“On Faith” panelist Lyle Dukes is Senior Pastor and founder of Harvest Life Changers Church in Woodbridge, Virginia. He and his wife, co-pastor Deborah Dukes, have served the church since its inception in 1995. Among the church’s ministries are an international television program, a regional radio program, world missions outreach as well as Christian bookstores, a record label (The Sound of Harvest), a publishing company (Harvest Word Publishing), community self-improvement courses (GED program, computer and financial courses) and numerous community service projects (prison and social services outreach). He and his wife produced CDs featuring the Harvest Life Changers Church Mass Choir and solo performances by Deborah Dukes. Their most popular CDs include Through the Eyes of God and In His Presence. Dukes and his wife were recognized as one of gospel industry’s top couples by Gospel Today Magazine. Dukes, a U.S. Army veteran, also is the author of several books and articles including, Possessing The Kingdom Anointing, The Ministry In You, Let Us Pray, Give It To Me Straight and Three Steps In Defeating Temptation and the co-author of The What Works The Best Principle.

Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together. He is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. An American Muslim of Indian heritage, Eboo has a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He is on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation and the Advisory Board of Duke University's Islamic Studies Center. Eboo is an Ashoka Fellow, part of a select network of social entrepreneurs with ideas that could change the world.

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].

Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest, is professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. His most recent book is “God in the White House: A History: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush” (HarperOne). The “On Faith” panelist has written ten other books, including Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, which was made into a three-part documentary for PBS. Balmer was nominated for an Emmy for his script-writing on that series. His second documentary, Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham and a two-part examination of the creation-evolution debate, In the Beginning: The Creationist Controversy, also aired on PBS. Balmer has lectured at the Chautauqua Institution, the Commonwealth Club of California and the Smithsonian Associates and been a visiting professor at Rutgers, Yale, and Princeton. He has published widely in academic journals and his syndicated commentaries on religion in America have appeared in newspapers across the country. He is editor-at-large for Christianity Today. A spiritual memoir, Growing Pains: Learning to Love My Father's Faith (2001) was named spiritual "book of the year" by Christianity Today. He is currently at work on a history of religion in North America.

"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.

Donna Freitas is Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston University. The "On Faith" panelist's literary and academic focus is the struggle of belonging and alienation with regard to faith, particularly among young adults, and especially young women. Freitas asks the 'Big Questions' (Why are we here anyway?) and delights in discovering the many forums in which to dabble with faith, religion, spirituality, and gender. A Catholic, she also is an ardent feminist. Her books include Becoming a Goddess of Inner Poise: Spirituality for the Bridget Jones in All of Us, (2005) and Save the Date: A Spirituality of Dating, Love, Dinner & the Divine. Freitas' most recent book project is Sex and the Soul, set for publication in 2007. It is based on a national study about the influence of sexuality and romantic relationships on the spiritual identities of America 's college students. Freitas' first novel, The Possibilities of Sainthood, which is about 15-year Antonia Lucia Labella, who aspires to become the first official living saint in Catholic history, is due for publication in 2008. Freitas can be reached through her website at www.donnafreitas.com.

"On Faith" panelist James Anderson is a retired Episcopal priest, an almost full-time volunteer in the community, a part-time farm manager, and independent writer. Anderson was one of four founders of the Alban Institute in Washington, D.C., and served as first president of its board. The Institute has grown to become one of the most respected sources of help in the nation to local congregations. Anderson is the author or co-author of three books on ministry in the local church: To Come Alive (1973) and The Management of Ministry (1978), co-authored with Ezra Earl Jones, have been widely used in the training and education of clergy. Anderson, who has wide experience as an advisor and consultant to a variety of religious organizations, also served as assistant to the Bishop for Congregational Development for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and director of Field Studies for the Cathedral College of the Laity at the Washington National Cathedral. He's currently writing a book with Bishop Jane Holmes Dixon examining the 40-year history of the effort to fully integrate women into the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church.

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.”

The "On Faith" panelist is a well-known evangelist, author and founding pastor of Third Day Worship Centers. He was born in Newark, N.J., and grew up in Bethlehem, Pa. He attended Penn State University and graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in education. He earned a Master's degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University. He's also a graduate of Bethany Bible Institute. Ordained by the Assemblies of God at the age of 23, he was elected to oversee the Assemblies of God Hispanic Youth Ministries for the 17 states in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic Region. In 1997, Rodriguez assisted in a church planting initiative where he founded and provided pastoral oversight to churches in Pennsylvania and New York City. In August 2000, the Assemblies of God invited Samuel to speak at the World Pentecostal Congress, Celebration 2000, in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. In the spring of 2001, he helped start the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which is affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals. He is a regular speaker for Promise Keepers, the Assemblies of God, other organizations and a regular contributor to Ministry Today, Outreach, Connexion, and Enrichment Journal. He lives in Sacramento, California with this three children and his wife of 18 years, Eva. Eva is the Senior Pastor of an Assemblies of God Church, Christian Worship Center

The Rev. Dr. James Herbert Cooper is the 17th Rector of Trinity Church-St. Paul’s Chapel in the city of New York. Before coming to New York City, the On Faith panelist spent over 30 years as rector of Christ Church in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where he founded $52-million and $82-million nonprofit life-care facilities to assure quality of life and health care for the aging population in the region. Dr. Cooper serves on the Advisory Board for the Anglican Observer to the United Nations, Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Seamen’s Church Institute, St. Margaret’s House and John Heuss House. He has previously led on the board of directors of Florida Association of Homes for the Aging, Christ Church Foundation, Life Care Pastoral Services, FreshMinistries, United Way, Christian Healing Ministries, University of the South and Kanuga. In 2005 Cooper was bestowed an honorary doctorate from the General Theological Seminary in New York City and made Canon of the Cathedral in Jerusalem. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University, and received his Master of Divinity and his Doctor of Ministry from the Virginia Theological Seminary. He lives in Lower Manhattan with his wife Tay and they have two grown children and two grandsons.

