The Authors

Zain Abdullah, Associate Professor of Religion and Society and Islamic Studies at Temple University, is the author of Black Mecca: The African Muslims of Harlem (Oxford University Press, 2010). He holds a doctorate in anthropology and has earned awards from the Smithsonian Institution and the Ford Foundation for his work on race, religion, immigration, and civic engagement. He has organized national conferences on public issues such as Black males and crime, worked as a Muslim Chaplain for the New York and New Jersey departments of corrections, and served on the NJ Attorney General’s Stop Hate Crimes Committee.

Efraín Agosto is Professor of New Testament Studies at New York Theological Seminary. Previously, Efraín was Professor of New Testament and Director of the Programa de Ministerios Hispanos at Hartford Seminary (1995-2011). A Puerto Rican born and raised in New York City, Efrain received his B.A. from Columbia University (1977), M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (1982), and Ph.D. in New Testament from Boston University (1996). Efraín’s publications include Servant Leadership: Jesus and Paul (2005), Corintios (2008), Preaching in the Interim: Transitional Leadership in the Latino/a Church (2018), and a co-edited volume, Latinxs, the Bible and Migration (2018).

Ellen T. Armour, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, directs the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality. Her latest book, Signs and Wonders: Theology after Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2016), uses photographs to diagnose and respond to shifts in our relationship to bio-disciplinary power. She will travel to Austria this summer to meet with other scholar-activists involved in resettling Syrian refugees.

Rose Aslan, Assistant Professor of Religion at California Lutheran University, received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an interfaith activist as well as a scholar of Islam and religious studies. She teaches courses on global religions, with a focus on Islam, and her research focuses on ritual and material culture in diverse Muslim communities

Margaret Aymer is the First Presbyterian Church, Shreveport, D. Thomason Professor of New Testament Studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She explores the intersection between constructive theology and biblical interpretation, and is one of the editors of The Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The New Testament. Rev. Dr. Aymer is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Caribbean Black and Indian descent, and has voted in every election since her naturalization. She is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.

Murali Balaji is a journalist, author, and academic with nearly 20 years of experience in diversity leadership. He currently serves in diversity leadership and as a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founder of Maruthi Education Consulting, consulting several congressional campaigns on cultural competency. Dr. Balaji has also served as the education director for the Hindu American Foundation, where he was recognized as a national leader in cultural competency and religious literacy.

M. Craig Barnes, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, also serves as Professor of Pastoral Ministry. He earned his Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in church history from the University of Chicago. He is the author of eight books, including most recently Body and Soul: Reclaiming the Heidelberg Catechism (2012) and The Pastor as Minor Poet (2008), and he serves as a columnist for The Christian Century. 

Eric D. Barreto is Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained Baptist minister. He holds a MDiv from Princeton Seminary and PhD in New Testament from Emory University. He is the author of Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), the co-author of Exploring the Bible (Fortress Press, 2016), and editor of Reading Theologically (Fortress Press, 2014). A leader in the Hispanic Theological Initiative Consortium, Dr. Barreto pursues scholarship for the sake of the church and regularly writes for and teaches in faith communities around the country.

Ryan Bonfiglio is an Assistant Professor in the Practice of Old Testament at Emory’s Candler School of Theology. There he also directs The Candler Foundry, an initiative that seeks to make in-depth theological learning and exploration available to communities beyond Candler’s traditional degree programs. His teaching and research interests include the Psalms, biblical metaphors, the Sabbath, ancient Near Eastern Art, and poverty and community development. He teaches widely in churches in and beyond Atlanta and leads immersion experiences in Israel-Palestine for clergy from diverse theological traditions.

Lisa Bowens, Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, received her M.T.S. and Th.M. from Duke University Divinity School and her Ph.D. in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is the author of An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. Her latest book, African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation, is the first monograph to investigate a historical trajectory of African Americans’ utilization of Paul and his letters to protest injustice, oppression, and racism in their own writings from the 1700s to the mid-twentieth century.

Marc Z. Brettler, Bernice and Morton Lerner Distinguished Professor in Judaic Studies at Duke University, conducts research focused on the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation. He co-edited The Jewish Annotated New Testament, The New Oxford Annotated Bible, and The Jewish Study Bible; and he co-authored The Bible and the Believer (2012) and most recently, with Amy-Jill Levine, The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently. His other works include How to Read the Jewish Bible (Oxford, 2007), as well as op-eds on the place of the Bible in American public life.

Bernadette J. Brooten, Robert and Myra Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, also serves as Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as Professor of Classical Studies, Chair of the Program in Religious Studies, and Director of the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis. She has published Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (1982), Love Between Women: Early Christian Female Homoeroticism (1996), edited Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies, and is completing a book on early Christian enslaved women and female slave-holders. Trained as a Catholic theologian, she has also studied Protestant theology and Jewish Studies.

William P. Brown is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. His writings explore the intersecting issues of ecology, justice, faith, and science from various biblical perspectives. He is the author of several books, including Wisdom’s Wonder, The Seven Pillars of Creation, and Seeing the Psalms. Bill was a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, where he worked collaboratively with scientists, philosophers, and ethicists exploring the “societal implications of astrobiology.” Much of Bill’s work is driven by the need to promote dialogue among diverse participants to foster mutual understanding and equity.

Gay L. Byron, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C., is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and active in teaching and preaching in a variety of religious and educational contexts. She is the author of Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature (Routledge Press) and co-editor of Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse (SBL Press).

Greg Carey is Professor of New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary. His scholarship emphasizes theologically engaged public interpretation of the Bible. His published works include Using Our Outside Voice: Public Biblical Interpretation, Stories Jesus Told: How to Read a Parable, and Apocalyptic Literature in the New Testament. An active layperson in the United Church of Christ, he is a graduate of Rhodes College (BA), the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv), and Vanderbilt University (PhD). He serves in leadership roles with the Open and Affirming Coalition of the United Church of Christ, POWER Interfaith, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

Corrine Carvalho is Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Her area of research is the Old Testament, particularly the literature of the Exile. Dr. Carvalho’s most recent publications include “The Ethics of Survival in the Book of Lamentations: Trauma, Identity and Social Location,” in Scripture and Justice: Catholic and Ecumenical Essays, ed. by A. Portier-Young and G. Sterling (Lexington, 2018) and “Drunkenness, Tattoos and Dirty Underwear: Jeremiah as a Modern Masculine Metaphor,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 80 (2018). She is currently editing the Oxford Handbook on the Book of Ezekiel.

Christopher Key Chapple is the Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding Director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published more than twenty books, including the recent Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas (SUNY Press). He serves as advisor to organizations including the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale), Ahimsa Center (Pomona), Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley), Jain Studies Centre (SOAS, London), South Asian Studies Association, and International School for Jain Studies (New Delhi). He teaches online through the Center for Religion and Spirituality at LMU, which has a Yoga Studies certificate and degree programs, and YogaGlo.

