Tom Smith is the author of several books on coping with suicide. His daughter Karla, who suffered from bipolar disorder, took her own life in 2002 at age 26. Tom and his wife founded the Karla Smith Foundation and karlasmithbehavioralhealth.org.
If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, the 24-hour hotline # is 800-273-8255. To text: 741741.
Photo by E. Lane Gresham
New York Times bestselling author Barbara Brown Taylor’s latest book, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, is about the insights she gained while teaching a college course she designed, World Religions 101. Has “groupishness” overtaken the best teachings of Christianity? she asks. Are we, perhaps, “post-ecclesial” Christians?
An ordained Episcopal priest who finally had to leave her ministry to rediscover her faith, she is the author of many award-winning books. Among them are An Altar in the World, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Photo by Imdat As
University of Hartford Professor of Architecture, Michael J. Crosbie is the editor and author of dozens of works on architecture (his entire oeuvre can be seen here). He received all of his degrees — BS, MArch, and PhD — from Catholic University. An Episcopalian, he is interested in sacred space and is the founder and editor of the quarterly journal on religious art and architecture Faith and Form.
Photo by Barbara Johnston
Art historian Catherine Osborne is the author of American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow: Building Churches for the Future, 1925-1975
She holds a Ph.D in historical theology from Fordham University and has taught there, as well as at Franklin & Marshall College, the University of Notre Dame, and Loyola Marymount University. She is a member of the St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker community in South Bend, Ind. Among Prof. Osborne’s more unusual architectural interests has been the Cold War-era design of a chapel on the moon.
The Rev. William C. Mills, a priest of the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the author of Losing My Religion: A memoir of faith and finding, which recounts the crisis he faced when a segment of his North Carolina parish mutinied.
