Religion & Spirituality

Neil Clark Warren is the founder of the online dating service eHarmony. The company performs extensive personality profiling and then introduces couples with matching values and interests. Warren is an Evangelical Christian with strong ties to the conservative Christian community.

Muzammil Siddiqi is chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Islamic legal scholars that interprets Muslim religious law. On July 28, the group issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, condemning all acts of terrorism and religious extremism as fundamentally un-Islamic.

Paul Feig is the creator of the cult classic TV series Freaks and Geeks. His new book Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin, is the follow-up to his 2002 book Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence. Feig was an actor before moving on to writing for TV and film.

A retired Episcopal priest, Danforth represented Missouri in the Senate for 18 years. He is also the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Recently, Danforth has been outspoken about the Christian conservative bent of the GOP, writing that "Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians."

Jack and Meg White are the singer-drummer duo who make up the White Stripes. Their fifth CD, Get Behind Me Satan, is being hailed as an extension of the raw, energetic sound of their earliest work.

Journalist John Allen has a book about the new pope, The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope Was Elected, and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church.

Twenty-eight years ago, Mary Clarke left her life as a wealthy divorced mother of seven in Beverly Hills to live and work in a notorious Mexican prison. She became Mother Antonia; Pulitzer-winning authors Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan have written about her story.

Journalist David Kirkpatrick covers Congress for The New York Times. As part of a series on class issues for the paper, he co-authored a story on the increase of evangelical Christians on Ivy League campuses. The article was published in the Sunday, May 22, edition.

Rev. Thomas Breidenthal is dean of religious life at Princeton University. Breidenthal is a scholar, teacher and Episcopal priest. He is the author of the 1997 book Christian Households: The Sanctification of Nearness.

Matt Bennett is the founder of Christian Union, an organization of evangelicals at Ivy League schools whose goal is to reach those who will go on to become part of America's academic elite. The group operates ministry centers at Brown, Cornell and Princeton universities. Bennett, a graduate of Cornell, founded the organization in 2002. Rachel Blair is a student at Princeton and is a member of Christian Union.

From the trio Low, drummer Mimi Parker and singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk. The two are husband and wife. The band made its debut in 1994 with the album I Could Live on Hope. Their most recent album The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop) is their seventh.

Laurence Rees' Auschwitz: A New History provides details about the inner workings of the camp: techniques of mass murder, the politics, the gossip mill between guards and prisoners, and the camp brothel.

Musa Mayer is a breast cancer survivor and is the author of several books about breast cancer, including Advanced Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living with Metastatic Disease and After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask. She has also written Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery.

Colbert is the senior correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Colbert started his comic career with Second City in Chicago. He wrote and performed sketches on The Dana Carvey Show. He is also the voice of Ace for Saturday Night Lives's animated shorts Ace & Gary: The Ambiguously Gay Duo. This interview was originally broadcast on Jan. 24, 2005.

Author Saul Bellow died April 5 at the age of 89. His short stories and novels garnered him three National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Presidential Award and a Nobel Prize. His books include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog and Humbolt's Gift. (Originally aired Oct. 4, 1989.)

His new book is No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam. The book is a call to reform, and a proposal to end the religious battle between East and West. Aslan was born in Iran and lives in the United States. He was a visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa, where he got an MFA in fiction at the Writer's Workshop. Aslan has written for The Nation, Slate and The New York Times.

Actor Bruno Ganz and director Oliver Hirschbiegel's new film is Downfall, about the last days of Hitler. Ganz stars as Adolf Hitler. He's made over 80 films mostly in German, and was in the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Downfall is Hirschbiegel's third film, and his most popular to date.

With Desmond Tutu leaving as the Anglican Bishop of Capetown, South Africa, Njongonkulu Ndugane will replace him. He is an outspoken leader against poverty, third-world debt, and HIV/AIDS.

With his latest CD, Ivey Divey, bandleader Don Byron pays homage to saxophonist Lester Young. Byron is a prolific musician who gets inspiration from all kinds of music. One of Byron's most-played recordings is Bug Music, heard, among other places, on NPR.

The weekly HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher begins its new season Feb. 18. Previously, Bill Maher created and hosted the late night political round-table show Politically Incorrect.