Paul W. Chilcote serves in retirement as Director of the Centre for Global Wesleyan Theology at Wesley House, Cambridge University and Theologian in Residence for Neighborhood Seminary. He was involved in theological education at Wesley College (England), St. Paul’s United Theological College (Kenya), the Methodist Theological School (Ohio), Duke Divinity School (North Carolina), and he helped launch Africa University (Zimbabwe) and Asbury Theological Seminary (Florida). He served as Academic Dean and Professor of Historical Theology & Wesleyan Studies at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ohio. A Methodist scholar and Wesleyan specialist, he is the author or editor of nearly thirty books, including Praying in the Wesleyan Spirit. 

Jin Young Choi, Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins and Baptist Missionary Training School Professorial Chair of Biblical Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, is the author of Postcolonial Discipleship of Embodiment: An Asian and Asian American Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Mark (2015). By weaving biblical narratives together with diverse interpretative threads, her work focuses on the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, empire, and early Christianity. Dr. Choi has also co-edited volumes such as Minoritized Women Reading Race and Ethnicity: Intersectional Approaches to Constructed Identity and Early Christian Texts (2020) and Faith, Class, and Labor: Intersectional Approaches in a Global Context (2020).

Ki Joo (KC) Choi is Professor of Theological Ethics and Chair of the Department of Religion at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. His publications include Disciplined by Race: Theological Ethics and the Problem of Asian American Identity (Cascade, 2019), which examines the ethical implications of Asian American experiences of racism. He is currently working on a constructive Asian American theological account of racial and social justice, and another book on the role that art and aesthetic experience can play in both fostering solidarity and fracturing community.

Jaime Clark-Soles is Professor of New Testament and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology, SMU, where she also directs The Baptist House of Studies. Rev. Dr. Clark-Soles is an ordained Baptist minister committed to interfaith work. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Disability and Religion and is a contributor to Disability and the Bible: A Commentary. Her books include Women in the Bible; Reading John for Dear Life; Engaging the Word; Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament; and Scripture Cannot Be Broken. She is the New Testament editor of the CEB Women’s Bible.

Forrest Clingerman, Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Ohio Northern University, is a specialist in how Christian thought engages environmental issues. As an author of scholarly works in religion and philosophy, he has written on such things as climate change, ecological restoration, local ethics, and appreciating the spiritual meaning of place.  He is co-editor of Teaching Civic Engagement (Oxford University Press, 2016), Theological and Ethical Perspectives on Climate Engineering (Lexington Books, 2016), and Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics (Fordham University Press, 2014).

Jeremy V. Cruz, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics at St. John’s University in Queens, NY, holds a Master of Divinity and Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Boston College. His research interests are at the intersection of Christian political theology, moral theory, and labor studies, with a current focus on U.S. farmworker movements. He has also worked in community organizing and served as the Coordinator of Youth Ministry at St. Mary Magdalene parish in Riverside County, California.

Shawnee M. Daniels-Sykes is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Mount Mary University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Holding degrees in biology/biochemistry and nursing, Dr. Daniels-Sykes received her doctorate in Religious Studies with a specialization in Theological Ethics and sub-specialization in Catholic Bioethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee. Currently, she is the only Black Catholic female Health Care Ethicist in the United States. A national and international speaker and teacher, her research and writing interests include beginning, middle, and end of human life concerns at the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression with movement towards liberation and freedom.

Maria Teresa Dávila, Associate Professor Christian Ethics at Andover Newton Theological School, is a lay woman in the Roman Catholic tradition. She earned her M.T.S. at the Boston University School of Theology and Ph.D. at Boston College. She focuses on the intersections of class identity formation and Christian ethics. She is currently undertaking a study of the relationship between understandings of discipleship and activism-public witness-faith in action.

Neomi De Anda currently serves as Associate Professor at the University of Dayton. She teaches courses in religion, languages and cultures, Latinx studies, and women and gender studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Constructive Theology and currently serves as the President for the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS). Her research interests include Latinas and Latin American women writers in religion 1600-1900, LatinaXa Theology, theology and breast milk, Chisme, and intersections of race and migrations in conjunction with the Marianist Social Justice Collaborative Immigrant Justice Team and the Hope Border Institute.

Teresa Delgado, Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program and Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Religious Studies Department at Iona College, received her doctorate from Union Theological Seminary. Her scholarship utilizes the experiences of marginalized peoples to articulate a constructive theological/ethical vision. She has published extensively on issues ranging from diversity in higher education, transformational pedagogies, constructive theology and ethics, and justice for racial/ethnic/sexual minorities. She is currently completing a book entitled Prophesy Freedom: A Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology.

Miguel H. Díaz is the John Courtney Murray University Chair in Public Service at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Díaz served under President Barack Obama as the ninth U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See and in 2013 received the prestigious Virgilio Elizondo Award for distinguished achievement in theology. He is co-editor of Disruptive Cartographers: Doing Theology Latinamente and is working on a collaborative project rethinking theology and pastoral practice from Queer and Catholic Voices of Color. Prof. Díaz contributes to efforts that bridge faith and public life, and he participates in diplomatic initiatives in Washington, D.C. to advance human rights globally, including the Atlantic Council and National Democratic Institute.

Kelly Brown Douglas is the Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and the Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology at Union. The Very Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas also serves as the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral and Theologian in Residence at Trinity Church Wall Street. Dean Douglas is the author of many articles and five books, including Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective and Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. Her academic work has focused on womanist theology, sexuality and the black church, and social justice.

Amy Easton-Flake, Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University. She teaches classes on the New Testament, Book of Mormon, and women in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Her research focuses on nineteenth-century women’s reform literature and biblical hermeneutics, and she is on the steering committee of the Recovering Female Interpreters of the Bible SBL program unit. Her work may be found in the New England Quarterly, Women’s History Review, Symbiosis, American Journalism, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and multiple edited volumes.

Emran El-Badawi, Program Director and Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Houston, is co-founder of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, which is dedicated to critical and respectful study of the Qur’an, as well as building bridges and promoting peace and mutual understanding through scholarship. His work has been featured in the media, including The New York Times, Forbes, and Al-Jazeera.

Sarah Eltantawi, Associate Professor of Modern Islam in the Department of Theology at Fordham University, is a scholar of Islam and the author of Shari’ah on Trial: Northern Nigeria’s Islamic Revolution (University of California Press, 2017). She holds an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard University.  She has published on contemporary Islamic law and society, Nigerian concepts of post-modernity, the stoning punishment in Islam, and the Egyptian revolution and its aftermath.

Rebecca Epstein-Levi is the Mellon Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Vanderbilt University. She’s an expert on Jewish sexual ethics, and is working on a book project on sex, risk, and rabbinic text. She has written for Bitch Media, The Revealer, Disability Acts, Alma, Religion Dispatches, Feminist Studies in Religion, and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s newsletter Gleanings.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is the Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature and History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Rabbi Eskenazi is Editor with Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D. of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, winner of the 2008 Jewish Book of the Year Award, and co-author of The JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth (with Tikva Frymer-Kensky) winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Women Studies. She focuses on the Persian Period, Ezra-Nehemiah, women in the Bible, and the significance of the Hebrew Bible for contemporary communities. Her commentary on Ezra (Anchor Bible) is forthcoming.

Daniel Fisher-Livne is Assistant Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. His scholarship explores cultural memory and the emergence and early reception of biblical literature. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining HUC-JIR, Dr. Fisher-Livne served as Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Director at the National Humanities Alliance, where he created and led Humanities for All, an initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to document and build capacity for public engagement in the humanities across U.S. higher education.

