Our goal is to foster community through conversation. This website is the online companion to SPECTRUM, a journal established to encourage Seventh-day Adventist participation in the discussion of contemporary issues from a Christian viewpoint, to look without prejudice at all sides of a subject, to evaluate the merits of diverse views, and to foster intellectual and cultural growth.

Since we launched 14 months ago, we've had over a million page views and over 370,000 visits from all corners of the globe.

The Spectrum Web Team

Alita Byrd has been writing for Spectrum since 1995, when she was a journalism and English student at Columbia Union College in Washington, DC. Since then, she has written extensively about Rwanda for Spectrum, covering the trial of a Rwandan Adventist pastor in the international court in Tanzania, and traveling to Rwanda to interview survivors of the massacre. Alita earned a master’s in the history of international relations from the London School of Economics in 2001. She served on the staff of National Geographic magazine and Preservation magazine in Washington DC and was the editor of a national business magazine for students in South Africa. Now she lives with her husband in Dublin, Ireland, where she works as an online journalist for the national broadcaster.

Alexander Carpenter, a fifth-generation Adventist, was home-schooled, church-schooled, public-schooled, and attended a self-supporting academy before graduating from Andrews University summa cum laude (Religion/English Literature) in 2003. He took a year to explore the Indian film industry in Mumbai before beginning graduate school. Now he's completing his M.A. in Art and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Alexander has been a new media consultant for Faith in Public Life at the Center for American Progress and Online Communications Manager for the San Francisco-based Interfaith Power and Light environmental org. Currently, he sits on the board of The Beatitudes Society and teaches full-time in the Department of Visual Arts at Pacific Union College. He has been a part of Spectrum since 2004.

Lainey S. Cronk has been fascinated with words ever since she was a tiny personage on a backyard swing, repeating a fascinating word with each pump of her legs until she lost the word's meaning in a bundle of sounds – and then she'd back-track until she found its meaning again. Now she prefers to grapple with more than one word at a time – and she especially loves to hear the ways other people interact with those words. As online book reviews editor, she has the privilege of being in the midst of people grappling with words that tie in to our dreams and fears and the things that keep us alive and exploring as an Adventist community. Lainey also writes for the public relations office at Pacific Union College, does some freelance writing and copy editing, and works with children in an after-school program at a local public school.

Rachel Davies was born in Victoria, British Columbia and immigrated to the United States at the age of ten. She is a first-generation Adventist, a proud graduate of Walla Walla College, avid traveler, and pastor. She is currently working on her Masters in Christian Studies (Spiritual Theology concentration) through the distance education program at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. She has a keen interest in personal spirituality and social justice and spends most of her time trying to share these two pillars in ways that are theologically holistic and gospel-centered. She currently sits on the advisory board for Amistad International and travels to India on special projects whenever she gets the chance. Rachel lives in Ohio with her cat, Nova. She edits the Interviews section for Spectrum.

Bonnie Dwyer, like Alita Bryd, began writing for Spectrum as a student. She is a journalism graduate of La Sierra University and California State University, Fullerton. After many years of writing news stories and investigative pieces for Spectrum, she became its editor in 1998. Watching the web site development, dreaming about new possibilities, and constantly working on the next phase of the site has been one of the major joys of her job. She says it has required creative thinking about basic things like conversation and time. She lives in Granite Bay, California with her husband Tom and son Mark, and they are all members of the Roseville SDA Church. It is there she has learned that abstract ideas about church need to be balanced with the practical realities of participating locally. The family dog Ella, now 16 years old, rarely leaves the front porch.

Jonathan Pichot, Drupal software guru, is the technical expert on the web team. He also edits the Collegiate Blog. Born in the United States, into an Adventist family that had recently immigrated to America from France, he grew up in the small town of Berrien Springs, Michigan, and finished high school having attended no more than two schools (Village SDA, Andrews Academy). His French ancestry is very much a part of his identity. Other interests are the philosophy and practice of education, emerging web technologies, and serious journalism. He feels the online community has reinvigorated his interest in the Adventist church, and says it is comforting to find others who ask the same questions and are open to a more vulnerable discussion of religion.

Jared Wright is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity degree from La Sierra University. He serves as Spectrum's film reviews editor and as a contributor to the Spectrum blog. Jared grew up in Rwanda, Africa, and has lived in California, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, Honduras and Thailand. Living in many parts of the world has provided sensitivities to the rich diversity of beliefs and practices within the Adventist family. In addition to writing, Jared enjoys graphic arts, competitive cycling and triathlon, and vegetarian cuisine. He appreciates and applauds Adventist engagement in issues of justice and equality and environmental stewardship.