"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.

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.

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.”

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.

"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).

Rabbi Irwin Kula is the President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a leadership training institute, think tank and resource center in New York. The “On Faith” panelist has served as rabbi of congregations in St. Louis, New York City and Jerusalem. He is author of “Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life” (Hyperion, Sept. 2006)  winner of a “Books for a Better Life Award,” and selected by Spirituality & Health magazine as one the “10 Best Spiritual Book of 2006.” He is a regular guest on NBC-TV’s “The Today Show,” and co-host of the popular weekly radio show, Hirschfield and Kula, airing on KXL in Portland, Ore. In 2007 he was identified as one of the “Top 50 Rabbis in America,” by Newsweek. He is co-founder of the Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living in Chicago. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia Univ., his B.H.L. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTSA) in NY, and his M.A. in Rabbinics and Rabbinic Ordination from JTSA. He has served as rabbi of congregations in St. Louis, MO; Queens, NY; and Jerusalem, Israel.

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.

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.

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

Kathleen Flake is associate professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University. The "On Faith" panelist teaches courses in new religious movements and the relation between church and state in America. She researches the effect of politics on religion and the strategies by which religious communities maintain a sense of fidelity to an originating vision, while changing over time. Her recent book, "The Politics of American Religious Identity: the Seating of Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle," addresses both questions in the context of twentieth-century Mormonism. Descended from Southern Mormon pioneers and Baptist dust bowl migrants who ended up in Arizona, she now lives in Nashville, and is a practicing Latter-day Saint. Prior to her appointment to Vanderbilt, she was a litigation attorney in Washington, D.C., representing the government in civil rights and professional liability cases.

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.

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 Elie Wiesel received the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his long-time advocacy for oppressed peoples. Wiesel was deported with his family to Auschwitz from Transylvania at age 15. His mother and younger sister perished there, and Wiesel and his father were moved to Buchenwald, where his father died before the concentration camp was liberated in 1945. Two older sisters survived as well. Wiesel’s book Night describes what he witnessed as a prisoner of the Nazis. Originally published in 1956 in Yiddish, it since has been translated into more than 30 languages and millions of copies have been sold. Wiesel’s writings, teachings, and advocacy have earned him more than 120 honorary degrees from universities in Europe, America and Israel. He holds the rank of Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor and has been awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal in the U.S. He and his wife Marion established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity after he received his Nobel Prize. Its mission is to advance human rights and encourage peace through dialogue. Since 1976, Wiesel has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University. He has also taught at the City University of New York and Yale University. The latest of his more than 50 books, Un desir fou de danser, was published in France in 2006 and is set to be published in English by Knopf.

"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.

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.

“On Faith” panelist Sam Harris is the author of the best-selling books Letter to a Christian Nation (2006) and The End of Faith (2005), which won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction and has been translated into many foreign languages. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University, has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, and is now completing a doctorate in neuroscience. He makes regular appearances on television and radio to discuss the danger that religion now poses to modern societies. His essays have appeared in Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Times of London and The Boston Globe.

An ordained United Church of Christ and American Baptist minister, "On Faith" panelist Dr. Willis E. Elliott has been a pastor, teacher, lecturer, administrator, consultant (to Newsweek for 38 years), church executive, and the author of six books. His five earned degrees in religion include a PhD, University of Chicago, where he was divinity research librarian. He taught in colleges, seminaries, & universities--including the University of Hawaii, where he taught "The World's Great Religions" and "Religion and the Meaning of Existence." At the 1966 Triennium of the National Council of Churches, he was the interlocutor with Billy Graham.

"On Faith" panelist Chester Gillis is the Amaturo Chair of Catholic Studies at Georgetown University where he has served on the faculty since 1988. He was chair of the Department of Theology from 2001 to 2005. He holds degrees in philosophy and religious studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. His research interests include comparative religion and contemporary Roman Catholicism. He is the author of "A Question of Final Belief: John Hick’s Pluralistic Theory of Salvation" (1989), "Pluralism: A New Paradigm for Theology" (1993), "Roman Catholicism in America" (1999), "Catholic Faith in America" (2003) and editor of "The Political Papacy" (2006). He is co-editor of the Columbia University series Religion and Politics. He is a Fellow in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown, and is the Director of Georgetown’s Program on the Church and Interreligious Dialogue.

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 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).

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 Brian D. McLaren is a best-selling author, pastor and intellectual leader of “emerging church,” a Christian evangelical movement that seeks new ways to worship and understand the gospel in a postmodern era. He serves as a board chair for Sojourners/Call to Renewal, an evangelical social justice ministry, and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a network of progressive evangelical leaders who seek to apply Christian values to a broad agenda of concerns, including poverty, environmental care and advancing peace. McLaren, who is founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church in Maryland, has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. His topics include postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice. His eight books include A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and The Secret Message of Jesus. In 2005, McLaren was named by TIME magazine as one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals.

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.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa. He served as the first black African archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996. Prior to this role as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa, Tutu served as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985. It was in this position that he became an international voice for the anti-apartheid movement and received the Nobel Prize. In 1995, South African President Nelson Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body set up to investigate human rights violations under that country’s apartheid governments from 1960 to 1994. Tutu retired from in 1996 and was given the honorary title of Archbishop Emeritus. Since then, Archbishop Tutu served as a visiting professor and scholar at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He has received numerous awards and has authored two books, No Future Without Forgiveness and God has a Dream. Tutu continues to write, lecture, and travel the world as an advocate of human rights and social justice. He is currently involved with a number of non-profit organizations working for peace and equality, meeting the needs of disadvantaged children and fighting HIV/AIDS.

George Weigel is a Catholic theologian and Senior Fellow of Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. He is the author or editor of eighteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, which has been translated into twelve languages. The “On Faith” panelist’s most recent books include The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God, Letters to a Young Catholic and God's Choice: Pope Benedict XVI and the Future of the Catholic Church. Since 1999, he has been the Vatican analyst for NBC News, and he publishes frequently in newspapers and opinion journals around the world. A member of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Council on Foreign Relations, he was awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 2000. In 2006, Weigel became the second non-Pole honored by the Polish government's highest award for contributions to Polish and world culture, the Gloria Artis Gold Medal.

"On Faith" panelist Dr. Bob Edgar is president of Common Cause and former general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the leading U.S. organization in the movement for Christian unity. An ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, he came to the Council from Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, Calif., where he was president from 1990-2000. He was a six-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was the first Democrat in more than 120 years to be elected from the heavily Republican Seventh District of Pennsylvania. He served in Congress from 1974 to 1987. His wide-ranging career has also included pastorates at United Methodist congregations and stints as a teacher, college chaplain, community organizer, and director of a “think tank” on national security issues. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Lycoming College, Williamsport, Pa., and a master of divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University, Madison, N.J. He holds four honorary doctoral degrees. Later this year, he will become President and CEO of Common Cause.