Kathleen Flake, Richard L. Bushman Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia, is author of The Politics of Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot and several scholarly essays. She is on the editorial board of Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation and the Journal of Mormon Studies. She has held office in the American Academy of Religion and the American Society of Church History.

Shreena Niketa Gandhi is Fixed Term Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University. Trained at Swarthmore, Harvard, and the University of Florida, she is a cultural historian of religion with expertise in religion, race, the Americas, and Hinduism. Her research and public scholarship are on the history of yoga in the U.S., and she is revising a manuscript on this topic using the framework of white supremacy and cultural appropriation. Professor Gandhi is also a member of the Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, which encourages a reoriented approach to Hindu Studies which takes into consideration white supremacy and caste supremacy/brahmanical patriarchy.

Susan R. Garrett, Dean and Professor of New Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, specializes in study of the New Testament writings in their social historical context. She is the author of No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus (Yale University Press, 2008). She has been a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Tübingen and a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, and she currently serves as the Bibles Delegate for Oxford University Press.

Joshua D. Garroway is the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professor of Judaeo-Christian Studies and Professor of Early Christianity and Second Commonwealth at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Rabbi Garroway was ordained at HUC-JIR in 2003 and earned his doctorate from Yale in 2008. His books and scholarly articles focus on the emergence of Christianity against the backdrop of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, and he lectures widely on broader themes in Jewish history. His publications include The Beginning of the Gospel: Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity (2018) and Paul’s Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, But Both (2012).

Cecilia González-Andrieu is Professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount University. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, where she was named the 2020 Alum of the Year for her work as a “leading scholar and passionate advocate.” She identifies as a public theologian, is a contributing writer for America, and a member of the board of the Ignatian Solidarity Network. Dr González-Andrieu works on political theology, the arts, and Latinx theologies. Her books include Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty and Teaching Global Theologies: Power and Praxis.

Deirdre Good, Faculty at Stevenson School of Ministry, Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, is an M.Theol.(hons) graduate of the University of St Andrews in Scotland (1975). She has an STM degree from Union Theological Seminary (1976), and a Th.D from Harvard Divinity School (1983). Canon Dr. Good was a professor at The General Theological Seminary in New York City for 28 years and academic dean for two years. Her books include Jesus the Meek King (1999), Jesus’ Family Values (2006), Mariam, the Magdalen, and the Mother (2005), Courage Beyond Fear: Re-formation in Theological Education, co-edited with Katie Day (2019). In press with Lexington Fortress is Borderlands of Theological Education, co-edited with Josh Davis.

Nicholas A. Grier, Ph.D., L.P.C. is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology, Spiritual Care, and Counseling at Claremont School of Theology (Claremont, CA and Salem, OR). He is also a counselor at The Bishop Wellness Center at Willamette University and founder of Coloring Mental Health Collective, a community-focused organization that advocates and organizes for the mental health of Black and Brown people.

Leo Guardado, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Fordham University, received his Ph.D. in Theology and Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame. Originally from El Salvador, Dr. Guardado’s research focuses on the concept and practice of church sanctuary, its ecclesiological implications in a world of increasing human displacement, and the possibilities it offers for rethinking collective modes of nonviolent resistance across borders. He teaches classes on Latinx Theology, Liberation Theology, and Mystical Theology. 

Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School, is a scholar in Buddhist Studies with concentration on Tibet. Her books include Apparitions of the Self (Princeton), a study of Tibetan autobiography, and Being Human in a Buddhist World (Columbia) an intellectual history of medicine in early modern Tibet. Dr. Gyatso has also been writing on memory, sex and gender, and on the current female ordination movement in Buddhism. Her present research focuses on Tibetan/South Asian poetics.  She has also begun a book on ethics and animals.

Esther J. Hamori, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary, received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East from New York University in 2004. Her research is focused on various aspects of divine-human contact and communication in ancient Israelite and other Near Eastern religious literature. She is the author of Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge (2015) and ‘When Gods Were Men’: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature (2008).

J.B. Haws, Assistant Professor of Church History at Brigham Young University, is Coordinator of BYU’s Richard L. Evans Office of Religious Outreach. His Ph.D. from the University of Utah is in American History, and his research interests center on the place of Mormonism in twentieth- and twenty-first century America. He is the author of The Mormon Image in the American Mind (Oxford, 2013).

Christine Hayes, Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, is a specialist in biblical and ancient Jewish studies and the author of several award-winning books, including What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives (2015), and numerous scholarly articles. She has also authored two popular volumes: Introduction to the Bible, based on her free online course available through Open Yale Courses, and The Emergence of Judaism.  She lectures widely in the United States and abroad.

Shai Held, President and Dean of the Hadar Institute, is a theologian, scholar, and educator. He is a 2011 recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award for excellence in Jewish education, and he has been named multiple times to Newsweek’s list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America.  He is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (Indiana University Press, 2013) and The Heart of Torah (forthcoming), a two volume collection of essays on the Torah.

Katharine R. Henderson, President of Auburn Seminary, is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) and author of God’s Troublemakers: How Women of Faith are Changing the World (Continuum, 2006). She is an internationally known speaker and has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, MSNBC, NPR, and more. She was named co-recipient of the Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize for her lifelong passion to create spaces for authentic interfaith engagement, including spearheading the creation of “MountainTop,” a national gathering of 80 faith leaders to catalyze a multifaith movement for justice.

Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, Professor of Latina/o/x Studies and Religion at Williams College, studies scriptures at the intersections of gender, sexuality, and ecology in U.S. Latina/o/x contexts. A past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), she co-edited, with Efraín Agosto, Latinxs, the Bible, and Migration (2018). She is the author of Revelation in Aztlán: Scriptures, Utopias, and the Chicano Movement (2016) as well as many essays and articles.

Karina Martin Hogan is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism in the Theology Department at Fordham University. She is a faculty member in Fordham’s programs in Jewish Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her BA is from Swarthmore College and her MA and Ph.D. are from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Although most of her research is on wisdom and apocalyptic literature of early Judaism, she is currently working on a book about global contextual interpretations of the book of Ruth.

Shalom E. Holtz is Professor of Bible at Yeshiva University and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of Yeshiva College, its undergraduate school of arts and science for men. He holds degrees in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard (AB, 1999) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D., 2006). His research focuses on biblical and ancient Near Eastern law. His most recent book is Praying Legally (Brown Judaic Studies, 2019), a study of courtroom imagery and language in Hebrew and Akkadian prayers.

Lia C. Howard is the Student Advising and Wellness Director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Paideia Program. A political scientist who specializes in American politics, she has taught at St. Joseph’s University, Villanova University, Eastern University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Lia served as the executive director of the Philadelphia Commons Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the practice of civic dialogue. She is a non-resident scholar at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, a non-resident senior affiliate at the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at Penn, and a senior fellow at the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program at Penn.

Amir Hussain, Chair and Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, teaches courses on Islam and world religions. His specialty is the study of contemporary Muslim societies in North America. He is Vice President of the American Academy of Religion, and a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. His most recent book about Islam is Muslims and the Making of America (Baylor University Press, 2016).

