"On Faith" panelist Diana L. Eck is Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University and Director of The Pluralism Project . Her books about India include Banaras, City of Light and Darshan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (1982). Her book Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras (1993) won the Grawemeyer Book Award in Religion. With colleagues in The Pluralism Project , she also studies the changing religious landscape of America and has published A New Religious America : How a 'Christian' Country has become the World's Most Religiously Diverse Nation (2001).

"On Faith" panelist Leith Anderson is president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Anderson has been senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn., since 1977. During his tenure, the church has grown to 5,000 regular attendees and is known for its outreach overseas, including to victims of HIV/AIDS. His education includes Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois; B.A., Sociology, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois; Master of Divinity, Denver Seminary, Denver, Colorado; and Doctor of Ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of eight books and the radio voice of Faith Matters, which is heard on Christian stations across the United States.

The Reverend C. Welton Gaddy leads the nonpartisan educational organizations The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation, and hosts the latter's national weekly radio show, State of Belief. The “On Faith” panelist also serves as pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster Church in Monroe, La. Gaddy has written more than 20 books, which reflect his interest in the intersection of religion, media and activism as well as his progressive view of the Baptist church, including: I Give You My Word: Sharing the Language of Life ” with Walter Cronkite; Faith and Politics: What's a Christian to Do ?; Adultery and Grace: the Ultimate Scandal ; and A Love Affair With God: Finding Freedom & Intimacy in Prayer . Gaddy also is one of 20 religious members of the Council of 100 leaders, a group created by the World Economic Forum to foster dialogue between Western and Muslim countries. He has served in leadership roles at the national Alliance of Baptists, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Commission of Christian Ethics of the Baptist World Alliance, Board of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance, and Southern Baptist Convention. The Washington-based Interfaith Alliance was founded in 1994 to promote the positive role of religion in American life, and now has more than 185,000 members drawn from 75 religious traditions or belief systems. It is supported by 47 local activist groups and a cyber-network of 45,000 people. Gaddy earned his undergraduate degree from Union University in Tennessee and his doctoral degree and divinity training from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

"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.

“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

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

Rev. Gabriel Salguero is a pastor and executive member of the Latino Leadership Circle. The "On Faith" panelist is also director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He received his M.Div. from New Brunswick Theological Seminary and is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He and his wife, Jeanette, co-pastor the multicultural Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City. He serves on the board of Sojourners. Gabriel has been called one of the emerging voices of Latino evangelicals. He also serves as a member of the Equal Employment Advisory Commission for the state of New Jersey.

Rajan Zed is a well-known Hindu leader. He is a Hinduism teacher, serves on various boards of directors, and is a Hindu chaplain in northwestern Nevada and adjoining California. He delivered the historic first Hindu opening prayer in United States Senate in Washington. He earned an MBA and Master of Science in Mass Communications.

"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.

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.

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

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.

J. Brent Walker is executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee and both a member of the Supreme Court Bar and an ordained minister. A native of Charleston, W. Va., Walker holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Florida. He also earned a law degree from Stetson University College of Law. Walker was a partner in the law firm of Carlton, Fields in Tampa, FL. Walker left the firm in 1986 to enter Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree in 1989 and was named the most outstanding graduate. He pastored the Richland Baptist Church, Falmouth, KY, and routinely speaks in churches and denominational gatherings. Having taught 10 years as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, he has, since 2003, served as an adjunct professor at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond.

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.

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

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.

Rabbi Andy Bachman is the spiritual leader at Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn's largest Reform synagogue. He is also the co-founder, along with his wife Rachel Altstein, of Brooklyn Jews, a unique cultural and learning programs for Jews in their 20s and 30s. He was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996 and has a BA in history from UW-Madison. From 1998-2004, he was Executive Director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU. In 2007, Rabbi Bachman was named as one of the Forward's Fifty most influential Jews in North America. He writes a blog, documenting his life as a congregational rabbi at andybachman.com

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.