Understanding Religion’s Role in the 2006 Election

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.