Tammy Jacobowitz is an educator based in New Jersey. Her teaching and writing explore the Hebrew Bible and its wisdom for modern times. As chair of the Bible department at the SAR high school in Riverdale, NY, Dr. Jacobowitz empowers her students to situate themselves at the intersection between the Bible and their lives. She is the founding director of Makom B’Siach at SAR, an immersive adult education program for parents, and teaches Bible pedagogy to rabbinical students. She completed her Ph.D. in Midrash at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. Dr. Jacobowitz is currently working on a book geared for parents to draw meaning from Bible study with their children.

Serene Jones is the sixteenth President of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy. Rev. Dr. Jones came to Union from Yale University, where she was the Titus Street Professor of Theology at the Divinity School and Chair of the University’s Program in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is a Past President of the American Academy of Religion and the author of several books including Trauma and Grace and her memoir, Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World. Pres. Jones has a deep grounding in theology, politics, women’s studies, economics, race studies, history, and ethics.

Jennifer T. Kaalund, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College, received her Ph.D. from Drew University in New Testament and Early Christianity. Her research interests include Christian Scriptures, African American history and culture, the Bible in popular culture, and the study of early Christianity in its Roman imperial context, with a focus on womanist hermeneutics and postcolonial and cultural studies.

S. Tamar Kamionkowski, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, holds a B.A from Oberlin College, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D in Near Eastern and Judaic studies from Brandeis University. She is the author of Leviticus: A Wisdom Commentary (Liturgical Press, forthcoming), Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: Studies in the Book of Ezekiel (Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), co-editor of Bodies, Embodiment and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures (T&T Clark, 2010), and she has written numerous articles on biblical literature, feminist readings of biblical texts, and the intersection between scholarship and social justice.

Tazim R. Kassam, Associate Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, is a historian of religions specializing in the Islamic tradition. Her research and teaching interests include gender, ritual, devotional literature, syncretism and the cultural heritage of Muslims particularly in South Asia. She is the author of Songs of Women and Circles of Dance (1995) and has received fellowships from the Social Science Research Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Zayn Kassam, John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies at Pomona College, chairs the department of religious studies and has coordinated the programs in Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies. She is the author of Introduction to the World’s Major Religions: Islam (2006), and editor of Women and Islam (2010) and Women in Asian Religions (2018). Dr. Kassam is section editor for Islam for the volume on Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism for the Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (2018) and coordinator for gender and women’s studies and director of the Pacific Basin Institute. She serves on several editorial boards including the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Joel B. Kemp is an Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Dr. Kemp holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Boston College (2017), an M.Div. from Andover Newton Theological School (2010), and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (2000). His research interests in biblical studies include the Old Testament, especially the latter prophets, biblical law, and the history of Judah and identity development. His additional scholarly pursuits include African-American appropriations of Scripture, the relationship between race, religion, and law within American society, and the use of the Bible in popular culture.

Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker is Senior Instructor Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, where she also served as Clinical Professor Jain and Sikh Studies and Acting Director Graduate Yoga Studies. She was born a second-generation Sikh and became the first female exponent of the Sikh drumming tradition. Her ethnographic research and publications investigate historic, modern, and transnational Sikh devotional music. Using a decolonial lens, she explores diversity and gender roles in Sikh identity, pedagogy, and practice. Throughout her scholarship and teaching, she highlights the importance of embodied practices to cultivate ethical action in daily life.

Uriah Y. Kim, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs and John Dillenberger Professor of Biblical Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, holds a Ph.D. from GTU,  MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, Th.M. from Candler School of Theology of Emory University, and a BA in philosophy from New York University. He was born to a Buddhist family in Korea, immigrated to the United States at age 10, and became a Christian in his late teens. He believes that his decisions to go to seminary after college, to do doctoral studies in biblical studies, and to serve as professor and administrator in theological education are results of his sincere desire to know the truth, to love God, and to serve others.

Karen L. King, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, was trained in comparative religions and historical studies. She is the author of books and articles on the diversity of ancient Christianity, women and gender studies, and religion and violence, including What is Gnosticism?, The Secret Revelation of John, and The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, “Christianity and Torture” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence, and “The Place of the Gospel of Philip in the Context of Early Christian Claims about Jesus’ Marital Status” in the Journal New Testament Studies 59.

Nadieszda Kizenko, Professor of History and Director of Religious Studies at the State University of New York, Albany, is the author of Good for the Souls: A History of Confession in the Russian Empire, the prize-winning A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People, and numerous articles on Orthodox Christianity including “The Feminization of Patriarchy? Women in Contemporary Russian Orthodoxy” (winner of Best Article, Association for the Study of Eastern Christianity). She studies Orthodox Christian history and liturgy in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Jennifer Wright Knust, Associate Professor at Boston University, teaches courses in early Christian history and literature, theoretical approaches to religion, and religion and gender. Author of Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire and editor of Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice, as well as a number of other books, and articles, her work investigates the transmission of sacred texts, the materiality of ancient religions, and sexual slander, among other topics.

Aaron Koller is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Yeshiva University, where he studies Semitic languages. He is the author of Unbinding Isaac: The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (JPS/University of Nebraska Press, 2020) and Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2014), among other books, and the editor of five more. Aaron has served as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and held research fellowships at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research and the Hartman Institute.

Naomi Koltun-Fromm is Associate Professor of Religion at Haverford College. She specializes in Late Ancient Jewish history, Jewish and Christian relations, religious polemics, comparative biblical exegesis, rabbinic culture and the Syriac speaking churches. In addition to her monograph, Hermeneutics of Holiness: Ancient Jewish and Christian Notions of Sexuality and Religious Community, she has recently co-edited The Blackwell Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism, as well as The Routledge Handbook on Jerusalem. Her present book project focuses on the representations of the rock within the Dome of the Rock in Jewish, Christian and Islamic myth and history.

Jennifer L. Koosed, Professor of Religious Studies at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, earned a M.St. degree from Oxford University, M.T.S. from Vanderbilt Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Hebrew Bible. Her publications include (Per)mutations of Qohelet: Reading the Body in the Book (2006), Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives (2011), and Reading the Bible as a Feminist (2017).  She has edited volumes on the Bible and posthumanism (2014), and the Bible and affect theory (2014 and 2019).

Matthew Kraus, Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and Head of the Department of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati, is also an ordained rabbi. He is the author of Jewish, Christian, and Classical Exegetical Traditions in Jerome’s Translation of the Book of Exodus (Brill, 2017). He contributed to the Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (Oxford University Press, 2020) and is currently working on a book-length study of Chanukah. Rabbi Kraus has also published pieces in The Reform Jewish Quarterly, serves on the Amberley Village Human Rights Commission, and teaches religious school to seventh and eighth graders.

Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, the President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, is a leading thinker and author on the meaning of Israel to American Jews, on Jewish history and Jewish memory, and on questions of leadership and change in American Jewish life. Dr. Kurtzer received his doctorate in Jewish Studies from Harvard University. He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, which offers new thinking to contemporary Jews on navigating the tensions between history and memory, and co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, a collection of the most significant Jewish ideas and debates of the past two generations. Dr. Kurtzer is also the host of Hartman’s Identity/Crisis podcast.

