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.

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 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.

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 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.

"On Faith" panelist Daisy Khan is Executive Director of ASMA Society (American Society for Muslim Advancement). As wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Ms. Khan mentors young Muslims on questions of assimilation, tradition and modernity, and intergenerational challenges. In the aftermath of 9/11, Ms. Khan focused on creating interfaith programs aimed at seeking commonalities among the Abrahamic faith traditions, such as a groundbreaking theater production titled Same Difference and The Cordoba Bread Fest interfaith banquet.

"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).

“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

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.

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.

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 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).