Dr. Calvin DeWitt, professor of environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, founded and now directs the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies. With two sitesCthe Au Sable-Great Lakes in northern Michigan and the Au Sable-Pacific Rim on Whidbey Island in Puget SoundCthe institute bridges Bible and biology so as to promote Christian environmental stewardship. Dr. DeWitt is the author and editor of several texts, including Earthkeeping in the Nineties, Missionary Earthkeeping, Earth-Wise: A Biblical Response to Environmental Issues and, most recently, Caring for Creation: Responsible Stewardship of God=s Handiwork. We should so live, writes Dr. DeWitt, that our lives could be seen as Aliving psalms.@

Bill McKibben, a United Methodist lay person, is an author and environmentalist whose writings have appeared in periodicals ranging from the New York Times and Natural History to The Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone. A former staff writer and author of hundreds of articles for The New Yorker, McKibben=s first book, The End of Nature, was translated into 16 languages. Among his recent books linking religion and nature are Hope, Human & Wild, Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families, and Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyous Christmas.

Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr., professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate School, has become a major spokesperson in the American religious community for the integration of ecology, economics, and Christian theology. One of the foremost theological interpreters of process thought, Dr. Cobb has used this relational world-view to analyze and assess global economics, especially in his books For the Common Good and Sustainability. For him, shaping this critical discourse is a matter of the greatest urgency, if humanity is to find the vision and will to save a dying planet.

Dr. Karen Baker-Fletcher has taught theology and culture at the Claremont School of Theology since 1993. Upon her arrival at the School of Theology, Baker-Fletcher co-founded the Claremont Center of Pan African Religious Studies. Author of A Singing Something and co- author with Garth Baker-Fletcher of Love as Strong as Death and My Sister, My Brother, Dr. Karen Baker-Fletcher=s most recent book, Sisters of Dust, Sisters of Spirit, seeks to recover and renew the strong historic tie of black and native peoples to the land, a tie often broken by migration and urbanization. In the preface to this text, she writes: AOur task is to grow large hearts, large minds, reconnecting with earth, Spirit, and one another. Black religion must grow ever deeper in the heart.@

Sr. Miriam Therese MacGillis, O.P., a member of the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, N.J., co-founded Genesis Farm in 1980. Sr. Miriam describes Genesis Farm as a learning center where people of good will are welcome to search for more authentic ways to live in harmony with the natural world and each other. The farm, with 180 family shareholders, practices biodynamic methods of agriculture tuned to the natural rhythms of the earth. Sr. Miriam also coordinates programs that explore Thomas Berry=s explication of the new cosmology, lecturing extensively in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia.

Always with an eye on the spiritual needs of his congregation, the Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III has challenged racism, corporate greed, and political indifference to emerge in the last 15 years as a leader in New York City and national political and religious circles. From his pulpit in Harlem=s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, Butts has led crusades against police brutality, brought an entrepreneurial spirit to improving the lot of the poor, struck back at corporations targeting minorities with alcohol and cigarette advertising, and spearheaded boycotts of agencies engaged in racial discrimination. As he said in a 1994 sermon launching African History Week at Drew, he is on a mission to uplift the moral and ethical standards of the human community.

Dr. Butts earned his Bachelor of Arts at Morehouse College and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, before completing his Doctor of Ministry degree at Drew Theological School in 1982. He has taught African studies at the City College of New York and black church history at Fordham University. The recipient of Morehouse College=s Alumni Association=s Man of the Year, Dr. Butts has also been recognized with the Louise Fisher Morris Humanitarian Award and the William A. Moss Distinguished Brotherhood Award.