John F. Kutsko, Executive Director at the Society of Biblical Literature and Affiliate Professor of Biblical Studies at Emory University, holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. He serves on the advisory boards of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, DC, and the Journal of General Education. His most recent article is “Compromise as a Biblical Value,” in The Bible in Political Debate (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016).

Beatrice J. W. Lawrence, Assistant Professor Hebrew Bible at Seattle University, holds a Ph.D. from Emory University in Hebrew Bible with an emphasis in Jewish Hermeneutics.  Her research interests include biblical interpretation in rabbinics and parshanut, gender and sexuality in Jewish texts, popular culture and cultural theory, and critical interreligious engagement.

Bill J. Leonard, James and Marilyn Dunn Professor of Baptist Studies and Professor of Church History at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, holds a Ph.D. from Boston University. He teaches church history with particular emphasis on Baptist studies, American religion, and religion in Appalachia. He is author and editor of some 24 books, the most recent of which is A Sense of the Heart: Christian Religious Experience in the United States.

Amy-Jill Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Science, also serves as E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt. She is Affiliated Professor at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge UK.  Her most recent volume is Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, and she is the co-editor of the Jewish Annotated New Testament.

Karoline M. Lewis is the Marbury E. Anderson Chair of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Rev. Lewis  is the author of SHE: Five Keys to Unlock the Power of Women in Ministry, EMBODY: Five Keys to Leading With Integrity, A Lay Preacher’s Guide: How to Craft a Faithful Sermon, and John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentary. Lewis speaks internationally on the Gospel of John, interpreting the Bible, preaching, leadership, and women in ministry, and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “Sermon Brainwave” for Working Preacher.

Tat-siong Benny Liew is Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. He is the author of Politics of Parousia (Brill, 1999) and What Is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? (University of Hawaii Press, 2008) and the editor of numerous publications including the Semeia volume on “The Bible in Asian America” (with Gale Yee; SBL, 2002), Postcolonial Interventions (Sheffield Phoenix, 2009), Reading Ideologies (Sheffield Phoenix, 2011), Psychoanalytical Mediations between Marxist and Postcolonial Readings of the Bible (with Erin Runions; SBL, 2016), Present and Future of Biblical Studies (Brill, 2018), and Colonialism and the Bible: Contemporary Reflections from the Global South (with Fernando Segovia; Lexington, 2018).

Yii-Jan Lin, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School, teaches in the field of New Testament studies and specializes in critical race theory, gender and sexuality, and immigration. Her book, The Erotic Life of Manuscripts (Oxford, 2016), examines how metaphors of race, family, evolution, and genetic inheritance have shaped the goals and assumptions of New Testament textual criticism from the eighteenth century to the present. Her current research focuses on apocalypticism and the use of Revelation in the political discourse surrounding American immigration, both in utopian visions of America and dystopian fear of “outsiders.”

Debra Majeed, Professor of Religious Studies at Beloit College, is a religious historian who has made the interconnection between religion, gender and justice central to her life’s work. With a doctorate in religious and theological studies from Northwestern University, she is the first African American female and first Muslim to be tenured in the 169-year history of Beloit College. With the publication of her groundbreaking book, ​Polygyny: What It Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands (2015), she continues to work with mosque communities for the cultivation of resources and support for healthy marriage regardless of form.

Herbert Robinson Marbury is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East at Vanderbilt University. He is the former pastor of Old National United Methodist Church in Atlanta and University Chaplain at Clark Atlanta University. Dr. Marbury is author of Imperial Dominion and Priestly Genius (Sopher Press, 2012) and Pillars of Cloud and Fire: The Politics of Exodus in African American Biblical Interpretation (NYU Press, 2015). He studies how communities interpret meaning from Scripture, both how the writers of the Hebrew Bible developed interpretations that enabled their communities to withstand imperial oppression, and also how the same phenomenon occurred in African American communities from the Antebellum period through the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

Bryan N. Massingale holds the James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics at Fordham University. A Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, he is the President-Elect of the Society of Christian Ethics, a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and a past convener of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium. He is the author of the award-winning book, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, and a public intellectual who frequently addresses issues of racial and sexual justice.

Eric Daryl Meyer is the Gregory Roeben and Susan Raunig Professor of Social Justice and the Human-Animal Relationship at Carroll College, a Catholic, diocesan, liberal arts college in Helena, Montana. He is the author of Inner Animalities: Theology and the End of the Human (Fordham, 2018).

Rachel Mikva serves as the Schaalman Professor in Jewish Studies and Senior Fellow of the InterReligious Institute at Chicago Theological Seminary.  The seminary works at the cutting edge of theological education, training religious leaders who can build bridges across cultural and religious difference for the critical work of social transformation. With a passion for justice and academic expertise in the history of scriptural interpretation, Rabbi Mikva’s courses and publications address a range of Jewish and comparative studies, with special interest in the intersections of sacred texts, culture, and ethics. Her most recent book is Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. 

Anna C. Miller is an Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her research interests center on politics and gender in the earliest Christian communities. These interests are represented in her book Corinthian Democracy: Democratic Discourse in 1 Corinthians, hailed as a “groundbreaking work.” Dr. Miller also has written on disability and scripture, collaborating with Dr. Artur Dewey on a lengthy article on Pauline literature for the volume Disability and the Bible: A Commentary. Most recently, Dr. Miller has been researching and writing on 1 Timothy, gender, and public space in antiquity.

Althea Spencer Miller, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Drew University Theological School, is a provisional elder in the NYAC and a Minister in Residence at United Methodist Church of the Village, Manhattan. She also serves on the Steering Committee of Methodists in New Directions, a grassroots movement of United Methodists working for the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons within that denomination. She also is an Associate Member of First Congregation Church in Montclair, NJ.

Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (T&T Clark, 2011) and an area editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He is the co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible and co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration, forthcoming in 2021. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Christian Century and Working Preacher. He chairs the Society of Biblical Literature’s Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CUREMP).

Carmen Nanko-Fernández is Professor of Hispanic Theology and Ministry and Director of the Hispanic Theology and Ministry Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A Latin@́ theologian, her publications include the book Theologizing en Espanglish (Orbis, 2010), numerous book chapters, journal articles, and digital media on Latin@́ theologies, Catholic social teaching, im/migration, popular culture, sport and theology—with attention to béisbol/baseball. In 2018, Nanko-Fernández created “Theology en la Plaza” for the National Catholic Reporter, a monthly column featuring public theology done latinamente.

Laura Nasrallah, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, has written books and articles that focus on understanding early Christianity within the context of the Roman Empire, including Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture: The Second-Century Church amid the Spaces of Empire (2011). Her work brings together ancient literature and archaeological remains to study topics such as slavery, poverty, gender, justice, and power.

Kenneth Ngwa is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Drew University Theological School. Dr. Ngwa holds a Ph.D. (2005) from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Masters of Divinity (1995) from the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Cameroon. His major research interests are in the areas of ancient Israelite Wisdom Literature and Africana biblical hermeneutics. He is the author of The Hermeneutics of the ‘Happy’ Ending in Job 42:7-17, and is currently working on a monograph titled, Let My People Live: Towards an Africana Reading of Exodus. He co-hosts a session on Religion and Health at the Global Health Catalyst summit at Harvard Medical School.