Washington Post journalist, author and Washington DC insider, Sally Quinn founded and co-moderates On Faith, a blog from the Washington Post and Newsweek. Co-moderated by Newsweek editor and bestselling author Jon Meacham and hosted by a panel of renowned religious scholars of all denominations, On Faith is the first worldwide, interactive discussion about religion and its impact on global life. While researching an article about religion in Washington prior to the 2000 presidential campaign, Quinn noticed that while religion had an enormous influence on worldwide politics, it was a taboo subject in our nation’s capital. Following 9/11, Quinn’s interest in religion grew and her passion to understand it from a personal and political perspective took on new urgency and focus. Over the past decade, Quinn has pursued a religious education with the same drive and rigor she once gave to politics. Leveraging her rolodex from 30 years as a columnist, she sought out spiritual mentorship from religious leaders and scholars such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Reverend Jim Anderson, Father Bryan Hehir and John Esposito. To gain emotional and spiritual perspective, she traveled to many of the world’s holy sites in Rome, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tibet, Delhi, Cairo, Ethiopia and Istanbul, and began attending several religious services and ceremonies a week at churches, temples and mosques. Quinn has written four books: “We’re Going to Make You a Star,” about her short-lived experience as a co-anchor for “CBS Morning News”; “Regrets Only,” her first novel; “Happy Endings,” its sequel, and “The Party,” in which Quinn offers an insider’s look at Washington entertaining and a personal view of the value of friendship. She is currently working on a book about religion in Washington.

"On Faith" panelist Stephen Prothero is Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and author of numerous books on American religion, most recently Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't (2007). His American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (2003) was named by Publisher's Weekly as one of the best religion books for 2003. His first book, The White Buddhist: The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott (1996), was awarded the Best First Book in the History of Religions for 1996 by the American Academy of Religion. He has commented on religion on dozens of National Public Radio programs, and on television on CNN, NBC, FOX and PBS. A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, he has also written for The Washington Post , the New York Times, Slate Magazine, Salon , the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe . Prothero can be reached through his website at http://www.stephenprothero.com.

"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.

"“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.

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.

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.

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 Sulayman S. Nyang teaches in the Department of African Studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. A scholar of African and Muslim affairs, Nyang, who is a native of the Republic of the Gambia, also served as his homeland's deputy ambassador to seven Middle Eastern and North African countries from 1975-78. Except for those three years, Nyang has taught at Howard since 1972, serving as acting director of the African Studies Program from 1973-75 and from 1986-1993, as chairman of the Department of African Studies. In 1993, he became senior consultant on the African Voices Project of the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution..In 1997, Nyang became the first scholar to be named the Henry Luce Professor for Abrahamic Religions at the University of Hartford and Hartford Seminary. From 1999 to 2002 Professor Nyang served as a principal investigator and co-director of the Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS) project sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust and housed at Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Now a U.S. citizen, Nyang has written extensively on African, Islamic and Middle Eastern affairs .His most widely-known book is Islam, Christianity and African Identity. He has also authored or co-edited Religious Plurality in Africa, with Jacob Olupona; A Line in the Sand: Saudi Arabia's Role in the Gulf War, with Evans Heindricks; and Islam:Its Relevance Today, co-edited with Henry Thompson. Nyang also wrote Islam in the United States of America (1999). His latest work is Muslims' Place in the American Public Square. Hopes, Fears, and Aspirations (2004), jointly edited with Zahid Bukhari and John Esposito of Georgetown University, and Mumtaz Ahmad of Hampton University). Nyang, who holds a doctorate in government from the University of Virginia, also serves on the advisory boards of several national African and Muslim organizations and was the first American Muslim president of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.

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.

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).

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.

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 John L. Esposito is professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University. He also is founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. A specialist in Islam, political Islam and the impact of Islamic movements from North Africa to Southeast Asia, Esposito is editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (4 vols.), The Oxford History of Islam, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and The Islamic World: Past and Present (3 vols.). His more than 30 books include: Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam, World Religions Today (with D. Fasching & T. Lewis), The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Islam: The Straight Path; Islam and Politics; Islam and Democrac, Makers of Contemporary Islam (with J. Voll) and Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (with A. Tamimi). A consultant to the State Department and corporations, Esposito was appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100 Leaders and to the High Level Group of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. He is a recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s 2005 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion and of Pakistan’s Quaid-i-Azzam Award for Outstanding Contributions in Islamic Studies

"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.

"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.

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.

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.