Vern Barnet (Vernon Eugene Barnet) was born in Omaha, NE, May 25, 1942. His interest in poetry was heightened as an undergraduate when he studied with US Poet Laureate Karl Shapiro at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, NE. He completed his doctoral work in 1970 at the University of Chicago and the Meadville-Lombard Theological School where among his teachers were historian of religion Mircea Eliade, philosopher-psychotherapist Eugene T Gendlin, Templeton Prize winner Ralph Wendell Burhoe, and psychiatrist Elisabeth K�bler-Ross. Ordained a Unitarian Universalist minister in 1970, he served parishes in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Kansas before dedicating his career to interfaith… understanding in the Kansas City area in 1985.In 1989 he founded the Kansas City Interfaith Council. For eighteen years the weekly religion columnist for The Kansas City Star, 1994-2012, Vern Barnet has been honored by Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and other groups. With three others, he wrote and edited the 740-page Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers, published by Radcliffe in 2013. His articles, reviews, and poems have appeared in many publications.He has taught world religions and related subjects at several universities and seminaries, including the Saint Paul School of Theology and the Central Baptist Theological Seminary, both in the Kansas City area. He served on the faculty of the nation's first "Interfaith Academies" sponsored by Harvard University's Pluralism Project and Religions for Peace-USA. He has been featured in national media, including a half-hour CBS-TV special in 2002. His civic activities have been recognized with local and national awards, and a "Vern Barnet Interfaith Service Award" is given to a distinguished Kansas Citian each year.Now minister emeritus of the Center for Religious Experience and Study ("CRES") which he founded in 1982, he is an active Episcopalian layman. Harvard's Pluralism Project profiles him on its website: http://pluralism.org/interfaith/kansas_city/leaders/barnet. A full biography appears at http://www.cres.org/vern.He has one son, Brad Benjamin Blake Barnet, born in 1980.
Michael C. Brannigan (Ph.D., Philosophy, M.A., Religious Studies, University of Leuven, Belgium) is the George and Jane Pfaff Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Values at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. Holder of the first endowed chair in the collegersquo;s history, he is also on the faculty of the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College. Prior to his appointment, he was Vice President for Clinical and Organizational Ethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Missouri. Before that, he was Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Cross-Cultural Ethics at La Roche College, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To complement his rich and… longstanding clinical experience as an ethics consultant, hospital ethics committee advisor, and hospice volunteer, his specialty lies in ethics, Asian philosophy, medical ethics, and intercultural ethics. Along with numerous articles, his books include: Ethics Across Cultures; Striking a Balance: A Primer in Traditional Asian Values; The Pulse of Wisdom: The Philosophies of India, China, and Japan; Healthcare Ethics in a Diverse Society (co-authored); Cross-Cultural Biotechnology; and Ethical Issues in Human Cloning. He serves on the editorial boards of Health Care Analysis: An International Journal of Health Care Philosophy and Policy and Communication and Medicine. He also writes a monthly column on ethics for the Albany Times Union, at http://www.timesunion.com/brannigan/. Michael was born in Fukuoka, Japan. He and his wife Brooke, along with their dog Seamus, live in Niskayuna, New York. For fun, he plays piano, guitar, tennis, ocean kayaks, and practices martial arts.