Jim Burklo writes and speaks about the progressive Christian movement. He served as the minister of Sausalito Presbyterian Church, Sausalito, CA, of College Heights Church of San Mateo, CA and was campus minister of United Campus Christian Ministry at Stanford University. He was the organizer and executive director of the Urban Ministry of Palo Alto. Currently, he is the Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California.

Cindi Moar Alvitre (Tongva) has been a cultural/environmental educator for over three decades. She is descendant from the Tongva, the original inhabitants of Los Angeles & Orange Counties. In 1985, she co-founded Mother Earth Clan, a collective of Indian women who created a model for cultural and environmental education. In the late 1980s, she co-founded Ti'at Society renewing the maritime culture of the Tongva. Cindi is currently a PhD candidate at UCLA, Department of World Arts and Culture. As a social-political activist she has represented her community domestically and internationally.

Jennifer Jessum is an award winning director, choreographer and producer. She holds an M.F.A., in film production, from USC's School of Cinema/Television and an M.F.A., in dance, from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She has produced and directed numerous short films, music videos, and commercials and has had her choreography and films commissioned and presented throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. She is currently finishing up post-production on her 2nd feature documentary, Holy Man, narrated by Martin Sheen.

Simon Joseph (Writer/Producer) holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Claremont Graduate University and a master's degree in Religious Studies from New York University. He is the author of a volume for the Documenta Q series for the International Q project, under the auspices of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, and has also been published by the Journal for the Study of Historical Jesus, New Testament Studies and History of Religions. His research interests and expertise include the study of the New Testament, Christian origins and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Native American religion and history, in particular Lakota (Sioux) religion and culture. His second feature documentary film, Holy Man, is in post production and is narrated by Martin Sheen.

Rabbi Laura Geller is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, California, the first woman to be selected to lead a major metropolitan synagogue. A former Trustee on the Board of Brown University, and the founding Chair of the Beverly Hills Human Relations Commission, she has received many honors, including the Woman of the Year Award from the California State Legislature. Rabbi Geller has written chapters in many books and newspapers and has been featured in several others, including the PBS documentary The Jewish Americans, and she was recently named as one of the fifty most influential women rabbis in America by the Forward newspaper.

The Reverend Canon Dr. Gwynne Guibord is the Founder and President of "The Guibord Center, Religion Inside Out" that is housed at St. John's Episcopal Cathedral. Its stated mission is "to bring people together to challenge assumptions, unleash the Holy, and affirm the faith that transforms the world." She is also the Consultant for Interfaith Relations for the Episcopal Church in the United States. Dr. Guibord co-chairs The National Muslim - Christian Initiative Dialogue on behalf of The National Council of Churches in Christ USA and also represents the Episcopal Church for the NCC's Christian-Jewish Dialogue.

Imam Jihad Turk is the Director of Religious Affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California. In addition to serving the religious needs of his community, he focuses much of his attention on interfaith work, including an annual interfaith 9/11 memorial which is held at the Islamic Center. He also currently serves as President of the Wilshire Center Interfaith Council, which sponsors an annual interfaith trip to the Holy Land. Additionally, Turk serves as the Vice President of the Interreligious Council of Southern California, and, together with Gwynne Guibord, an Episcopal Priest, Turk founded and currently serves as Co-Chair of the Christian-Muslim Consultative Group, comprised of major Christian and Muslim denominations and organizations intent on understanding each other and working together on common goals.

Funding for this film was made possible by the Institute for Signifying Scriptures.

ALOUD at Central Library's Interfaith Series is made possible by the generous support of the Righteous Persons Foundation.

Reza Aslan, associate professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside and author of the best-selling No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Abraham's Vision, an interfaith peace organization; and PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world.

Eliza Griswold, a fellow at the New America Foundation, received a 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. Her journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Harper's Magazine, among others. A 2007 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, she was awarded the first Robert I. Friedman Award for investigative reporting. A collection of her poems, Wideawake Field, was published in 2007.

Amir Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, where he teaches courses on Islam and world religions. A Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, Amir was selected by student vote as LMU Professor of the Year in 2008 and 2009. His most recent book is Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God; an introduction to Islam for a North American audience. For 2011 to 2015, he will be the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, in charge of long-range strategic forecasting. He is currently an independent writer, analyst, lecturer and consultant on Muslim world affairs and Adjunct Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He is the author of numerous books on the Middle East.

Rabbi Reuven Firestone has conducted extensive research on holy war in both Islamic and Jewish tradition. He received Rabbinic Ordination in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies from New York University in 1988. Among his many fellowships, he was awarded a Fulbright in 2006 for study and research at American University in Cairo. Rabbi Firestone has authored numerous books, among them: Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis; Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam; Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims; Jews, Christians, Muslims in Dialogue: A Practical Handbook, and, An Introduction to Islam for Jews.

The Rev. Scotty McLennan is the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University. He was the university Chaplain at Tufts University from 1984 to 2000, and senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School for ten of those years. In 1975, he was ordained to the ministry (Unitarian Universalist) and admitted to the Massachusetts bar as an attorney. He is the author of Finding Your Religion and was the inspiration for Doonesbury's Rev. Scott Sloan.

Irene Khan, the first woman, first Asian, and first Muslim to serve as the Secretary General of Amnesty International, has brought a strong focus to socioeconomic rights and violence against women around the world. She spent 20 years at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and was appointed in 1995 as the Chief Mission to India, becoming the youngest United Nations representative. Khan was awarded the Pilkington "Woman of the Year" Award in 2002, as well as the Sydney Peace Prize in 2006.

Christopher Hitchens is the author of more than ten books, including God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq; Why Orwell Matters; The Trial of Henry Kissinger; and Letters to a Young Contrarian. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and has written prolifically for American and English periodicals, including The Nation, The London Review of Books, Granta, Harper's, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, New Left Review, Slate, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek International, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. He is also a regular television and radio commentator.

Tamim Ansary is the author of the memoir West of Kabul, East of New York, and has been a major contributing writer to several secondary school history textbooks. Born in Afghanistan, he now lives in San Francisco, where he is director of the San Francisco Writers Workshop and writes a column for Encarta.com.

Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, then de-educated through intensive Zen practice. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Meetings with the Archangel, and Gilgamesh.