Rev. Dr. Sidney D. Fowler is editor for Out In Scripture. He has worked for the national settings of both the United Church of Christ in worship and spiritual formation and the United Methodist Church in educational curriculum. He has extensive experience in developing lectionary-based resources including Imaging the Word, Worship Ways and the international ecumenical resources Seasons of the Spirit. Fowler has represented the United Church of Christ on the Consultation Common Texts, the ecumenical body that developed the Revised Common Lectionary. An ordained United Church of Christ pastor, he lives in Washington, D.C.

Rev. Dr. Charles W. Allen is an out gay Episcopal priest who serves as chaplain for Grace Unlimited, an Indianapolis Lutheran-Episcopal university ministry. He also teaches theology at Christian Theological Seminary. He is a frequent preacher and author of several articles in academic journals, most of which can be found online at www.therevdrcharleswallen.com.

Rev. Dr. Deborah A. Appler is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, PA. She is also a team member of the Megiddo archaeological expedition in northern Israel, and each season takes students, interested clergy and laity on the dig. Her academic interests center on the intersection of religion, gender and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible and how these texts and their interpretations impact the church. She is also an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church.

Rev. Dr. Randall Bailey is the Andrew W. Mellon professor of Hebrew Bible at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. He teaches courses in the Pentateuch, historical books and new methodologies of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

Dr. Angela Bauer-Levesque is professor of biblical studies at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA. In her teaching and writing she has emphasized various aspects of social location (gender, race, sexual identity) and their impact on biblical hermeneutics. Her publications include Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading, Seeing God in Diversity: Exodus and Acts, and various essays in anthologies, including “The Book of Jeremiah” in The Queer Bible Commentary. She is currently working on a book titled Reading While White: Race, Racism, and the Bible. Legally married, she and her partner Irma live in Ogunquit, ME.

Dr. Valerie Bridgeman Davis is associate professor of Hebrew Bible and Homiletics at Memphis Theological Seminary. She also is founding director of the seminary's Return Beat Theology and Arts Institute. She is general editor of Africana worship resources for The United Methodist Church. Her research and writing interests are in theprophets, with particular interest in Womanist hermeneutics and cultural criticism.

Rev. Dr. Michael Joseph Brown is associate professor of New Testament and Christian origins at the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University in Atlanta. He has published widely on the development of religious practices, particularly prayer, in the early church.

Dr. Greg Carey is associate professor of New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, PA., and an active layperson in the United Church of Christ. He is the author of Ultimate Things: An Introduction to Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature, among other works, and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC, the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel.

Rev. Dr. Warren Carter is Lindsey P. Pherigo professor of New Testament at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, MO., and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. His recent studies examine the role that the experience of the Roman imperial world plays in interpreting the gospel.

Rev. Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre is associate professor of Social Ethics at Iliff School of Theology and director of Iliff's Justice and Peace Institute in Denver. He has published more than 12 books, including the award-winning Reading the Bible from the Margins (2002), Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins (2004) and Santería: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America (2003). He has also published several articles, chapters in books and encyclopedia/dictionary entries. He has recently published A Lily Among the Thorns: Imagining a New Christian Sexuality.

Rev. Dr. Marvin Ellison is professor of Christian ethics at Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, ME and an ordained Presbyterian minister. His publications include Same-Sex Marriage?: A Christian Ethical Analysis (2004); Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love, edited with Sylvia Thorson-Smith (2003); and Erotic Justice: A Liberating Ethic of Sexuality (1996). He has published numerous essays on same-sex marriage, gender justice in Protestant Christianity and changing patterns of family life. Ellison is an out gay man and co-chair of Maine’s Religious Coalition Against Discrimination, a network of interfaith leaders engaged in education and advocacy for the full rights of LBGT persons. 