Dawn M. Nothwehr holds The Erica and Harry John Family Endowed Chair in Catholic Theological Ethics at Catholic Theological Union-Chicago.  Franciscan theology shapes her research and teaching of environmental ethics, stressing effects of global warming on the poor. Other interests include the religion/science dialogue, ethics of power and racial justice, and fundamental moral theology. Dr. Norhwehr’s recent publications include “The ‘Brown Thread’ in Laudato Si’: Grounding Ecological Conversion and Theological Ethics Praxis,” in Integral Ecology for a More Sustainable Earth: Dialogues with Laudato Si,’ (Lexington Books, 2020) and “For the Salvation of the Cosmos: The Church’s Mission of Ecojustice,” International Bulletin of Mission Research (January 2019).

Aaron D. Panken, of blessed memory, served as President of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute from 2014-2018. Rabbi Panken was a distinguished rabbi and scholar, dedicated teacher, and exemplary leader of the Reform Movement for nearly three decades. He was ordained at the College-Institute and earned his doctorate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He taught Rabbinic and Second Temple Literature at HUC-JIR in New York, and he wrote The Rhetoric of Innovation (2005), which focuses on legal change in Rabbinic Literature, several articles on Hanukkah, and he co-edited Engaging Torah: Modern Perspectives on the Hebrew Bible.

Aristotle Papanikolaou, Professor of Theology and Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture at Fordham University, is Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.  He is also an Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and author of The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy.

Angela N. Parker is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Greek at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology. She received her B.A. from Shaw University, her M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School, and her Ph.D. in Bible, Culture, & Hermeneutics from Chicago Theological Seminary. In 2018, Dr. Parker received the Journal for Feminist Studies in Religion’s ESF New Scholar Award (2nd Place) for her article “One Womanist’s View of Racial Reconciliation in Galatians.” In September, 2021 Dr. Parker’s book entitled If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I: Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority will be released (Eerdmans).

Julie Faith Parker, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, an S.T.M. from Yale Divinity School, and an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary. She has authored or edited seven books including Valuable and Vulnerable (Brown University, 2013) and The T&T Clark Handbook of Children in the Bible and the Biblical World (co-edited with Sharon Betsworth, 2019). At two seminaries, she founded programs building relationships between people inside and outside of prisons and has taught inside Sing Sing.

Eboo Patel, Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core, a non-profit organization working to make interfaith cooperation a social norm in America. Dr. Patel earned a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. He is a respected leader on national issues of religious diversity, civic engagement, and the intersection of racial equity and interfaith cooperation and served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. He is the author of four books and dozens of articles, including Acts of Faith, Sacred Ground and Interfaith Leadership, and a frequent keynote speaker at colleges and universities, philanthropic convenings, and civic gatherings.

Michael Peppard, Associate Professor of Theology at Fordham University, is a scholar and teacher whose primary work brings to light the meanings of the New Testament and other Christian materials in their social, political, artistic, and ritual contexts. He is the award-winning author of two books and numerous articles. He frequently offers commentary on current events at the nexus of religion, politics, and culture for venues such as Commonweal, where he is contributing editor, as well as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and PBS.

Judith Plaskow, Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, is a Jewish feminist theologian who has been teaching, writing, and speaking about Jewish feminism, feminist studies in religion, and sexuality for almost fifty years. She is author of the Jewish feminist classic, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective, and The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics 1972-2003. Her latest book is Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology (Fortress Press, 2016), co-authored with Carol P. Christ.

Brian Rainey is Lecturer in Biblical Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. His biblical scholarship focuses on the formation of social boundaries in the Hebrew Bible and ancient West Asia and East Africa, especially ethnicity. His book Religion, Ethnicity and Xenophobia in the Bible (Routledge 2018) looks at anti-foreigner sentiment in the Hebrew Bible, Mesopotamian literature, and Deuterocanonical texts.

Anantanand Rambachan is Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies at Saint Olaf College in Minnesota. Among his books are The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity, A Hindu Theology of Liberation and Essays in Hindu Theology. Prof. Rambachan has been involved in interreligious relations and dialogue for over 30 years as a Hindu contributor and analyst. He serves as the President of the Board, Arigatou International NY, a global organization advocating for the rights of children and mobilizing the resources of religions to overcome violence against children. He is Co-President of Religions for Peace, the largest global interfaith network, and Chair of the Board of the Minnesota Multifaith Network.

Erica M. Ramirez is Director of Applied Research at Auburn Seminary. A sociologist of religion, Dr. Ramirez earned her Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew Theological School. She wrote her dissertation on the ritualized construction of power in U.S. Pentecostal altar practices. She has recently published articles about Pentecostals for The Washington Post and Religion News Service. A Senior Fellow of the Louisville Institute, she serves on the Feminist Studies in Religion CoLaboratory Board and leads Auburn’s Future Story of America project, a resource that helps clergy address polarization in their faith communities.

Hussein Rashid, Ph.D. is a freelance academic, currently affiliated with several universities in New York City. He is a scholar of religion, focusing on Muslims and U.S. popular culture and Shi’i theologies of justice. Dr. Rashid is also the founder of islamicate, L3C, a consultancy focusing on religious literacy and cultural competency. He co-edited a book on Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel called Ms. Marvel’s America. He worked with the Children’s Museum of Manhattan as a content expert on their exhibit “America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far.”

Andrew Rehfeld is the tenth President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Professor of Political Thought. A leading scholar of political representation and democracy, Dr. Rehfeld previously served as President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was on the advisory council of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. His publications include The Concept of Constituency: Political Representation, Democratic Legitimacy and Institutional Design (Cambridge University Press, 2005). His academic interests focus on political thought and institutional design, and how those topics translate to Jewish studies and contemporary politics.

Stephen Breck Reid, Professor of Christian Scriptures at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, is ordained in the Church of the Brethren. With a Ph.D. from Emory University, he has written numerous books and articles, including Psalms and Practice: Worship, Virtue and Authority (Liturgical Press, 2001), Experience and Traditions: A Primer in Black Biblical Hermeneutics (Abingdon, 1991), articles on “The Psalms” and “Prophet” in the Oxford Bibliographies Biblical Studies, and on African American interpretation of the Book of Deuteronomy in the Oxford Handbook of the Book of Deuteronomy (Oxford Press).

Patrick B. Reyes currently serves as Senior Director of Learning Design at the Forum for Theological Exploration, where his portfolio includes oversight of organizational thought leadership, resource development, and annual grant funding. Dr. Reyes is the author of The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive and Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood. A Chicano educator, religious scholar, and institutional strategist, he also is president-elect of the Religious Education Association and serves on several boards supporting the next generation of religious leaders and educators of color.

Syed Atif Rizwan, Assistant Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies and the Director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union, holds a doctorate in Islamic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include early Islamic intellectual history with a focus on the emergence and development of Islamic criminal law and jurisprudence. He is also attempting to bring into convergence medieval and post-modern theories of punishment, and the ethics of criminal justice reform. At Catholic Theological Union he is also focusing on interreligious dialogue and studies and, since 2018, has been holding public programming on criminal justice issues.

