England. The "On Faith" panelist taught New Testament studies for 20 years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities before becoming Dean of Lichfeld in 1994. He was named Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey in 2000, and consecrated bishop in 2003. He has written hundreds of articles and more than 40 books, including Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (2006) and Evil and the Justice of God (2006). He has served as Visiting Professor at numerous institutions including Harvard Divinity School, Gregorian University in Rome and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr Wright holds four degrees, including a divinity doctorate from Oxford University, and honorary degrees from several universities and colleges.

"On Faith" panelist Pamela K. Taylor is co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values and director of the Islamic Writers Alliance. She is a member of the national board of advisors to the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and served as co-chair of the Progressive Muslim Union for two years. Taylor is a strong supporter of the woman imam movement, which seeks the full participation of Muslim women in every aspect of life, including the pulpit. In July 2005, she became the first woman in centuries to officiate Friday prayers in a mosque when the United Muslim Association of Toronto and the Muslim Canadian Congress invited her to serve as guest imam. (This event followed a number of services, sermons and prayer sessions led by women held in private venues because no mosque agreed to host them.) In February 2006, when the former Grand Mufti of Marseilles visited Toronto, he requested that Taylor lead him in congregational prayer as an unequivocal demonstration of his support for female imams. Taylor has also been active in interfaith dialogue for 20 years, both in local initiatives and speaking at numerous conferences, universities, and churches. She received her MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and writes regularly on spiritual matters and the Islamic faith. She has essays in Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions (2006) and the forthcoming The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (2007). She has written hundreds of articles and opinion pieces for newspapers, magazines, and journals, and is an award winning poet.