Painting the Stars Home Edition

Philip Clayton

Dean of Claremont School of Theology, process theologian, and author of 14 books including Adventures in the Spirit and Religion and Science: The Basics.

Michael Dowd

is a bestselling eco-theologian and pro-science, pro-future ‘evangelist’ whose work has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, Discover, and on television nationally. His book, Thank God for Evolution, was endorsed by 6 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, noted skeptics, and by religious leaders across the spectrum. Michael has delivered two TEDx talks and a program at the United Nations. He and his wife, science writer and climate activist, Connie Barlow, have spoken to some 2,500 groups across North America since 2002, including nearly 500 UU churches. Rev. Dowd has also conducted two acclaimed online conversation series: “Evolutionary Christianity” and “The Future Is Calling Us to Greatness.”

Rachel Held Evans

American Christian columnist, blogger and author of Evolving in Monkeytown, A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. (Photo by Maki Garcia Evans)

Matthew Fox

Spiritual theologian, Matthew Fox has been a pioneer in recovering the ancient but often ignored creation spirituality tradition and in developing alternative forms of education. Author of 36 books that have been translated into 70 languages, his work on behalf of eco-justice, gender justice, women’s rights and gay rights got him silenced by the Vatican and then expelled from his Dominican order after 34 years. He is currently an episcopal priest. Among his books are: Original Blessing, A Spirituality Named Compassion, Stations of the Cosmic Christ, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times, Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times, The Lotus & the Rose: Conversations on Tibetan Buddhism & Mystical Christianity, and Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the God Without a Name.

Catherine Keller

George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive Theology in the Graduate Division of Religion, Drew University. Her books include From a Broken Web: Separation, Sexism and Self, Apocalypse Now & Then, God & Power, Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming, On the Mystery: Discerning God in Process, Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement, Intercarnations: Exercises in Theological Possibility, and Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public. She has co-edited several volumes of the Drew Transdisciplinary Theological Colloquium, including Postcolonial Theologies, Ecospirit, Apophatic Bodies, Polydoxy, Common Good/s: Ecology, Economy and Political Theology, and Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science and the New Materialism.

Megan McKenna

An internationally known author, theologian, storyteller and lecturer. She teaches on a circuit of colleges and universities and leads retreats, workshops and parish missions.

Michael Morwood

Well-known throughout Australia, the USA and Canada for his involvement with the Progressive Christian network, Morwood is a former Catholic priest and author of Praying a New Story and Prayers For Progressive Christians.

Jan Phillips

A writer, musician, and photographer who connects the dots between creativity, spirituality, and social action. She has taught in 23 countries, written ten award-winning books, created three CDs of original music, and developed a youtube channel of videos. Her books include Creativity Unzipped, There Are Burning Bushes Everywhere, No Ordinary Time, Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path, The Art of Original Thinking, Divining the Body, and several others. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Livingkindness Foundation which built the Livingkindness Centre for Learning in Ikuzeh, Nigeria. http://www.janphillips.com

Barbara Rossing

Professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Her publications include The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation.

Bruce Sanguin

Bruce is psychotherapist, living and working on an island in the Pacific Northwest of Canada, with his wife, Mia, and his dog, Koa. He spent twenty-eight years with the United Church of Canada serving three congregations. He travels internationally and gives talks and workshops on healing trauma and evolutionary spirituality. He has written seven books, including his latest, Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke a Clergyman Apart, and Put Him Back Together. He blogs regularly at www.brucesanguin.ca.

Bernard Brandon Scott

New Testament Professor at the Phillips Theological Seminary and author of several books including Hear Then the Parable and Re-Imagine the World.

John Shelby Spong

The retired Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, Spong is a columnist and author of over twenty-five books including Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and Why Christianity Must Change or Die. His books have sold more than 2,000,000 copies and have been translated into every major language of the world. Lecturer at Harvard, Humanist of the Year, and a guest on numerous national television broadcasts including The Today Show, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, and Larry King Live, Bishop Spong lectures around the world.

Gretta Vosper

Gretta served West Hill United Church for two decades before her denomination, The United Church of Canada launched a heresy trial against her for describing herself as an atheist. She’s written three books: With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe, Amen: What Prayer Can Mean in a World Beyond Belief, and Time or Too Late: Chasing the Dream of a Progressive Christian Faith.

Gretta founded the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity, serves on the Board of The Oasis Network, and has served as a Governor for Centennial College, and a Director of The Clergy Project.