Ellen M. Ross is the Howard M. and Charles F. Jenkins Professor of Quakerism and Peace Studies in the Religion Department at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Her current research focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Quaker social reformers including Elias Hicks and Lucretia Mott.

Jean-Pierre Ruiz is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at St. John’s University, New York, and Senior Research Fellow of the university’s Vincentian Center for Church and Society. During the Obama administration, he served as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Working Group on Religion and Foreign Policy. A Past-President of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, he is the author of Readings from the Edges: The Bible and People on the Move.

Kimberly D. Russaw is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the author of Daughters in the Hebrew Bible (Lexington Books/Fortress Press, 2018) and Revisiting Rahab: Another Look at the Woman of Jericho (Wesley’s Foundery Books, 2021 forthcoming). Named one of “Six Black Women at the Center of Gravity in Theological Education” by NBCNews.com, Russaw holds membership in many professional organizations including the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Academy of Religion, and the Society for the Study of Black Religion. Russaw is an ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

David Fox Sandmel is vice-chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Relations and Senior Advisor on Interreligious Affairs for the ADL (Anti-Defamation League). Rabbi Sandmel held the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago (2002-2014). He was the Jewish Scholar at the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies in Baltimore (1998-2001) and directed the publication of “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.” Dr. Sandmel lectures and publishes issues on Jewish-Christian relations, Jewish-Muslim relations, and the foundations of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity.  His commentary on First Thessalonians appears in the Jewish Annotated New Testament.

Tammi J. Schneider holds the Danforth Chair in Religion at Claremont Graduate University. She specializes in Women in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Mesopotamia, and archaeology of Israel. Her books include Judges in the Berit Olam Series, Sarah, Mother of Nations, Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis, and An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion. She has excavated at numerous sites in Israel and presently serves on the staff of Tel Akko in Israel.

Love Sechrest is Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty, and Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary (Ph.D. Duke University). Prior to entering theological education she functioned as chief information officer of an $800 million company within Lockheed Martin. She studies Womanist and African American biblical interpretation, critical race theory, and NT ethics. She is the author of A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race (T&T Clark), lead editor of Can “White” People Be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology and Mission (InterVarsity), and the forthcoming book Race and Rhyme: Race Relations and the New Testament Today (Eerdmans).

Choon-Leong Seow, Vanderbilt, Buffington, Cupples Chair in Divinity and Distinguished Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, is the author of several books, including Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commentary (Eerdmans, 2013). Before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2015, he was the Henry Snyder Gehman Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, where taught for 32 years.

Katherine A. Shaner, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, studies the intersections of race, class, and gender as well as the ethics of contemporary biblical interpretation. Her book, Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018), challenges readers to re-think common perceptions about how enslaved persons participated in early Christian communities. She is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a regular guest preacher and presider.

Phillis Isabella Sheppard, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, is a womanist practical theologian, ethnographer, and psychoanalyst. She is the author of Self, Culture and Others in Womanist Practical Theology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Tilling Sacred Ground: Interiority, Black Women, and Public Religion (forthcoming, Rowman and Littlefield/ Lexington Books, 2021). Dr. Sheppard examines Black women’s negotiation of race, gender, and sexuality in religious spaces. Her third book, Identity, Culture, and Religion: Womanist Ethnography and Black Women’s Vocation develops a womanist ethnographic methodology and will be published in 2022.

Rita D. Sherma is Director and Associate Professor at Graduate Theological Union’s Shingal Center for Dharma Studies in Berkeley, CA, Co-Chair of Sustainability 360, and Chair of the Department of Theology & Ethics at Graduate Theological Union. Dr. Sherma’s published works include numerous academic articles and book chapters and books, including Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought: Toward a Fusion of Horizons (Springer, 2008), Woman and Goddess in Hinduism: Reinterpretations and Re-envisioning (Palgrave, 2011), Contemplative Studies & Hinduism: Meditation, Devotion, Prayer, & Worship (Routledge, 2020), Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics (Lexington, 2020), and Sustainable Societies: Interreligious Interdisciplinary Response (Springer, 2021). Dr. Sherma is founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Dharma Studies (Springer).

Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh is the Crawford Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Colby College. Dr. Singh has published extensively in the field of Sikh studies. Her books include The First Sikh (Penguin, 2019), Hymns of the Sikh Gurus (Penguin, 2019), Birth of the Khalsa (SUNY 2005), Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision of the Transcendent (Cambridge University Press, 1993). She has served on the editorial board of several journals including the History of Religions, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Sikh Formations, and CrossCurrents. She is the Vice-President ΦBK, Beta Chapter of Maine.

Simran Jeet Singh holds a Ph.D., MPhil, and MA from Columbia University, an MTS from Harvard University, and a BA from Trinity University. His expertise is in South Asian histories, cultures, and religions. He currently teaches Buddhist history at Union Seminary, while serving as a 2020 Equality Fellow for the Open Societies Foundation. Dr. Singh is author of the best-selling children’s book from Penguin Random House, Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon, and the forthcoming book from Penguin Random House, More of This, Please: Selfcare for the Soul from Sikh Wisdom.

Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, earned his M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author or editor of numerous books that explore the historical settings and ongoing theological relevance of the New Testament writings, most recently A Companion to the New Testament (3 vols.) and Acts: Catching up with the Spirit. Ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA), he co-hosts a weekly podcast for preachers on the interpretation of biblical texts called “Sermon Brainwave,” writes for the website Working Preacher, and serves as the Scholar for Adult Education at Westminster Presbyterian Church of Minneapolis.

Santiago Slabodsky is the Robert and Florence Kaufman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Religion at Hofstra University. Dr. Slabodsky studies intercultural encounters between Jewish and Global South social theories and political movements. His book Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking received the 2017 Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. His interests include Jewish thought and culture, colonialism and decoloniality, sociology of knowledge, Latin American, North African, and Middle Eastern histories, religion and politics, inter-religious conversations, Jewish-Muslim dialogue, critical theories of religion and society, and race and globalization. He is co-director of the trilingual journal Decolonial Horizons/Horizontes Decoloniales

Mitzi J. Smith, J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, is an AME itinerant elder. She received a Ph.D. in Religion from Harvard University and M.Div. from Howard University School of Divinity. Dr. Smith authored The Literary Construction of the Other in the Acts of the Apostles (2011), Insights from African American Interpretation (2017), Womanist Sass and Talk Back: Social (In)Justice, Intersectionality, and Biblical Interpretation (2018) and co-authored Toward Decentering the New Testament (2019). She edited Teaching All Nations (2014) and I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader (2015) and co-edited Minoritized Women Reading Race and Ethnicity (2020). She writes for workingpreacher.org.

Shively T. J. Smith, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Boston University School of Theology, is dedicated to extending academic theological studies and interfaith and ecumenical conversations into the global, public square. Her research focuses on: epistolary and Petrine studies, diaspora rhetoric, hermeneutics, and Howard Thurman. Dr. Smith has appeared on the History Channel Documentary, “Jesus, His Life” and presented at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Smith is also the author of Strangers to Family: Diaspora and 1 Peter’s Invention of God’s Household. She proudly serves as member and resident scholar at the historic Metropolitan AME Church (Washington, D.C.).

