Dr. John C. Green is the director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron. He is also a senior research adviser at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, specializing in religion and American politics, American evangelicals and politics, the Christian right, religion and elections, and religion and presidential politics.Dr. Green has done extensive research on American religious communities and politics. He is co-author of The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics (Brookings Institution Press, 2000).

In addition to publishing his most recent book The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections (2007), Dr. Green is also the co-author of The Values Campaign: The Christian Right in American Politics (Georgetown University Press, 2006), The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy (University Press of Kansas, 1997), and Religion and the Culture Wars (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). The Los Angeles Times described Dr. Green as the nation’s “pre-eminent student of the relationship between religion and American politics.”

He received his Ph.D. in political science from Cornell University.

Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where she compiles and analyzes American public opinion using available polling data on a variety of subjects, including the economy, taxes, the state of workers in America, environment and global warming, attitudes about homosexuality and gay marriage, NAFTA and free trade, the war in Iraq, and women’s attitudes. In addition, Ms. Bowman has studied and spoken about the evolution of American politics due to key demographic and geographic changes. She has often lectured on the role of think tanks in the United States and writes a weekly column for Forbes.com. She was the managing editor of Public Opinion from 1979 to 1990 and the founding editor of The American Enterprise from 1990 to 1995.

Dr. Peter Berger is University Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Boston University and founder of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. He has written numerous books on sociological theory, the sociology of religion, and Third World development. His best selling books – Invitation to Sociology and The Social Construction of Reality – are considered sociological classics and have been in print for over forty years. His most recent book is his autobiography: Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore.

Ari Shavit is a leading Israeli columnist and writer. Born in Rehovot, Israel, Shavit served as a paratrooper in the IDF and studied philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the 1980s he wrote for the progressive weekly Koteret Rashit, in the early 1990s he was chairperson of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and in 1995 he joined Haaretz, where he serves on the editorial board. Shavit is also a leading commentator on Israeli public television. He is married, has a daughter and two sons, and lives in Kfar Shmariahu.

Dr. Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.

He has written hundreds of essays, articles, and reviews on many subjects for a variety of publications, including the American Political Science Review, the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Claremont Review of Books, Commentary, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the London Review of Books, National Review, the New Republic, the New York Post, the New York Sun, PJ Media, Policy Review, the Public Interest, Real Clear Politics, the Times Literary Supplement, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Weekly Standard, the Wilson Quarterly, and the Yale Law Journal.

He holds a JD and a PhD in political science from Yale University; an MA in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and a BA in English literature from Swarthmore College.