Rev. Dr. Holly Hearon is assistant professor of New Testament at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. She is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and Catholic Biblical Association and is currently serving as president of the Midwest Society of Biblical Literature. Her research interests are Christian origins within Formative Judaism, women in the early church and the study of oral narrative and social memory in relation to the biblical text. She is also a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She is an out lesbian who teaches New Testament and Greek at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. She is the author of The Mary Magdalene Tradition: Witness and Counter-Witness in Early Christian Communities, and a contributor to the Queer Bible Commentary.

Rev. Dr. Ronald E. Hopson holds a joint appointment in the department of psychology and the school of divinity at Howard University, Washington, DC. He is a clinical psychologist and ordained minister. He is currently working on advancing psychologically-informed body-friendly theologies in the Black church. 

Rev. Dr. Norman J. Kansfield is a conservative Calvinist theologian who lost his job as a seminary president after he presided at the marriage of his daughter to another woman. He is convinced that the Christian church needs to recover awareness that God changes God’s mind (as in the story of Jonah). Such awareness makes our current task one of keeping up with God as God calls a wondrous variety of persons into the fellowship of God’s people. Norm currently serves as senior scholar in residence at Drew University in Madison, NJ. He and Mary Klein Kansfield have three children: Ann and Jennifer, who serve as pastors in Brooklyn, NY, and John, who is doing graduate study in architecture in Tempe, AZ.

Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew is associate professor of New Testament at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. He is the author of Politics of Parousia: Reading Mark Inter(con)textually (1999) and guest editor of the Semeia volume on "The Bible in Asian America" (2002). He is interested and invested in the issue of sexual justice and has written several articles on this particular issue in connection with the practice of biblical interpretation.

Rev. Dr. Sandra H. Polaski is a New Testament scholar in Nashville, TN. She has published numerous works, including A Feminist Introduction to Paul. She was ordained by Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn., and has been active in Baptist life.

Rev. Dr. Christine M. Smith is professor of Preaching at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, MN. Her research and teaching interests include: preaching and social justice from ethnic, cultural perspectives, celebrating and proclaiming resurrection, and LGBT studies. She has published widely on preaching and social justice, including Risking the Terror: Resurrection in this Life (2001).

Dr. Ken Stone is professor of Bible, Culture and Hermeneutics and director of the Ph.D. program at Chicago Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective (2005) and Sex, Honor and Power in the Deuteronomistic History (1996). He is also the editor of Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible (2001). The winner of a Lambda Literary Award, Stone focuses much of his research and writing on the relationship between biblical interpretation and matters of gender and sexuality. His other research and teaching interests include interdisciplinary approaches to biblical interpretation, neglected areas of the canon and ways of rethinking biblical theology in the contemporary world.

Rev. Dr. Linda E. Thomas is professor of theology and anthropology at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Thomas’ research into the cultural significance of theology and community has taken her to South Africa; Peru; Cuba; and the former Soviet Union provinces of Russia, Kiev and Leningrad. She has published numerous works including Under the Canopy: Ritual Process and Spiritual Resilience in South Africa. In addition, she has contributed articles and book reviews to numerous journals, including The Journal of Religious Thought, The Journal of Black Theology in South Africa and The Journal of Supervision and Training in Ministry. She has pastored congregations in White Plains and Brooklyn, N.Y.

Rev. Dr. Mona West is the senior pastor of Church of the Trinity, Metropolitan Community Church, in Sarasota, FL. Originally ordained in the Southern Baptist denomination in 1987, she transferred her credentials to MCC in 1992. She holds a M. Div. and a Ph.D. in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. West is the author of Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible from the Pilgrim Press. She is one of four editors for the recently published collection The Queer Bible Commentary, by SCM Press.

Rev. Dr. Judith Hoch Wray is a New Testament scholar, preacher, speaker, writer in New York City and consultant whose work focuses on the integration of sexuality and spirituality. Her writings include numerous articles for The Living Pulpit, among other publications. She was a founder of Gay, Lesbian and Affirming Disciples Alliance and Christian Lesbians OUT (CLOUT).