Mark S. Smith is Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary and Skirball Professor Emeritus of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. Smith is the author of seventeen books and five co-authored books, including How Human is God? Seven Questions about God and Humanity in the Bible (2014); and The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible (2019). The first of two volumes on the book of Judges, co-authored with the archaeologist Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, is scheduled to appear in the Hermeneia commentary series in 2021.

Kay Higuera Smith is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies and Program Director of the Religious Studies Minor program at Azusa Pacific University.  She writes about social justice issues as they relate to Critical Gender Theory and Postcoloniality. In her most recent publication, Dr. Smith was Editor-in-Chief of Postcolonial Evangelical Conversations: Global Awakenings in Theology and Praxis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014). She currently has two books under contract, one on the historical figure of Mary of Nazareth and another on Latinx Biblical Hermeneutics.

Grace Song, Won Buddhist Studies Department Chair at the Won Institute of Graduate Studies and Buddhist Chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, is an ordained Kyomu in the Won Buddhist tradition. Her research interest includes women in Buddhism, Buddhism and social justice, and contemplative studies in higher education. She serves on the Advisory Committee for the GenX Buddhist Teachers Sangha and was recently appointed to the Mayor’s Commission on Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs in Philadelphia.

Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Southern California, where he also serves as Vice Provost of campus wellness and crisis intervention, and where he teaches courses in the School of Religion and the Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. A prolific public speaker and scholar of religions, he holds degrees in religion from Tufts University, Harvard University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Cape Town, as well as a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Gregory E. Sterling, The Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean of Yale Divinity School, also holds the position of The Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament. He is an expert in ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. A New Testament scholar with a specialty in Hellenistic Judaism and Philo of Alexandria, he spent 23 years at the University of Notre Dame before moving to Yale.

Elsie Stern is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Bible at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, PA. Her teaching and research focus on the role of the Bible in Jewish life in antiquity and the present. Most recently, she served as a co-editor of the Dictionary of the Bible in Ancient Media (T and T Clark, 2017). She served on the advisory board of Values and Voices in 2017 and is honored to be part of the 2021 project.

Eric Haruki Swanson, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, earned his MA in Esoteric Buddhism from Koyasan University in Japan and his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures at Harvard University. As a cultural historian, he studies the Buddhist traditions of Japan through the examination of literature, visual material, ritual practices, and performance arts. His current book project is a study of scholar-monk and poet Jien (1155-1225) and his establishment of Buddhist ritual programs that aimed to restore order in the capital of medieval Japan. 

Jeffrey Tigay, Emeritus Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, taught in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 2010. He is a rabbi whose publications include commentaries on the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy and various studies about the Bible in the light of archaeology and Jewish exegesis.

Emilie M. Townes, Dean and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, has written numerous publications, including Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). She served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2008 and was president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, 2013-2016.

Mai-Anh Le Tran is Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Dean, and Associate Professor of Religious Education and Practical Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She is an ordained Elder of The United Methodist Church, a past-president of the Religious Education Association, and a member of the Association of Practical Theology. Dr. Tran has served on advisory committees for faculty development and race and ethnicity of the Association of Theological Schools. Her research and teaching focus on gender, race, ethnicity, and critical pedagogies. She is the author of Reset the Heart: Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope (Abingdon Press, 2017).

Phyllis Trible, Baldwin Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary, is an internationally known biblical scholar and rhetorical critic. A past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, she is the author of numerous articles and book in the text-based exploration of women and gender in Scripture, including God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (1978) and Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (1984).

Karma Lekshe Tsomo, Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of San Diego, holds a doctorate in Comparative Philosophy from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her publications include Into the Jaws of Yama: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death, as well as Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Monastic Ethics for Women, and ten edited volumes on women in Buddhism. She is a founder and past President of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women and Director of Jamyang Foundation, which supports education programs for women in the Indian Himalayas and Bangladesh.

Joseph G. Walser, Associate Professor at Tufts University, holds a M.T.S. from Emory University and a Ph.D. in the History of Religions from Northwestern University. His research interests include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and religion in early South Asia, and more.

Andrea L. Weiss is Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and Associate Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She created the 2017 American Values, Religious Voices campaign with Lisa Weinberger and together they produced American Values, Religious Voices: 100 Days, 100 Letters (University of Cincinnati Press, 2019). Rabbi Weiss served with Dr. Tamara Eskenazi as associate editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (CCAR Press, 2008). Her other writings include Figurative Language in Biblical Prose Narrative: Metaphor in the Book of Samuel (Brill, 2006) and articles on metaphor, biblical poetry, and biblical conceptions of God.

Danielle Widmann Abraham, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ursinus College, is a scholar of contemporary Islam who researches religious responses to poverty, inequality, and social suffering. Her scholarly work explores the ways in which Islamic tradition intersects with social movements in South and Southeast Asia, as well as the contemporary United States.  She received her graduate degrees in Comparative Religion from Harvard Divinity School and serves as the co-chair of the Contemporary Islam Group at the American Academy of Religion.

Randy Woodley serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture and Director of Intercultural and Indigenous Studies at George Fox University/Portland Seminary. A descendent of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, Dr. Woodley is an activist/scholar, distinguished speaker, teacher and wisdom keeper who addresses a variety of issues concerning American culture, faith/spirituality, justice, race/diversity, regenerative farming, our relationship with the earth and Indigenous realities. He and his wife, Edith Woodley, are co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice/Eloheh Farm, a regenerative teaching center and farm in Yamhill, Oregon.

Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University and Candler School of Theology, writes on a wide range of topics related to the Bible’s formation and collective life, with a focus on the role of defeat in the shaping of a new notion of peoplehood. His books on Nehemiah and King David have won major awards, and his most recent work, War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible (2020), is available open access on the Cambridge University Press platform. Wright teaches a “massive open online course” with Coursera on the Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future.

Hamza Zafer is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington. He is a specialist in pre-modern Arabian and African languages and textual traditions around the Red Sea. His work explores the historical interface between Jewish and Muslim religio-political thought in the Red Sea region from the 6th to the 16th century. Dr. Zafer is the author of Ecumenical Community: Language and Politics of the Ummah in the Qur’an (Brill, 2020), a  history of the Qur’an’s community building language. His current research projects include Matriarchs of Medina: Muhammad’s Wives, Mothers, and Daughters in the Early Arabic Sources (8th century) and Jewish and Muslim Scripture in the Ethiopic Writings of Abba Enbaqom (16th century).

Homayra Ziad directs the Program in Islamic Studies at Johns Hopkins University and practices and leads a grant on community-engaged teaching. Dr. Ziad is Board Vice President of the ACLU of Maryland and Associate Editor of The Commons, a site where artists, activists, and scholars explore religion, social justice, and public life. She has twenty years of experience in interreligious education and is co-editor of Words to Live By: Sacred Sources for Interreligious Engagement. An educator, scholar-activist, and mother, Dr. Ziad collaborates frequently on projects at the intersection of art, religion, health, and justice.

Adnan Zulfiqar, Assistant Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Camden, studies Islamic law/legal theory and criminal law, with a particular focus on its legal theory and history. Formerly the George Sharswood Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, he earned a J.D. (Law), M.A. (Islamic Studies), and completed his doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation examined collective duties in Islamic law and current writing focuses on the jurisprudence of revolution.